Part four. World War II city destruction and wartime urban planning
1. War and damage to cities
The second world War 1939-1945 was a consequence of the deepening general crisis of capitalism. The war was unleashed by aggressive fascist states - Germany and Italy, which found an ally for Far East represented by imperialist Japan. These states, which started the war for world domination by seizing insufficiently armed and small countries, found support from the reactionary strata of the international bourgeoisie. The tycoons of American and Anglo-French finance capital secretly sympathized with the revival of German militarism in the hope of a clash between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Hence the policy of conniving at the aggressors followed. The passive attitude of the League of Nations to the seizure of Ethiopia by Italy, the doctrine of "non-intervention" in the civil war in Spain and, finally, the shameful Munich surrender of the Western powers - all this not only did not alienate, but, on the contrary, brought humanity closer to the fatal threshold of an unparalleled world war.
In terms of the geographical size of theaters of military operations, the scale of operations and the number of armed forces, the Second World War significantly surpassed the First. The war was fought on the territory of 40 states of Europe, Asia and Africa and in the vast expanses of the Pacific, Arctic, Indian and Atlantic oceans. It was attended by about two-thirds of the world's population (1,700,000 thousand people), of which 110 million were put under arms. Naturally, in terms of the number of losses (human casualties, destruction and unproductive economic costs), it has reached incomparable figures.
The number of victims of the Second World War is still not known, and it cannot be established with sufficient reliability, since migration and death of the civilian population from hostilities, diseases, hunger and exhausting work at the front and in the rear were not taken into account at one time. B. Ts. Urlanis estimates the number of human casualties at 30 million, including the civilian population ( Urlanis B. Ts. Wars and the population of Europe. M., 1960, p. 403 and 408. As for the losses on the battlefields, in different sources they are determined from 15 to 22 million people). In World History, there is an even higher figure of losses, namely 50 million people, while the economic damage caused by the war is estimated at 4 trillion dollars ( The World History. M., 1955-1965. vol. X, p. 598). Comparing these data with the results of the 1914-1918 war, it can be assumed that the last world war exceeded the previous one in terms of the number of human victims by 5 times, and in terms of economic losses - by 48 times.
The settlements and especially the cities suffered immeasurably harder during the Second World War. The destructive nature of the past war is primarily due to the development of military technology. Powerful armored formations, self-propelled heavy artillery and motorized transporters for the transfer of infantry made it possible, in case of surprise strikes, to penetrate deeply and rapidly into enemy territory, breaking through stable defensive lines and thereby turning a positional stationary war into a mobile one.
The German General Staff, which had developed the strategy and tactics of modern "lightning war" since the time of Moltke the Elder, used offensive operations in deep echeloned columns everywhere. Maneuverable war has drawn immeasurably into the abyss of destruction large quantity cities.
Aviation became a terrible weapon of destruction in the Second World War. The ever-increasing payload of aircraft led to an increase in the weight of aerial bombs, which by the end of the war reached 5-7 and even 11 tons. It was enough to detonate one heavy high-explosive bomb to crush a medieval cathedral, a railway station, a capital-built bridge or an industrial enterprise. If tank columns, breaking through the lines of border fortifications, turned the deep rear into an arena of battles (and often mass shootings of defenseless residents from cannons and machine guns), then bomber aviation erased the differences between the front and the rear. Since the cities concentrated on the defense industry, and, in addition, were points of intersection of railways and highways, so far as the air strikes were concentrated precisely on them. In the last war, most cities in Europe, Asia and Africa suffered mainly from air raids. But the cities were destroyed not only because of the hostilities. None of the wars experienced by mankind in the past had such an all-encompassing destructive character. Fascism not only subjugated the defeated states and peoples, but also tried to destroy their national identity - it deleted their material and spiritual culture from world history. Hitler's statement that there were no values \u200b\u200bof universal significance to the east of the state borders of the Third Empire, untied the Nazis' hands for barbaric bombing of cities and the widespread destruction of art monuments both in Poland and in the USSR. In areas partisan movement and the armed uprisings that broke out here and there, the Nazis used the most severe punitive measures, as a result of which many settlements were burned and destroyed. These were the main reasons for the destruction of cities during the Second World War.
The Second World War began with a surprise attack by German armies on Poland on September 1, 1939. During the battles on the territory of the "Polish Corridor", as well as in Poznan, Lodz and Warsaw provinces, many cities were damaged. Then the capital of Poland, Warsaw, also suffered significantly during the twenty-day heroic defense ( The German invasion of Poland, which took place in three columns from Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia, disorganized not only the army but also the entire Polish rear in a few days. On September 6, the Rydz-Smigla government fled from Warsaw. Military operations in Poland ended with the capture of Modlin, Gdynia and Hel on November 30, 1939).
The subsequent eight-month period, which went down in history as the "Strange War", did not bring significant destruction to the French, English and German cities, since there were virtually no significant military operations at that time. The opponents occupied fixed positions along the Maginot and Siegfried lines, limited to skirmishes and aerial reconnaissance. Taking advantage of the lull, Germany, and especially England, amassing strategic resources with feverish haste, while France, torn apart by political contradictions, was practically inactive in preparing for a new outbreak of war.
In May - June 1940, German armies invaded France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Considering the Maginot Line impregnable, the German command moved its troops around the fortified border. As a result, the general battle, in which more than 3 thousand tanks took part, unfolded on the middle Meuse. The breakthrough of the French front at Sedan led to the "Dunkirk catastrophe" and opened an almost unobstructed path for the Nazis to the south, to the Seine and Loire valleys. On June 14 (that is, 35 days after the start of the German offensive) Paris, declared an open city by the Reynaud government, was surrendered without a fight, and on June 24 in Compiegne the act of surrender of France was signed. During heavy fighting in the north of the country, Maubeuge, Abbeville, Saint-Omer, Dunkirk (through which the defeated English army was evacuated) were badly damaged, followed by Rouen, Lyon, Chartres, Troyes and the chain of Loire cities led by Orleans and Tours (see (see map at p. 225). Disorganizing the deep French rear, Nazi aircraft raided Toulouse, which served as a center for the production of explosives, Avignon, Nimes, Arles and many other southern cities, where, in addition to the destruction of industrial enterprises and residential areas, numerous monuments of architecture and art were subjected to senseless destruction ( These include the variously damaged ancient Roman amphitheaters at Arles and Nimes; town hall, Montesquieu house and the river gate of the 15th century. in Chartres; Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals and churches at Orleans, Tours, Metz, Troyes and Vernon; palaces and castles of the 16th and 17th centuries on the Loire (Amboise, Gienne, Chinon, Chenonceau and Sully); the town hall and library in Valenciennes, the charming Gothic Calwaria in Plogastel and a number of others. Regardless of the historical and artistic significance of the damaged buildings, German sappers dismantled them into stone, which was used for paving airfield runways (Le Chanoine M. et Chenesseau H. La reconstruction des quartiers historiques. - Urbanisme, 1947, No. 114)). The firestorm swept over France also captured the cities of the Netherlands and Belgium. With the barbaric bombing of Rotterdam, which destroyed the central quarters of this large port city, and began the terrifying massive raids of German dive bombers.
After the surrender of France and the establishment of an occupation regime in it, the Nazi air strikes focused on England. From time to time London, and especially its central region (City), turned into a huge bonfire, the ominous glow of which could be seen from the North Sea, that is, at a distance of 70 km. The major center of the shipbuilding industry and the naval port of southwestern England, Plymouth, was badly damaged by German raids, and massive raids on the center of English aircraft production, Coventry, turned this city into a shapeless heap of ruins. The destruction of the central area of \u200b\u200bCoventry was so comprehensive and terrible that the Nazis, proud of their barbaric "exploits", put into circulation a new robber term "coventry", that is, to destroy the enemy before the foundation of the city ( Massive German air raids on England continued from August 1940 to May 1941, that is, until the period when Hitler began to concentrate his troops for an attack on the USSR. During this time, in addition to the cities mentioned, great damage was caused to Glasgow, Belfast, Liverpool, Bristol, Manchester, Sheffield and Southampton. How large losses were suffered by residential areas and community centers in English cities can be judged by the number of destroyed churches. In England and Northern Ireland, 14,000 church buildings were damaged and destroyed in four and a half years of war (The Architect and Building News. 1944, No. 3935, p. 111)).
The triumphant march of the Nazis across Europe continued until they faced the invincible and formidable force that the Soviet Union represented. The war of Nazi Germany and its satellites against the USSR was a liberation, just, Patriotic war for the peoples of our country. That is why the tried and tested strategy of "lightning war" has changed its creators; the war itself from offensive for Hitler turned into offensive-defensive, and after the fatal defeat at Stalingrad, the German army finally lost its military initiative.
On December 7, 1941, with an attack on the Hawaiian Islands, Japan dragged the United States of America into a world war. A feature of the Far Eastern war was the predominance of naval and air operations over land ones. Nevertheless, many cities fell victim to this war. Already during the raid of Japanese squadrons on the 7th Pacific Fleet, the port facilities of Pearl Harbor and Honolulu were severely damaged. The battles for the capture of the Philippines and the Malacca Peninsula led to the destruction of Manila and Singapore, and after that the flames of war spread to Burma, the Netherlands India and Oceania as far as New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. But hostilities in the Far East did not change the significance of the European theater of war, which remained the main arena for a difficult struggle with the overwhelming number of human casualties and destruction on the Soviet front.
Destruction of cities and architectural monuments of France during the war. The dots show the territory occupied by Germany before November 11, 1942; horizontal shading - areas occupied by Italian troops; an oblique stroke - the zone of joint Italian-German occupation; cage - a special strategic zone of the Nazi armies; black circles indicate cities that were destroyed before the surrender of France; circles with rhombuses - cities affected by air raids by the Anglo-American aviation (1944); double circles - cities destroyed during the liberation of France. Paris, Nancy, Vichy and Lille were protected by the status of an "open city"
Since the beginning of World War II, the "lion's share" of German efforts has already been given to the eastern theater of military operations, as a result of which the British, and after the United States entered the world war and the American aviation, having accumulated sufficient forces, launched an air offensive against Germany, more precisely, against Europe enslaved by it. ... Increasingly, Allied aircraft bombed Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Nuremberg, turned by Hitler into an all-imperial forum of Nazi congresses, more and more often the air armada of the Western powers smashed the industrial centers of Silesia, Saxony, Westphalia and Brandenburg.
At the same time, raids on France occupied by the Germans became much more frequent. Anglo-American aircraft bombed Schneider's military factories at Le Creusot, the railway junctions of Tours and Orleans, industrial enterprises in the vicinity of Paris, Lille and Nancy, as well as the largest coastal cities from Calais and Boulogne to Brest, Marseilles and Toulon. In terms of destruction, the Anglo-American bombardment far surpassed the original German air strikes. At Le Havre, for example, the entire central region was devastated, overlooking the Channel and the Seine; in Rouen, many old residential quarters were destroyed, among which the world-famous Rouen Cathedral was badly damaged, and the capital of the French shipbuilding Saint-Nazaire, after 44 air raids by British aircraft, turned into a continuous ashes. But the freedom-loving French people stoically accepted these sacrifices, justifying them by the need to liberate their homeland. As the liberation movement in France grew, the cities suffered destruction as a result of the actions of the partisans. This was the case, for example, in Grenoble, where the catastrophic explosion of the German arsenal, organized by the partisans, severely destroyed dozens of neighborhoods.
In July 1943, amphibious operations in Sicily began an offensive by the Anglo-American armies on the Apennine Peninsula. Having occupied southern Italy relatively quickly and having achieved its surrender (September 8, 1943), the Allies nevertheless encountered stubborn resistance here from German troops, who created two lines of defense: near Naples and along the river. Arno. Rome, as an open city, was liberated from the Nazis almost without any damage. But on the territory of Tuscany, fierce fighting broke out. From reports published by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1945, it is clear that in Tuscany alone (not counting the neighboring regions, namely Lazio, Umbria and Emilia) 38 cities were affected ( The number of destroyed cities actually significantly exceeded the indicated figure, since in the reports published by architectural magazines (The Architectural Review, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects), only those cities were mentioned in which outstanding monuments of architecture and art were damaged.), which included outstanding monuments of Italian, Roman and Etruscan architecture. Everywhere displaying a barbaric attitude towards cultural monuments, the Nazis burned, blew up or shot irreplaceable artistic treasures from artillery guns. Thus, in little Pienza, which had no strategic significance, the world famous cathedral and palazzo Communale were destroyed; in San Gimignano, the Colegiate Church was mutilated; in Pisa, the openwork Gothic galleries of the medieval cemetery of Campo Santo with the famous frescoes of Orcagna, Traini and Benozzo Gozzoli were severely damaged. During their retreat from Florence and Pisa, the Germans blew up historic bridges and turned into ruins the long old quarters overlooking the river. Arno. The humane and enlightened world, already accustomed to the destruction of monuments of artistic culture, watched the advance of the front in Italy with bated breath, mentally saying goodbye to the unique works of painting, sculpture and architecture. However, the vandals could not destroy everything.
When the Soviet troops were already approaching the borders of the "Third Empire" and the scales of the war finally tipped in favor of the anti-Hitler coalition, the long-awaited second front was finally opened with a massive invasion of Anglo-American landings in Normandy. France again had to go through the crucible of military trials. Caen, Falaise and a number of other Norman and Brittany cities turned into heaps of ruins, and some eastern cities, which were surrounded by the defeated German armies, were literally swept off the face of the earth. These included Saint-Dieu, Gerardmer and Le Tillau. Paris was liberated by national resistance forces as a result of the popular uprising on August 19-25, 1944. Thanks to the success of the uprising, the capital of France did not share the tragic fate of Warsaw, which was almost completely destroyed by the brutal fascist invaders.
After the opening of the second front, the Nazis threw their last card on the gambling table - rocket artillery. However, the action of missiles (the so-called FAU-2) during the bombing of London did not bring the expected results ( In total, 1,115 rocket shells exploded on British territory. Summing up the number of casualties from aircraft shells (FAU-1) and rocket artillery, the British count 10 thousand people killed and 23.5 thousand wounded, which, however, is only a very small part of the losses caused by bomber aircraft).
In early 1945, the Allied forces entered Germany. The predominance of military technology, combined with the fighting offensive spirit of the soldiers who felt the proximity of victory, accelerated the convergence of the fronts. And at the same time, the central regions of Germany were subjected to crushing bombing on an ever increasing scale. The countless crimes committed against mankind by fascism have caused legitimate anger and reciprocal bitterness among peoples. That is why, in violation of the international convention on the bombing of Germany, American and British aircraft ruthlessly destroyed not only German military installations, but also peaceful cities ( The tasks of strategic flights to Germany were formulated at a conference in Casablanca back in 1943. Submarine shipyards, aircraft factories, oil refineries and the production of synthetic fuel, as well as the country's transport system and directly military facilities were subject to bombardment. For the American aviation, daytime raids with accurate aimed bombing were established, while for the British - nighttime raids with the allowance of bombing territories in wider contours. However, these rules were not respected, and in fact the Anglo-American aviation destroyed not only military installations, but also residential areas of cities. 2,700 thousand tons of bomb load were dropped on Germany (World History. Moscow, 1965, vol. X, p. 458). It should be noted that at the end of the war, the cities of Austria and Hungary, and especially their capitals, suffered greatly. During the storming of Vienna, which was recklessly defended by Hitler's troops, the city lost over 5 thousand buildings both in the center and on the outskirts. In Budapest, bridges over the Danube were blown up and the city's community center was badly damaged). One of such unnecessary actions was the fighter bombing of Dresden, during which 120 thousand people died in a few hours of the night. The war with fascist Germany ended with the liberation of all the countries it had occupied and the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops along with the last stronghold of Hitlerism - the Imperial Chancellery. On May 8, 1945, the act of unconditional surrender of Germany was signed. However, hostilities in the Far East continued for almost six months. With the surrender of Japan, the disastrous march of death through the cities of the modern world ended.
Many cities were practically wiped off the face of the Earth by the Second World War. They lost their historical centers and traditional buildings (not to mention the loss of life). In some cases, the pre-war layout of the city was guessed by the lines of the ruins of the old streets, visible from the plane.
Officials and architects who made decisions on the restoration of cities in the post-war years faced an important task. In fact, they had to "rebuild" the face of the city - this is similar to the work of a plastic surgeon who recreates the face of a patient after an extremely serious injury.
Urban Projects wrote a post about four different approaches to rebuilding war-torn cities. Next word to the author:
World War II changed the face of many cities. Where destruction was particularly severe, cities had to be completely rebuilt.
We have selected 4 exemplary approaches to rebuilding cities. Each of them is different from each other and each has led to different results - from the preservation of the historic city to a complete reorganization.
Warsaw
The city was destroyed by 84 percent.
Almost all historical buildings suffered: the Warsaw Castle was destroyed; Column of Sigismund; on the main streets that make up the Royal Route, not a single building remains intact.
The restoration of the city seemed overwhelming, but in order to preserve and assert its own identity, on February 3, 1945, a resolution was adopted on the city's reconstruction, and on February 14, the "Bureau for the restoration of the capital" was created.
Market Square
Collage: thinglink.com
The reconstruction plan of Warsaw was very different from other similar ones in Europe, according to which only individual historical buildings were restored. Here was the task of restoring the entire historical building of the city. 
It was decided to look for and use the wreckage of former historical buildings. If they did not survive, then the details were made anew using the surviving old drawings and diagrams. Interestingly, 22 paintings of the Italian artist Bernardo Bellotto with views of Warsaw played an important role in the reconstruction of these details.
Bernardo Bellotto, "Warsaw, Honey Street", 1777
It was, of course, impossible to fully embody the views from the paintings due to the optical features of the paintings, but the details turned out to be as similar to the original as possible.
House of attorney Alexander John before the war, in the painting by Bellotto and after restoration
Collage: 99percentinvisible.org
Where restoration was impossible, the development was carried out in the spirit of the old city. For example, within large construction East-West highway (Trasa W-Z) in 1949, the Marienshtat microdistrict was rebuilt, the buildings of which were stylized as merchants stone houses XVII century.
Marienshtat, view from the Castle Square
Photo: Wikipedia
There were, of course, differences between the old and the new city. There is more space and light in the new Warsaw, in contrast to the narrow courtyards and alleys of the old city. In this regard, the approach was quite consistent with the post-war communist urban planning with its wide streets and avenues. Plus, in 1945, the so-called Bierut decree came into force, according to which all the land within the pre-war borders of Warsaw was nationalized, and some of the surviving buildings were nevertheless demolished. Instead, buildings were erected that seemed more acceptable for the new communist regime. 
Collage: oobject.com
This approach was, of course, long-term, and the restoration of various parts of the city continued almost until the 70s, when the Warsaw Castle was reconstructed. Now the old city of Warsaw is quite consistent with the pre-war, it is clear that the work of the reenactors was titanic. It is difficult to imagine what would have happened to the center of Warsaw today if the restoration plan had not been adopted initially.
Dresden
Photo: The LIFE Picture Collection
One of the largest cultural centers in Europe was subjected to massive bombing by Anglo-American forces in February 1945. Destroyed 23 percent of industrial buildings, 56 percent of non-residential and non-industrial buildings (those that were of the highest cultural value) and about 50 percent of the residential area. 
A photo: visualhistory
Unlike the leadership of Poland and Warsaw, the authorities of the GDR did not have any systematic plan for the reconstruction of the city. Nevertheless, the surviving fragments of historical buildings were found and taken out for storage outside the city, and the structures that remained from the previous buildings were left intact. 
A photo: visualhistory
Thus, the city center was mostly empty space. New buildings were erected pointwise and stylistically corresponded to the ideas of the architecture of the new political regime rather than the spirit of the old city. 
Collage: The Independent
Some old buildings were selectively restored. So, in 1964, the Zwinger complex was restored.
Zwinger in 1946 and now
Collage: The Independent
A full-scale reconstruction of the city began only after the unification of Germany. The reconstruction of the Frauenkirche church, which began in 1990 and was completed only in 2005, became a symbol of the city's restoration.
Frauenkirche before and after restoration:
Collage: goodnewsnetwork.org
The surviving fragments of the church were used during the reconstruction, the rest was recreated using the original material - sandstone. 
Photo: frauenkirche-dresden.de
After the success with the church, the city authorities began to think about restoring the historical buildings, but we must admit that the work here was not carried out so scrupulously. The task was rather to recreate a certain style of building, albeit corresponding to the photographs and paintings of the old city. For this, some buildings of the GDR times are even demolished, which interfere with the restoration of the spirit of the old city. 
Collage: The Independent
The process of rebuilding Dresden continues to this day. Its participants do not pretend to truly recreate the old city, but try to restore the almost lost general appearance and spirit.
Minsk
Schemes: news.tut.by
Minsk lost 89 percent of all pre-war buildings as a result of the war. At the time of the capture of the city by Soviet troops, only 70 undestroyed buildings remained in the central districts of Minsk.
The first post-war general plan of Minsk was drawn up by "Belgosproekt" at the end of 1945 and implied the demolition of most of the old buildings and the complete reconstruction of the city.
Collage: news.tut.by
Some old buildings were restored only if this did not interfere with the adherence to the general plan and did not require a thorough reconstruction. So, in 1950, the church of St. Thomas Aquinas, previously recognized as an architectural monument.
Church of St. Thomas Aquinas before demolition
A photo: ruiny_v_upor
The layout of the historic center was completely rethought by completely transforming it into a radial-circular one, expanding the main highways, and arranging two through mutually perpendicular urban diameters.
Freedom Square
Collage: news.tut.by
According to the general plan, the territory of Minsk expanded from 7.7 thousand to 13 thousand hectares, industrial and communal institutions were located in the new territories. The expansion of the city's territory was carried out mainly in the southeast direction.
Freedom Square
Collage: news.tut.by
According to the plan, it was decided to build up the central part of the city in 4-5-storey buildings, no more than 6 floors. Simultaneously with them, wooden houses and barracks were built for builders and residents of the city. 
Collage: realt.onliner.by
The overwhelming majority of buildings in the new city were made in the style of Stalinist neoclassicism. Such restoration projects were quite typical for the USSR. Volgograd and Tver were almost rebuilt in the same way. Thus, the historical appearance of Minsk was practically lost in the typical layout of the Soviet city.
Kaliningrad
Photo: on-walking.com
By the end of the war, more than 90 percent of industrial, residential and administrative buildings on the territory of the present Kaliningrad region was destroyed.
Avaider Alley, now the Alley of the Brave
A photo: sergey_larenkov
Unlike Minsk, the restoration of the former Königsberg was not systemic - moreover, all the restoration activities were as chaotic and incoherent as possible. This happened for a variety of reasons, the main ones being the settling of the surviving buildings by immigrants from the "mainland" and the loss of most of the German documentation, diagrams and drawings.
In 1947, attempts began to change this, the search and translation of German urban planning instructions began, and the chief architect of the city appeared. Many German buildings have been restored, some of the city's architectural monuments have been preserved (stock exchange, churches, the Luisen Park complex, the new university building, etc.). Attempts to demolish the remains of the Royal Castle have been suppressed.
Ruins of the Royal Castle
However, since 1953, the city's rebuilding policy has changed dramatically. Kaliningrad no longer had a chief architect; the political leadership decided to demolish many old German buildings and their remains. The royal castle held out until 1967, when its ruins were still blown up.
A ten-story building against the backdrop of a Lutheran temple
Photo: on-walking.com
A plan was adopted to de-compact the central part of the city, to create protective zones between industrial enterprises, residential and cultural buildings. When the buildings were restored, the facades, architectural forms, and the layout of the premises were changed - the German architectural heritage was transformed into the previously mentioned Stalinist neoclassicism. However, unlike Minsk, in Kaliningrad it was decided to keep the old structure of the city.
Collage: sergey_larenkov
Such randomness and lack of system in the restoration of the city is clearly visible even now. Kaliningrad is a mixture of preserved German buildings, often rebuilt in an artisanal way, and typical Soviet buildings of that time.
Outcomes
Of course, one cannot say that any of the approaches is unambiguously correct or incorrect. The rebuilding of cities was carried out in different circumstances; different tasks were set for city planners. But the Warsaw and, to some extent, Dresden version is more suitable for the concept of "restoration". They are very long-term and require a lot of effort. But this is how the city does not lose its identity, as happened with Minsk. Minsk is now a typical Soviet city of its time, not much different from other restored cities on the territory of the former USSR. Kaliningrad, on the other hand, suffered at first from the inaction of the authorities and chaotic reconstruction, and then from the same typical development. This combination also led to the loss of the memory of the pre-war city.
It is now known for certain that during World War II, Anglo-American aircraft deliberately bombed peaceful German cities. The statistics of the consequences of the "air war" cite the following data: in all age groups, losses among women exceed those among men by about 40%, the number of children killed is also very high - 20% of all losses, losses among older age are 22%. Of course, these figures do not mean that only the Germans were the victims of the war. The world remembers Auschwitz, Majdanek, Buchenwald, Mauthausen and 1,650 more concentration camps and ghettos, the world remembers Khatyn and Babi Yar ... It's about something else. How did the Anglo-American methods of waging war differ from the German ones, if they also led to the mass death of civilians?
Churchill's go-ahead
If we compare the images of the lunar landscape with photographs of the space that remained from the German city of Wesel after the bombing of 1945, it will be difficult to distinguish between them. The mountains of heaped earth, interspersed with thousands of huge bomb craters, are very reminiscent of lunar craters. It is impossible to believe that people lived here. Wesel became one of 80 German target cities subjected to total bombing by Anglo-American aircraft from 1940 to 1945. How did this "air" war begin - in fact, a war with the population?
Let us turn to the previous documents and separate “programmatic” statements of the top officials of the states that participated in the Second World War.
At the time of the German invasion of Poland - September 1, 1939 - the entire world community knew the document "Rules of War", developed by the participants of the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Arms in 1922. It literally states: “Aerial bombardment for the purpose of terrorizing civilians, or destroying and damaging private property of a non-military nature, or causing harm to persons not taking part in hostilities, is prohibited” (Article 22, Part II).
Moreover, on September 2, 1939, the British, French and German governments announced that the bombing would be "strictly military targets in the narrowest sense of the word."
Six months after the outbreak of the war, speaking in the House of Commons on February 15, 1940, the British Prime Minister Chamberlain confirmed the earlier statement: “No matter what others do, our government will never despicably attack women and other civilians just to to terrorize them. "
As a result, the humane concept of the British leadership existed only until May 10, 1940 - the day Winston Churchill came to the post of Prime Minister after Chamberlain's death. The next day, on his signal, the British pilots began to bomb Freiburg. JM Speight, Assistant Secretary of the Air, commented: “We (the British) started bombing targets in Germany before the Germans started bombing targets in the British Isles. This is a historical fact that has been publicly acknowledged ... But since we doubted the psychological impact that the propaganda distortion of the truth that it was we who launched a strategic offensive could have, we did not have the courage to publicize our great decision made in May 1940. We should have made it public, but of course we made a mistake. This is a great solution. " According to the famous English historian and military theorist John Fuller, then "it was at the hands of Mr. Churchill that the detonator went off, which caused an explosion - a war of devastation and terror unprecedented since the time of the Seljuk invasion."
After eight British raids on German cities, the Luftwaffe bombed London in September 1940 and Coventry on November 14. According to the author of the book "Air War in Germany", Major General Hans Rumpf, it is this raid on the center of the British aircraft engine industry that is considered to be the beginning of an all-out air war. Then, in addition to the plant, half of the city buildings were destroyed to the ground, several hundred civilians were killed. Official German propaganda called this raid a "gigantic aerial bombardment", which greatly helped the official British propaganda, which accused the Luftwaffe of "barbarism". After that, the German bombing was somewhat suspended, and the British until the beginning of 1942 were engaged in the so-called "precision" bombing, carried out mainly at night. The impact of these raids on the German economy was extremely insignificant - the production of weapons not only did not decline, but also steadily increased.
British bomber aviation was in a clear crisis. In August 1941, Cabinet Secretary D. Butt presented a report proving the absolute ineffectiveness of the bombing raids that year. In November, Churchill was even forced to order Bomber Commander Sir Richard Percy to limit the number of raids as much as possible until a concept for the use of heavy bombers was developed.
Debut of the Obsessed
That all changed on February 21, 1942, when Air Marshal Arthur Harris became the new RAF Bomber Commander. A lover of figurative expressions, he immediately promised to "knock out" Germany from the war. Harris proposed abandoning the practice of destroying specific targets and bombing city squares. In his opinion, the destruction of cities should undoubtedly undermine the spirit of the civilian population, and above all the workers of industrial enterprises.
Thus, there was a complete revolution in the use of bombers. Now they have become an independent instrument of war that does not need to interact with anyone. Harris, with all his indomitable energy, began to transform the bomber aircraft into a huge machine of destruction. He quickly established iron discipline and demanded the unquestioning and prompt execution of all his orders. Few people liked "tightening the screws," but that worried Harris least of all - he felt the strong support of Prime Minister Churchill. The new commander categorically demanded that the government provide him with 4,000 heavy four-engine bombers and 1,000 high-speed Mosquito-type fighter-bombers. This would enable him to keep up to 1,000 aircraft over Germany every night. The ministers of the "economic" bloc with great difficulty managed to prove to the frantic marshal the absurdity of his demands. The British industry simply could not cope with their implementation in the foreseeable future, if only because of the lack of raw materials.
So, in the first "raid of a thousand bombers", which took place on the night of May 30-31, 1942, Harris sent everything that he had: not only a few Lancasters, but also Halifaxes, Stirlings, Blenheims. , Wellingtons, Hempdens and Whitley. In total, the diverse armada consisted of 1,047 vehicles. At the end of the raid, 41 aircraft did not return to the bases (3.9% of the total). Such a level of losses then alerted many, but not Harris. Subsequently, among the British Air Force, bomber losses were always the greatest.
The first "thousandth raids" did not lead to noticeable practical results, and this was not required. The raids were of a "combat training" nature: according to Marshal Harris, it was necessary to create the necessary theoretical basis for bombing and back it up with flight practice.
The whole year 1942 passed in such "practical" classes. In addition to German cities, the British bombed several times the industrial facilities of the Ruhr, targets in Italy - Milan, Turin and La Spezia, as well as German submarine bases in France.
Winston Churchill assessed this period of time as follows: "Although we gradually achieved the much needed precision of hitting in the night conditions, the military industry of Germany and the moral strength of resistance of its civilians were not broken by the bombing of 1942."
As for the public and political resonance in England regarding the first bombings, for example, Lord Salisbury and Bishop George Bell of Chichester have repeatedly condemned such a strategy. They expressed their opinions in the House of Lords and in the press, focusing the attention of the military leadership and society as a whole on the fact that strategic bombing of cities cannot be justified from a moral point of view or according to the laws of war. But such departures nevertheless continued.
In the same year, the first formations of American heavy bombers Boeing B-17 and Flying Fortress arrived in England. At that time, these were the best strategic bombers in the world, both in speed and altitude, and in armament. 12 large-caliber machine guns "Browning" gave the crew of the "Fortress" a good chance to fight off German fighters. Unlike the British, the American command relied on targeted bombing in daylight. It was assumed that no one could break through the powerful barrage of hundreds of B-17s flying in close formation. The reality turned out to be different. Already in the first "training" raids on France, the "Fortresses" squadrons suffered significant losses. It became clear that the result could not be achieved without strong cover for the fighters. But the Allies could not yet produce long-range fighters in sufficient numbers, so the crews of the bombers had to rely mainly on themselves. Thus, aviation operated until January 1943, when the Allied conference was held in Casablanca, where the main points of strategic interaction were determined: “It is necessary to upset and destroy the military, economic and industrial power of Germany and so weaken the morale of its people that it would lose all ability to military resistance ".
On June 2, speaking in the House of Commons, Churchill said: "I can report that this year German cities, harbors and centers of the military industry will be subjected to such a huge, continuous and brutal test that no other country has experienced." The commander of the British Bomber Aviation was instructed: "To begin the most intensive bombing of industrial facilities in Germany." Subsequently, Harris wrote about it this way: "In fact, I got the freedom to bomb any German city with a population of 100 thousand people or more." Without putting the matter on the back burner, the British marshal planned a joint air operation with the Americans against Hamburg, the second most populous city in Germany. This operation was called "Gomorrah". Her goal was the complete destruction of the city and turning it to dust.
Monuments to barbarism
In late July - early August 1943, 4 night and 3 day massive raids were carried out on Hamburg. In total, about 3 thousand Allied heavy bombers took part in them. During the first raid on 27 July, from 1 am on densely populated areas of the city, 10,000 tons of explosives, mainly incendiary and high-explosive bombs, were dropped. For several days a fire storm raged in Hamburg, and the plume of smoke reached a height of 4 km. Even the pilots felt the smoke of the burning city; it penetrated the cockpits of the aircraft. According to eyewitnesses, asphalt and sugar stored in warehouses boiled in the city, glass melted in trams. Civilians burned alive, turning to ash, or suffocated from poisonous gases in the basements of their homes, trying to hide from the bombing. Or they were buried under the ruins. In the diary of the German Friedrich Reck, who was sent to Dachau by the Nazis, there are stories about people who fled from Hamburg in their pajamas, lost their memory or distraught with horror.
The city was half destroyed, more than 50 thousand of its inhabitants died, over 200 thousand were injured, burned and maimed.
To his old nickname "bomber" Harris added another - "Nelson Air". So he was now called in the English press. But nothing pleased the marshal - the destruction of Hamburg could not bring the final defeat of the enemy in a decisive way. Harris estimated that the simultaneous destruction of at least six of the largest German cities was required. And for this there was not enough strength. Justifying his "slow victories", he said: "I can no longer hope that we will be able to inflict an air defeat on the largest industrial power in Europe, if only 600-700 heavy bombers are at my disposal for this."
British industry could not make up for the losses of such aircraft as quickly as Harris wished. Indeed, in each raid, the British lost an average of 3.5% of the total number of bombers involved. At first glance, it looks like a little, but after all, each crew had to make 30 sorties! If this number is multiplied by the average percentage of losses, then you get already 105% of losses. Truly killer math for pilots, bombers, navigators and gunners. Few of them survived the fall of 1943.
And here is the other side of the barricades. The famous German fighter pilot Hans Philipp described his feelings in battle as follows: “It was a joy to fight with two dozen Russian fighters or English Spitfires. And no one thought about the meaning of life. But when seventy huge "Flying Fortresses" fly at you, all your previous sins appear before your eyes. And even if the lead pilot was able to gather his courage, then how much pain and nerves it took to make every pilot in the squadron, down to the very newcomers, cope with it. " In October 1943, during one of these attacks, Hans Philipp was shot down and killed. His fate was shared by many.
Meanwhile, the Americans focused their main efforts on the destruction of important industrial facilities of the Third Reich. On August 17, 1943, 363 heavy bombers attempted to destroy the ball bearing factories in the Schweinfurt area. But since there were no escort fighters, the losses during the operation were very serious - 60 "Fortresses". Further bombing of the area was postponed by 4 months, during which the Germans were able to rebuild their factories. Such raids finally convinced the American command that it was no longer possible to send bombers without cover.
And three months after the allies' failures - November 18, 1943 - Arthur Harris began the "Battle of Berlin". On this occasion, he said: "I want to incinerate this nightmare city from end to end." The battle continued until March 1944. 16 massive raids were carried out on the capital of the Third Reich, during which 50 thousand tons of bombs were dropped. Almost half of the city turned into ruins, tens of thousands of Berliners died. "For fifty, one hundred, and perhaps more years, the destroyed cities of Germany will stand as monuments to the barbarity of its victors," wrote Major General John Fuller.
One German fighter pilot recalled: “I once saw a night raid from the ground. I stood in a crowd of other people in an underground metro station, the ground shook with every explosion of bombs, women and children screamed, clouds of smoke and dust penetrated through the mines. Anyone who did not experience fear and horror should have had a heart of stone. " At that time, there was a popular anecdote: who can be considered a coward? Answer: a resident of Berlin who volunteered for the front
But still it was not possible to completely destroy the city, and the "Nelson Air" was born with a proposal: "We can completely demolish Berlin if the American Air Force takes part. This will cost us 400-500 aircraft. The Germans will pay with defeat in the war. " However, the American colleagues did not share Harris's optimism.
In the meantime, dissatisfaction with the bomber commander was growing in the British leadership. Harris's appetites increased so much that in March 1944, Minister of War J. Grigg, presenting the draft army budget to parliament, said: “I take the liberty of saying that the production of heavy bombers alone employs as many workers as the implementation of the plan of the entire army ". At that time, 40-50% of British military production worked for one aircraft, and to satisfy the ever-growing demands of the main bombardier meant to bleed the land forces and the navy. Because of this, the admirals and generals, to put it mildly, did not treat Harris very well, but he was still obsessed with the idea of \u200b\u200b"knocking out" Germany from the war. But with this just nothing worked. In addition, in terms of losses, the spring of 1944 was the most difficult period for British bomber aviation: on average, losses per flight reached 6%. On March 30, 1944, during a raid on Nuremberg, German night fighters and anti-aircraft gunners shot down 96 of 786 aircraft. It was a truly black night for the RAF.
The raids of the British could not break the spirit of resistance of the population, and the raids of the Americans - decisively reduce the output of German military products. All kinds of businesses were dispersed, and strategically important factories were hidden underground. In February 1944, half of the German aircraft factories were subjected to air raids within a few days. Some were destroyed to the ground, but very quickly the production was restored, and the factory equipment was moved to other areas. Aircraft production increased steadily and peaked in the summer of 1944.
In this regard, it is worth noting that in the post-war report of the American Office for the Study of the Results of Strategic Bombings, there is an amazing fact: it turns out that there was only one dibromoethane production plant in Germany - for ethyl liquid. The fact is that without this component, which is necessary for the production of aviation gasoline, not a single German aircraft would fly. But, oddly enough, this plant has never been bombed, just no one thought about it. But destroy it, the German aircraft factories could not have been touched at all. They could produce thousands of planes that could only be rolled on the ground. Here is how John Fuller wrote about this: "If in our technical age, soldiers and pilots do not think technically, they do more harm than good."
The curtain
In early 1944, the main problem of the Allied Air Force was resolved: Fortresses and Liberators defended the excellent Thunderbolt and Mustang fighters in large numbers. From that time on, the losses of the Reich air defense fighter squadrons began to increase. Ases became less and less, and there was no one to replace them - the level of training of young pilots compared to the beginning of the war was depressingly low. This fact could not but reassure the allies. And nevertheless, it became more and more difficult for them to prove the expediency of their "strategic" bombing: in 1944, the gross industrial output in Germany steadily increased. A new approach was needed. And he was found: the commander of the US Strategic Air Force, General Karl Spaats, proposed focusing on the destruction of synthetic fuel factories, and the Chief Marshal of the British Air Force, Tedder, insisted on the destruction of German railways. He argued that the bombing of a transport is the most real opportunity to quickly disorganize the enemy.
As a result, it was decided to bomb the transport system first, and fuel factories second. From April 1944, the Allied bombing did indeed briefly become strategic. And against their background, the tragedy in the small town of Essen, located in East Frisia, passed unnoticed. On the last day of September 1944, due to bad weather, American aircraft were unable to reach one military plant. On the way back through a gap in the clouds, the pilots saw a small city and, in order not to return home with a full load, they decided to free themselves from it. The bombs hit the school, burying 120 children under the ruins. It was half of the children in the city. A small episode of the great air war ... By the end of 1944, the railway transport in Germany was practically paralyzed. Synthetic fuel production fell from 316 thousand tons in May 1944 to 17 thousand tons in September. As a result, there was not enough fuel for either aviation or tank divisions. The desperate German counter-offensive in the Ardennes in December of that year collapsed largely due to the fact that they failed to seize the fuel reserves of the Allies. The German tanks just stopped.
Slaughter from friends in arms
In the fall of 1944, the Allies faced an unexpected problem: there were so many heavy bombers and cover fighters that there was not enough industrial targets for them: not to sit idle. And to the complete satisfaction of Arthur Harris, not only the British, but also the Americans began to consistently destroy German cities. Berlin, Stuttgart, Darmstadt, Freiburg, Heilbronn were subjected to the strongest raids. The culmination of the massacre was the destruction of Dresden in mid-February 1945. At this time, the city was literally flooded with tens of thousands of refugees from the eastern regions of Germany. The massacre began with 800 British bombers on the night of 13-14 February. 650 thousand incendiary and high-explosive bombs were dropped on the city center. During the day, Dresden was bombed by 1,350 American bombers, the next day - by 1,100. The city center was literally razed to the ground. In total, 27 thousand residential and 7 thousand public buildings were destroyed.
How many citizens and refugees died is still unknown. Immediately after the war, the US State Department reported 250,000 deaths. Now the generally accepted figure is ten times less - 25 thousand, although there are other figures - 60 and 100 thousand people. In any case, Dresden and Hamburg can be put on a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki: “When the fire from burning buildings burst through the roofs, a column of hot air about six kilometers high and three kilometers in diameter rose above them ... Soon the air was heated to the limit, and all that could ignite, was engulfed in fire. Everything burned to the ground, that is, there were no traces of combustible materials, only two days later the temperature of the conflagration dropped so much that one could at least get closer to the burnt area, ”an eyewitness testifies.
After Dresden, the British managed to bomb Würzburg, Bayreuth, Zoest, Ulm and Rothenburg - cities that have survived from the late Middle Ages. Only in one town of Pforzheim with a population of 60 thousand people during one air raid on February 22, 1945, a third of its inhabitants died. Klein Festung recalled that, being imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, he saw the reflections of the Pforzheim fire from the window of his cell, 70 kilometers away. Chaos settled on the streets of ruined German cities. The Germans, who love order and cleanliness, lived like cave dwellers, hiding in ruins. Disgusting rats scurried about and fat flies circled.
In early March, Churchill strongly advised Harris to end the "areal" bombing raids. He literally said the following: “It seems to me that we need to stop bombing German cities. Otherwise, we will take control of an absolutely destroyed country. " The Marshal was forced to obey.
Peace "guarantee"
In addition to eyewitness accounts, the catastrophic consequences of such raids are confirmed by many documents, including the conclusion of a special commission of the victorious powers, which immediately after the surrender of Germany examined the results of the bombing on the spot. With industrial and military facilities, everything was clear - no one expected another outcome. But the fate of German cities and villages shocked the members of the commission. Then, almost immediately after the end of the war, the results of the "area" bombing could not be hidden from the "general public". In England, a real wave of indignation has risen against the recent "hero-bombers", the protesters have repeatedly demanded to bring them to justice. In the United States, they reacted quite calmly to everything. And such information did not reach the broad masses of the Soviet Union, and it would hardly have become timely and understandable. There were so many ruins of their own and their own grief that before the alien, before the "fascist" - "so that they all were empty there!" - there was neither strength nor time.
How merciless this time is ... Literally a few months after the war, its victims were of no use to anyone. In any case, the first persons of the powers that defeated fascism were so concerned about the division of the victory banner that, for example, Sir Winston Churchill hastened to officially disown responsibility for the same Dresden, for dozens of other German cities wiped out from the face of the earth. As if nothing had happened and it was not he who personally made the decisions about the bombing. As if, when choosing the next victim city at the end of the war, the Anglo-American command was not guided by the criteria of "lack of military facilities" - "lack of air defense systems." The generals of the allied armies took care of their pilots and aircraft: why send them where there is an air defense ring.
As for the war hero, and later the disgraced Marshal Arthur Harris, he immediately after the military battle began to write the book "Strategic Bombings". It came out already in 1947 and was sold in a fairly large print run. Many were wondering how the "main scorer" would be justified. The author did not do this. On the contrary, he made it clear that he would not allow the entire responsibility to be passed on. He did not regret anything and did not regret anything. This is how he understood his main task as commander of bomber aviation: “The main objects of the military industry should be sought where they are in any country in the world, that is, in the cities themselves. It should be especially emphasized that, except in Essen, we have never targeted any particular plant. We have always considered a destroyed enterprise in the city as an additional piece of luck. Our main goal has always been the city center. All old German cities are most densely built up towards the center, and their outskirts are always more or less free of buildings. Therefore, the central part of cities is especially sensitive to incendiary bombs. "
Air Force General Frederick Anderson explained the concept of total raids: “Memories of the destruction of Germany will be passed on from father to son, from son to grandson. This is the best guarantee that Germany will never again unleash new wars. " There have been many such statements, and they all seem even more cynical after reading the official American Strategic Bombing Report of September 30, 1945. This document, based on research conducted at the time, states that the citizens of German cities lost their faith in future victory, in their leaders, in the promises and propaganda to which they were subjected. Most of all, they wanted the war to end.
They increasingly resorted to listening to "black radio", to discussing rumors, and in fact found themselves in opposition to the regime. As a result of this situation, the dissident movement began to grow in the cities: in 1944, one in every thousand Germans was arrested for political crimes. If German citizens had freedom of choice, they would have stopped participating in the war long ago. However, under the conditions of a tough police regime, any manifestation of discontent meant: prison or death. Nevertheless, a study of official records and individual opinions shows that during the last period of the war, absenteeism increased and production declined, although large enterprises continued to work. Thus, as much as the people of Germany were dissatisfied with the war, "they did not have the opportunity to openly express it," the American report emphasizes.
Thus, the massive bombing of Germany was generally not strategic. They were so only a few times. The military industry of the Third Reich was paralyzed only at the end of 1944, when the Americans bombed 12 factories that produced synthetic fuel and disabled the road network. By this time, almost all major German cities had been aimlessly destroyed. According to Hans Rumpf, they bore the brunt of the air raids and thus defended industrial enterprises until the very end of the war. “The strategic bombing was aimed mainly at destroying women, children and the elderly,” the Major General emphasizes. Of the total of 955,044 thousand bombs dropped by the British on Germany, 430,747 tons fell on cities.
As for Churchill's decision on the moral terror of the German population, it was truly fatal: such raids not only did not contribute to victory, but also pushed it back.
However, for a long time after the war, many well-known participants continued to justify their actions. So, already in 1964, retired US Air Force Lieutenant General Ira Iker expressed the following: “I find it difficult to understand the British or Americans who weep over the killed civilians and did not shed a tear over our valiant soldiers who died in battles with a cruel enemy. I deeply regret that the bomber aircraft of Great Britain and the United States killed 135 thousand inhabitants of Dresden in the raid, but I do not forget who started the war, and I am even more sorry that more than 5 million lives were sacrificed by the Anglo-American armed forces in a bitter struggle for complete destruction of fascism ”.
British Air Marshal Robert Sondby was not so categorical: “No one will deny that the bombing of Dresden was a great tragedy. It was a terrible misfortune, which sometimes happens in wartime, caused by a cruel coincidence. Those who sanctioned this raid did not act out of malice, not out of cruelty, although it is likely that they were too far from the harsh reality of hostilities to fully understand the monstrous destructive power of the aerial bombardment of the spring of 1945. " Was the British Air Marshal so naive as to justify the total destruction of German cities in this way? After all, it is “cities, not heaps of ruins, that are the basis of civilization,” wrote the English historian John Fuller after the war.
Better about the bombing, perhaps, and you can not say.
The origin of the doctrine
The very use of the aircraft as a means of warfare was at the beginning of the 20th century a truly revolutionary step. The first bombers were clumsy and fragile-looking structures, and it was not an easy task for the pilots to fly to the target even with a minimum bomb load. There was no need to talk about the accuracy of the hits. In the First World War, bombers did not gain much fame in contrast to fighters or from ground-based "miracle weapons" - tanks. Nevertheless, the "heavy" aviation had supporters and even apologists. Between the two world wars, perhaps the most famous of these was the Italian general Giulio Douai.
In his writings, Douet tirelessly argued that the war can be won by one aircraft. The ground forces and the navy must play a subordinate role in relation to it. The army holds the front line and the navy defends the coast while the air force gains victory. Cities should be bombed first, not factories and military installations, which are relatively easy to relocate. Moreover, it is advisable to destroy the cities in one raid so that the civilian population does not have time to take out material values \u200b\u200band hide. It is necessary not so much to destroy as many people as possible, but to sow panic among them, to break them morally. Under these conditions, enemy soldiers at the front will not think about victory, but about the fate of their loved ones, which will undoubtedly affect their morale. To do this, it is necessary to develop bomber aviation, and not fighter, naval or any other. Well-armed bombers themselves are able to fend off enemy aircraft and deliver a decisive blow. Whoever has more powerful aviation will win.
Very few shared the "radical" views of the Italian theoretician. Most military experts believed that General Douay overdid it, making the role of military aviation absolute. And calls for the destruction of the civilian population in the 20s of the last century were considered frank bad manners. But, be that as it may, it was Giulio Douet who was among the first to understand that aviation gave war a third dimension. With his "light hand" the idea of \u200b\u200bunlimited air war has firmly settled in the minds of some politicians and military leaders.
Losses in numbers
In Germany, bombing killed, according to various estimates, from 300 thousand to 1.5 million civilians. In France - 59 thousand killed and wounded, mainly from Allied raids, in England - 60.5 thousand, including victims from the actions of rockets "Fau".
The list of cities in which the area of \u200b\u200bdestruction was 50% or more of the total area of \u200b\u200bbuildings (oddly enough, Dresden accounted for only 40%):
50% Ludwigshafen, Worms
51% - Bremen, Hannover, Nuremberg, Remscheid, Bochum
52% - Essen, Darmstadt
53% - Cochem
54% - Hamburg, Mainz
55% Neckarsulm, Zoest
56% - Aachen, Muenster, Heilbronn
60% - Erkelenz
63% Wilhelmshaven, Koblenz
64% Bingerbruck, Cologne, Pforzheim
65% - Dortmund
66% Crailsheim
67% Giessen
68% - Hanau, Kassel
69% - Duren
70% Altenkirchen, Bruchsal
72% Geilenkirchen
74% Donauworth
75% Remagen, Würzburg
78% - Emden
80% - Prum, Wesel
85% - Xanten, Zulpich
91% - Emmerich
97% - Julich
The total volume of the ruins was 400 million cubic meters. 495 architectural monuments were completely destroyed, 620 were damaged so much that their restoration was either impossible or doubtful.
Fans of the late USSR are spreading heaps of myths about Soviet housing. Almost all of them are irrelevant to reality.
The very reality is that very little housing was built in the USSR. And the USSR came to its death with one of the lowest indicators of housing per capita in the world, at the level of equatorial Africa.
In the world, few people count on housing provision in square meters. Most countries count rooms per person. This figure is found out in censuses. Therefore, international comparisons, especially in the 90s of the last century, are rather difficult to make.
But the UN website for 2012 has a table of room availability.
In the RSFSR in 1989 there were as many rooms per person as in the Gambia.
When you ask USSR fans how it happened. Why Soviet people lived worse than in the losers and ruined, robbed Germany, Finland or Japan.
Why didn't they build one meter per person per year, as in Germany or Japan?
Fans of the USSR, wriggling like snakes in a frying pan, begin to blatantly lie
The first myth. In the USSR there were large losses of housing in the Second World War. 40% of the country's housing stock was lost. Over 50% urban and 30% rural.
The only document that they can present is the data of the Central Statistical Administration of the USSR on the progress of restoration work in the cities of the RSFSR in 1946-1948.
Alas, these very ruined cities in no way draw 50% of the country's housing stock. Yes, there were 4 cities destroyed by 2/3. Voronezh, Stalingrad, Sevastopol and Velikiye Luki. And then in them by 1950 the housing stock was restored.
I will not spread who actually destroyed the country's infrastructure. Who blew up DneproGES, who blew up the center of Kiev. In most cases, this was done by the Red Army. Yes, the "scorched earth" tactics was one of the methods of warfare. And perfectly aware of this, the fans of the USSR are now silent about this.
BET ORDER OF THE SUPREME HEAD COMMAND No. 0428
moscow city.November 17, 1941
The experience of the last month of the war showed that the German army is poorly adapted to war in winter conditions, does not have warm clothing and, experiencing enormous difficulties from the onset of frost, huddles in the front line in populated areas. Arrogant to the point of insolence, the enemy was going to spend the winter in the warm houses of Moscow and Leningrad, but this was prevented by the actions of our troops. On vast sectors of the front, the German troops, having met stubborn resistance from our units, were forced to go over to the defensive and were located in settlements along the roads for 2.0-30 km on both sides. German soldiers live, as a rule, in cities, in townships, in villages, in peasant huts, sheds, barns, baths near the front, and the headquarters of German units are located in larger settlements and cities, they hide in basements, using them as shelter from our aviation and artillery.
Depriving the German army of the opportunity to settle in villages and cities, expelling the German invaders from all settlements into the cold in the field, smoking them out of all rooms and warm shelters and making them freeze in the open - this is an urgent task, on the solution of which the acceleration of the defeat of the enemy largely depends. and the decay of his army.
The headquarters of the Supreme High Command ORDERS:
1. To destroy and burn to ashes all settlements in the rear of the German troops at a distance of 40 - 60 km in depth from the front edge and 20 - 30 km to the right and left of the roads. To destroy settlements within the specified radius of action, immediately abandon aviation, widely use artillery and mortar fire, teams of scouts, skiers and partisan sabotage groups supplied with Molotov cocktails, grenades and subversive weapons.
2. In each regiment, create teams of hunters of 20-30 people each for the explosion and burning of settlements in which the enemy troops are located. In the team of hunters to select the most courageous and politically strong fighters, commanders and political workers, carefully explaining to them the tasks and significance of this event for the defeat of the German army. Outstanding brave souls for their courageous actions to destroy the settlements in which the German troops are located, to present to the government award.
Criticism of the methods of Stalin's partisan wars can be read from the country's main saboteur Ilya Grigorievich Starinov Notes of the saboteur
In short, Stalin, trying to copy the actions of the Finnish troops during the winter war, did not take into account the faster pace of advance of the German troops. Why unprepared "scorched earth" tactics worked for the invaders.
Instead of distributing foodstuffs, and above all grain, to the population, Stalin demanded that they be destroyed, which could not be taken out during the withdrawal of the troops. Thus, "the beloved leader of the people" doomed to starvation the population on the territory that was left. If Stalin's demand had been fulfilled, then during the occupation, almost the entire population of the left-bank regions of Ukraine and the occupied territories of Russia would have died out.
In fact, as a result of the consequences of the Great Patriotic War of the USSR, housing provision has grown and relatively well.
There is a certificate issued by the CSO to Kaganovich. That the city's housing stock, as a result of the war, lost instead of the mythical 50%, as the Soviet ones lie in the eyes, 5,6%.
But the loss of the population of 27 million people amounted to 15% of the population. Housing provision as a result of the death of people has grown by almost 10% .. But what is 9.5% of 5 Stalinist meters per person. 
Moreover, in addition to losses from hostilities from 1939 to 1945, there were also acquisitions. The annexed Baltic states, Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, were characterized by a higher housing provision compared to the Soviet 5 meters per person
And the Kenigsber region and the former Japanese province of Karafuto were left deserted. But with a ready-made infrastructure, approximately 10 square meters for each of 1.5 million. For example, the province of Karafuto produced more GDP before the war than the entire Soviet Far East.
In addition to these acquisitions
At the construction sites of the Soviet Union for the period from 1943 to January 1, 1950, prisoners of war worked 1,077,564,200 man-days. For an average 12 hour day, with the current minimum wage in Western Europe of 10 euros per hour. This is 200 billion euros in current money.
In 2016, the entire volume of work performed in the "Construction" type of activity amounted to 6148.4 billion rubles or 100 billion euros.
Western specialists Prisoners for food performed a two-year modern volume of work in the "Construction" type of activity.
But there were also property reparations.
Finnish and German houses were replacing Stalin's barracks. In 1944, Finland paid the USSR in goods reparations in the amount of $ 300 million for supporting Germany in the last world war and fighting the USSR. On October 20, 1948, the CM issued a resolution on permission to use sets of standard German and Finnish houses in individual housing construction. Intensive construction of Finnish and German houses was carried out from 1948 to 1951. In the period from 1946 to 1950, only in the cities of Kuzbass, 30 thousand 752 houses were built, which were in personal ownership, with a total living area of \u200b\u200b780.3 thousand square meters. m. As a result, whole streets in Kemerovo, Stalinsk, Kiselevsk, Leninsk-Kuznetsky, Osinniki were built up with Finnish houses; villages of the same name appeared in Prokopyevsk, Belovo, Leninsk-Kuznetsky.
How it helped the USSR, but almost nothing. As they slowly built housing under Stalin, they continued to slowly build it.
Only thanks to the work of the prisoners, the rate of disposal of old housing and the growth of the population of cities equaled the construction of new housing.
However, the new housing was presented mainly by Stalinist barracks. 
5 Soviet meters of living space for a Soviet man lasted 30 years.
And the indicators of the living area of \u200b\u200btsarist Russia were achieved by the middle of Khrushchev's rule
The Second World War was the most destructive in the history of all conflicts. It has the most money spent on it, has damaged the most property, killed the most people, and caused the most profound change in any war in history.
1. The country with the greatest victims in the Second World War was Russia, with more than 21 million people.
2. Out of every five German soldiers killed in World War II, four died on the Eastern Front.
3. An estimated 1.5 million children died during the Holocaust. Approximately 1.2 million of them were Jews, and tens of thousands were Roma.
4. Eighty percent of Soviet men born in 1923 did not survive World War II.
5. Between 1939 and 1945, the Allies dropped 3.4 million tons of bombs, averaging up to 27,700 tons per month.
6. Russia and the Red Army were charged with several war crimes, including systematic rape (over 2 million German women aged 13-70 were raped by the Red Army) and genocide.
7. Many historians believe that the Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943) is not only possibly the bloodiest battle in history (800,000-1,600,000 deaths), but also the turning point of World War II in Europe.
8. Many seriously ill concentration camp prisoners died after liberation, even after turning to the allies for help. In Bergen-Belsen, for example, 13,000 prisoners have died since liberation. About 2,500 of the 33,000 survivors at Dachau died within six weeks of liberation.
9. Max Heiliger was an assumed name. It was used by the SS to open bank accounts where money, gold and gems seized from Jews in Europe were kept.
10. The longest battle of the Second World War - the Battle of the Atlantic, which lasted from 1939 to 1945.
11. The original abbreviation of the National Socialist Party was called Nasos. The word "Nazi" comes from the Bavarian word and means "just thinking." It was first used as a mockery by journalist Konrad Heiden (1901-1966).
12. The swastika is an ancient religious symbol. It comes from the Sanskrit name, where the hooked cross was a symbol of good luck and fertility among ancient civilizations. It has been found in the ruins of Greece, Egypt, China, India and Hindu temples.
13. In 1935, British engineer Robert Watson-Watt was working on a "death ray" that could destroy enemy aircraft using radio waves. His "death ray" turned into radar and "radar".
14. Of the 40,000 people who served on submarines during World War II, only 10,000 returned.
15. The survivors of the atomic bombing in Japan are called "niji hibakusha", which literally means "people affected by the explosion."
16. About 600,000 Jews served in the US military during World War II. More than 35,000 have been killed, wounded, captured or missing. About 8,000 died in the battle. However, only two Jewish soldiers were awarded the Medal of Courage during the Great Patriotic War.
17. The Battle of the Bulge is the largest and most devastating battle for American forces. More than 80,000 American soldiers have died here.
18. Enola Gay (Boeing B-29 Superfortress) became famous after the explosion of the first atomic bombs (Hiroshima). But few people know that the same bomber, named Bockscar, which bombed Nagasaki, was named after the commander of a conventional plane, Frederic Bock.
19. During the blockade of Leningrad, more Russians (military and civilians) died than American and British soldiers during the entire period of World War II.
20. The Nazis killed about 12 million people, almost 6 million of them were Jews killed during the Holocaust.
21. During World War II, the Japanese made 9,000 "military aircraft" from paper and silk. Rubberized balloons were supposed to deliver incendiary and anti-personnel bombs to the United States. More than 1,000 balloons have reached Michigan. They killed six Americans (five children and a pregnant woman), who were at that time on a picnic in Oregon.
22. Japanese kamikaze ("divine wind") were proposed on October 19, 1944 by Vice Admiral Onishi, who tried to balance the technological advantage of the American forces. Although the numbers are disputed, about 2,800 kamikaze pilots were killed. They sunk 34 American ships, damaged 368, killed 4,900 sailors and wounded 4,800.
23. Many Jews have been subjected to horrific medical experiments. For example, doctors bombarded the testes of men and the ovaries of women with X-rays to see the effect of different doses on reproductive function. Nazi doctors broke bones several times to see how many times this could be done before the bones could not be healed. They beat people on the heads with hammers to determine the threshold for the strength of the skull. Experiments were also carried out to determine the effect of atmospheric pressure on the body. In addition, the inmates were injected with various drugs and infectious agents, their limbs were amputated, and their muscles were excised for transplantation studies. Today, reference or use of Nazi experiments is considered unethical.
24. Dr. Josef Mengele ("Angel of Death"), used in his genetic experiments about 3,000 twins, mostly children of Gypsies and Jews. Only about 200 survived. He experimented with an eyeball, when it was removed from one of the twins and attached to the back of the other, changed the color of the eyes in children by injecting a dye. In one case, two gypsy twins were stitched together to try and create "Siamese twins."
25. In addition to Jews and Roma, Jehovah's Witnesses were also persecuted and killed in German concentration camps.
26. The decision to implement the "Final Solution" or Die Endlösung was taken at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin on January 20, 1942. Heinrich Himmler was its chief architect. The earliest use of the phrase "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" was actually used in 1899 in a memo by Russian Tsar Nicholas on Zionism.
27. The end of World War II occurred on September 2, 1945, when Japan signed a surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
28. Anne Frank and her sister died in the Bergen-Belsen camp in March 1945, one month before his liberation in April 1945. During its existence, about 50,000 people have died here. After the camp was evacuated, British soldiers burned it down to prevent the spread of typhus.
29. In his book Denial of the Jews, David Wyman (1929) argued that the refusal to bomb the concentration camps was the result of Allied indifference to the fate of the Jews, and not the practical impossibility of carrying out the operation.
30. Despite the risk, thousands of Jews were saved. For example, in Denmark all their communities have survived. Personalities such as Raoul Wallenberg (1912-1947), Oskar Schindler (1908-1974), Tiune Sugihara (1900-1986) have saved thousands of lives.
31. During 1940-1945, the US defense budget increased from $ 1.9 billion to $ 59.8 billion.
32. During the attack on Pearl Harbor, 96 ships were at anchor. 18 were sunk or seriously damaged, including eight battleships. 2,402 American soldiers were killed and 1,280 wounded. Three hundred and fifty aircraft were destroyed or damaged.
33. The Air Force was part of the army in World War II and did not become a separate branch of the military after it.
34. In 1941, earnings were $ 21 per month. In 1942 - $ 50.
35. German submarines sank 2,000 Allied ships and lost 781 submarines.
36. During the Second World War, more than 650,000 jeeps were produced. American factories also produced 300,000 warplanes, 89,000 tanks, 3,000,000 machine guns and 7,000,000 rifles.
37. The Germans used the first jet fighters in World War II, including the Messerschmitt Me-262. However, they were developed too late to influence the course of hostilities.
38. The most powerful artillery installation ever created in the world was used in the Great Patriotic War. She was named "Karl" after her general designer Karl Becker. Used mainly against the Russians, the huge cannon could fire 2.5 tons of shells further than 5 km. They were 24 cm wide and could destroy concrete walls 2.5-3 meters thick.
39. During World War II, the English abbreviation BAM was used for female soldiers of the Marines, for men - HAM.
40. The SS made a brothel called "Kitty's Salon" for foreign diplomats and other VIPs in Berlin. Everything was auditioned here, in addition, 20 prostitutes were selected, who underwent several weeks of intensive education and training. They were specially trained to gather information from clients through seemingly harmless conversations.
41. The Second World War led to the fall of Europe as the center of world power, which allowed the United States and Russia to obtain super powers. This became one of the conditions for the emergence of the Cold War and the onset of the nuclear age.
42. Most historians agree that World War II began after the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Others say it began when Japan invaded Manchuria on September 18, 1931. And some scholars have suggested that World War II is in fact a continuation of World War I.
43. During World War II, hamburgers in the US were nicknamed "Liberty Steaks" to avoid the German-sounding name.
44. The Nazis used the Harvard "Fight Song" to make their "Sieg Hei" march.
45. Josef Kramer (1906-1945), head of the Bergen-Belsen camp, was known as the "Belsen Beast". When asked how he felt as he watched and participated in the deaths of thousands of men, women and children, Kramer said he felt nothing because he was following orders. He was later executed for crimes against humanity.
