East Berlin. 1952.

A parade celebrating the 3rd anniversary of the founding of the GDR. The damaged dome of Berlin cathedral in the background.

Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, Germany. 1930s.

A dynamic photo of the now destroyed and completely rebuilt Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. Probably taken from a moving vehicle. The Palast Hotel and traffic light tower can be seen.


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Potsdamer brücke, Berlin. 'Zentrale' building being demolished. Circa 1942.

Many thanks to my friend in Berlin who did a lot of work on this one. It was labelled and so the location was easy to identify. I assumed it was a post-war photo of bomb-damaged ruins being cleared, but several details didn't add up when we compared it with pre and post-war photographs of the same location (see below). By the end of the war this building had been obliterated, but here it was still intact. The old 19th century railings of the Potsdamer bridge are clearly visible, but this bridge was destroyed in 1945. No, this isn't a photo of bomb damaged buildings at all, this is a planned demolition that took place to create a new heroic avenue, part of the unrealised grand plan, the 'Welthauptstadt Germania', of Hitler's architect, Albert Speer.

Dornier DO X Flying Boat 1932

The Dornier DO X flying boat, on display at Lake Müggelsee, on the outskirts of Berlin, in 1932. Flying boats always seem such unlikely craft to me, and commercially proved to be so. This prototype performed a grand world publicity tour and attracted much attention but no enthusiastic buyers. In the mid-30s it was consigned to an aviation museum, where it was later destroyed by British bombs during the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_X