Secret Aerial Photos Provides Fresh Glimpse of Berlin's Destruction

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,808042,00.html

01/10/2012

Following the end of World War II, photographer Hein Gorny took spectacular aerial shots of the ravaged German capital. His son Peter explains how Hein defied a flying ban imposed by the Allies and managed to snap the dramatic shots.

I remember holding the small photo album in my hands. My father showed it to me when I was ten, shortly after the war. He had carefully glued in contact prints where the enlarged images were to be placed later on. It was the draft layout of a book.

My father, Hein Gorny, worked as an advertizing and wildlife photographer and hardly ever took photos of the city. But this was his planned book on Berlin, showing pictures of the city before and after the war. I found the aerial photos particularly striking.

Long black shadows from trees and jagged, shattered facades covered the black and white photographs. These were the first, if not only, photos of Berlin taken by a German photographer just a few months after the end of the war. At the time, in the winter of 1945/46, the airspace over the city was tightly controlled by the Allies, and German nationals were banned from flying over Berlin.

[FailureToCommunicate]

1. Much of Berlin - on 'our' side of the Wall- had been rebuilt when we

visited, 22 years after the end of the war. However, stepping thru the Wall (on a strict guided tour basis only) it was shocking to still see destruction everywhere, like seen in these pictures. The Soviets had little interest, or money, to bother to rebuild 'their' part of Berlin.

The terrible human destruction was only there in shadows and echos...

Thanks for posting these!

[xxqqqzme]

2. Those are amazing pictures.

It would be interesting to see an overlay of present day Berlin.

[Scurrilous]

3. Thanks.

[jwirr]

4. Thank you for posting this. Reminds us all of the cost of wars.

[Buddyblazon]

5. Last Xmas...

as a gift, my Uncle took family films from when they were kids and and had them put on DVD.

There is quite a bit of footage of when my Dad was little and they were stationed in Germany (Army Brats).....in 1948!

The bombed out buildings...the destruction. We were just silent as we watched.