Germany at the end of the 19th century / before WWII (historical photos)

1842648 Views 3118 Replies 391 Participants Last post by Sir Moc, 6 d ago

Kampflamm

Discussion Starter · Mar 29, 2005 (Edited)

99

I also included cities which were German back then but are now located in other countries. Anyway, enjoy these pics

Berlin

Dresden

Leipzig

Breslau/Wroclaw

Stettin/Szczecin

München (Munich)

Freiburg

Hamburg

Karlsruhe

Magdeburg

Halle

Danzig/Gdansk

Bremen

Frankfurt am Main

Hannover

Braunschweig (Brunswick)

Kassel

Lübeck

Königsberg/Kaliningrad

Bonn

Köln (Cologne)

Düsseldorf

Straßburg/Strasbourg

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cinxxx

· #1,121 · Dec 11, 2012

ja.centy said:
Why do you consider Wrocław/Breslau and Szczecin/Stettin as German cities? Do we operate in pre-WW2 terms here?

In this thread yes.
It's could "Germany at the end of the 19th century / before WWII (historical photos)"

Aachener Mädelstraße

· #1,122 · Dec 11, 2012

It's pretty clear that Germany started the war, and that they also executed the first large bombardments, also so called 'terror'bombardments. This can obviously not be legitimated in any way. But when you compare this with the bombardments that the allies carried out on german cities and civilians, it's like comparing a mouse with a cow. There is absolutely no justification for these allied war crimes, in which the only goal was to hit as many civilians as they could to break the moral (which didn't even work, on the contrary, I'm convinced that they even knew it).

ja.centy said:
^^ Don't know with other German cities, but I agree re Pforzheim (I studied for a year there - EU Socrates program ).

Why do you consider Wrocław/Breslau and Szczecin/Stettin as German cities? Do we operate in pre-WW2 terms here?

Because it were German cities for centuries, sometimes even 500 years. It's only after mai 1945 that they became Polish. (Stettin was even German till two months after the war. The Russians expelled the German citizens after 5 july, even though the city lays westwards of the Oder-Neisse border.

keepthepast

· #1,123 · Dec 11, 2012

ja.centy said:
ja.centy said:

^^ Sorry to interrupt this interesting discussion on the bombing of German cities, however, let me repeat the aforementioned sentence: 'They had sown the wind, now they would reap the whirlwind.'

QUOTE]

Click to expand...

Repeating that phrase in some attempt to justify or validate the well-documented excesses in allied bombing destruction, which by today's standards would most assuredly be considered criminal, does not change or deflect the basic theme of this thread that bemoans the loss of prescious, historic, and important structures and cityscapes that many of us wanted to experience. The losses were not totally unnecessary in the Allies' strategy, but the flagrant excess is both sad and regrettful.

Klassiker

· #1,124 · Dec 12, 2012 (Edited)

Last words and then back to the Photograpy

Ja.centy: Cinxxx, Aachener Mädelstrasse and Keepthepast all gave you the same answer why I keep on including Breslau, Stettin, Danzig, Königsberg (and even Posen!) as large cities dominated by 100% of German Architecture before they were heavily hit from the air and on the ground. The suburbs of nowadays Breslau are NOTHING compared to the homogeous and well planed, designed and built suburbs of 1944. Gründerzeit Bauten in closed Blocks and more modern stylized buildings also in closed blocks from the 20-ties and even 30-ties. A perfect built large city from the air (like Berlin!!). See page 6 of this site to again enjoy old Breslau/ Wroclaw. Rich and harmoneous architecture from the 15th until the 20th century. Stettin was also very beauitiful.
For Breslau it was sad that the Soviet attack destroyed the well layed out southern western part of this very impressive and not well known city.

The Gründerzeit Blocks in these cities are all in the typical "Prussian" (= sobre) style. The cities of Berlin, Potsdam, Magdeburg, Breslau and Stettin had a same kind of Gründerzeit architecture so different from the more neo renaissance styles in Leipzig and more Baroque Styles in Dresden. Nürnberg, Frankfurt and Mainz used abuntly "rotes" sanstein in their architecture with predominantly slab grey roofs.

In Berlin the 5 stories with symetrical or asymectrical fassades appeared. In Kreuzberg the corner houses where somewhat elevated but had flat roofs. In the western suburbs the roofs of the houses in the centerpart where mostly higher than the side roofs. Many Berliner Gründerzeit houses had a pyramid shaped neo-renaissance "Giebel" on the roofpart facing the street. Most houses had Erkers, heavy balconies or (later) loggia's.
Houses around 1900 possessed heavy sculpture inclusive pillars) at the outside and had high domed towers at the corners (some even baloon shaped!!!).
After 1910 these disappeared and more wave like windows, arched window tops and wave like "Gauben" (roof windows) appeared on the fassade and roofs.

In Karlsruhe, Mainz, Frankfurt, Darmstadt and Wiesbaden the Gründerzeit houses were influenced by the French architecture: (Mansarde) roofs (Paris look alikes) or round roofs! and balconies: very small with iron fences!

I personally like the red sandstone or yellow/grey compositions most with typical German high Giebels and Wahlm or the Mansarde Roof types.

Last: Jugenstill and Reformstill where introduced after 1910 which yielded beautiful (huge) buildings in Berlin, Breslau, Mannheim and Dresden, but also in many other German cities too (München).

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erbse

· #1,125 · Dec 12, 2012

^ Are you German? Your (often incorrect) use of German words is, well... somewhat irritating

Anyway, I agree the regional styles were very distinctive in Germany. Way more than in centralized France or England for instance.

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ja.centy

· #1,126 · Dec 13, 2012

cinxxx said:
In this thread yes.
It's could "Germany at the end of the 19th century / before WWII (historical photos)"

Aachener Mädelstraße said:
Because it were German cities for centuries, sometimes even 500 years. It's only after mai 1945 that they became Polish. (Stettin was even German till two months after the war. The Russians expelled the German citizens after 5 july, even though the city lays westwards of the Oder-Neisse border.

Klassiker said:
Ja.centy: Cinxxx, Aachener Mädelstrasse and Keepthepast all gave you the same answer why I keep on including Breslau, Stettin, Danzig, Königsberg (and even Posen!) as large cities dominated by 100% of German Architecture before they were heavily hit from the air and on the ground.

That's fine. Poles also have a great sentiment towards the cities like Wilno or Lwów, which had been part of Poland before the War.

However, I'd take this opportunity anyway to remind that, excluding Koenigsberg, those locations are connected with Poland since the establishment of Polish state in 966 AD (Poland 960-992, Poland 992-1025, Poland 1102-1138; also see the ethnic range of West Slavs in IX/X century).

Coming back to architecture, it's probably a truism to say that the overall urban development in Europe in the XIX and early XX century is more than impressive.

Klassiker

· #1,127 · Dec 13, 2012

Architecture 19th & 2o0 century before WW2

Ja.centy :

(totally correct!). That is what we mostly forget that the Poles were already there before the 15th century. One thing is however true: before its destruction the architecture of Breslau and Stettin was both 100% German. And it is exactly that type of architecture (Wilhelminic, Jugendstill, Landhaus Still) that I admire deeply with prewar Berlin as the greatest composition of them all. But I also like Polish cities like Cracow or Katowice. So that they were German and now Polish doesn't interest me. It was pure the architecture of that period with its great detail and robust appearance!!

Erbse: sorry (Verzeihung) that mixing English words and German ones isn't a very good combination, especially since both are foreign languages to me.
Do you meant: Sandstein, Giebel, Gauben, Erker, Fassaden? or the English words perhaps? You are free to correct me if I use the wrong words.

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ja.centy

· #1,128 · Dec 13, 2012

Klassiker said:
That is what we mostly forget that the Poles were already there before the 15th century.

Klassiker said:
Erbse: sorry (Verzeihung) that mixing English words and German ones isn't a very good combination, especially since both are foreign languages to me.

So, allow me to ask, if both English & German are foreign languages to you, then who are 'we'?

Klassiker said:
But I also like Polish cities like Cracow or Katowice. So that they were German and now Polish doesn't interest me. It was pure the architecture of that period with its great detail and robust appearance!!

Cracow had been German? Right... Also, as far as I'm aware, the most spectacular of Cracow's architectural spots stem from the Gothic & Renaissance epochs, and not from XIX/XX century, but maybe I missed something...

Dzwonsson

· #1,129 · Dec 13, 2012

Aachener Mädelstraße said:
Because it were German cities for centuries, sometimes even 500 years. It's only after mai 1945 that they became Polish. (Stettin was even German till two months after the war. The Russians expelled the German citizens after 5 july, even though the city lays westwards of the Oder-Neisse border.

Breslau was incorporated into Germany* in 1335 which means the city was considered German for more than 600 years.

*Germany as we know it today didn't quite exist back then, technically Breslau became a part of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which at the time was a part of the Roman Empire which essentially was the predecessor of todays Germany. Though the funny thing is, some people in Poland believe Breslau was Czech as they seem to not understand that the Kingdom of Bohemia of that time wasn't even considered Czech as it was ruled by the Luxembourgs who at the time served as the Roman Emperors. :nuts:

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ja.centy

· #1,130 · Dec 13, 2012

Dzwonsson said:
Breslau was incorporated into Germany* in 1335 which means the city was considered German for more than 600 years.

*Germany as we know it today didn't quite exist back then, technically Breslau became a part of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which at the time was a part of the Roman Empire which essentially was the predecessor of todays Germany. Though the funny thing is, some people in Poland believe Breslau was Czech as they seem to not understand that the Kingdom of Bohemia of that time wasn't even considered Czech as it was ruled by the Luxembourgs who at the time served as the Roman Emperors. :nuts:

Fantastic analysis.

And what do the Czech people say about your allegation that 'the Kingdom of Bohemia of that time wasn't even considered Czech'?

Jokes aside, German-speaking settlers started arriving in Wrocław/Breslau in larger volumes in XIII century, when the area was suffering from depopulation after the Mongol invasion.

If we treat the Kingdom of Prussia as a predecessor of Germany, Wrocław/Breslau became German in the 1740s, as a result of the 1st Silesian War.

GFM 3D

· #1,131 · Dec 13, 2012

23

Berlin

Bahnhof Friedrichstraße

Garnisonkirche

Berliner Dom, Lustgarten, Schloss, Rathaus

Gertraudenbrücke, Jungfernbrücke

Marienkirche, Sophienkirche

Kaiser-Wilhelm-Brücke, Marienkirche

Graues Kloster / Franziskanerkloster (former monastery of the Order of Friars Minor)

Neuer Markt

Jungfernbrücke

Brandenburg Gate

Potsdamer Platz: Haus Vaterland and Potsdamer Bahnhof

Potsdamer Platz as seen from Palast-Hotel: Leipziger Tor by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Fürstenhof, Potsdamer Bahnhof, Pschorr-Haus, Conditorei Telschow, Weinhaus Huth(?)

Potsdamer Platz: Füstenhof, Potsdamer Bahnhof, Pschorr-Haus, Weinhaus Huth, Vox-Haus, Cafe Josty, Weinhaus Rheingold, Hotel Esplanade, Bellevue, Palast Hotel, Leipziger Tor by Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Reichstag, Pariser Platz, Ministergarten

Alt-Berlin, Nikolaiviertel

Schloßplatz

Waisenbrücke

Grünstraße, Petrikirche

Gertraudenstraße, Petrikirche

Friedrichstraße

Molkenmarkt

Wilhelmplatz: Kaiserhof, Dreifaltigkeitskirche

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Dzwonsson

· #1,132 · Dec 14, 2012

ja.centy said:
Fantastic analysis.

You have clearly no idea what you're talking about. But I'll make my last attempt in order to clarify you some things:

Kingdom of Bohemia was a German state within the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. It was ruled by German nobility, German mercantiles, German clergy and finally by German kings who turned out be German Emperors. It doesn't matter if the majority of the state's population was Czech, there was no Czech national state at the time. Talking about Czech Breslau is even ignorant as talking about Polish Warsaw over the course of the 19th century. While the city's population was predominantly Polish, at the time Warsaw was Russian as it was incorporated into the Russian Empire.

KonstantinasŠirvydas

· #1,133 · Dec 14, 2012

Poles and Germans will never make an agreement because there is different logic in Poles and Germans.
Poles consider Polish the lands, that have or had (nota bene!) majority or significant part of Polish inhabitants. These may be scattered in different countries.
Germans, for example, didn't consider lands, inhabited by Germans, but outside of the STATE, as German lands.
Also there is a tradition in Poles to pray to the lands, what had some Polish population. Something like pilgrimage to the sacred places, worshiping.
At the same time, probably because of the religion, that changed the mentality, Germans rarely go to the trips to the cities in Latvia, Estonia or to Samara.
Once I asked a crowd of German friends something about Koenigsberg and they were like:
What? what is Koenigsberg? Never have we heard about it. Is it somewhere outside the state?
Or probably very few people in Germany have heard something about these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_Germans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transylvanian_Saxons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans
That's the difference. Germans say: state, loyalty, borders of the state are the most important and Poles - ethnicity, tradition, religion is very important.
When both sides understand the logic of other part, they will be able to make quazi-agreement, what is doomed to fail anyway. :lol:

BTW, unbelievably impressive pictures of Berlin, I love! :cheers:

ja.centy

· #1,134 · Dec 14, 2012

Dzwonsson said:
Kingdom of Bohemia was a German state within the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. It was ruled by German nobility, German mercantiles, German clergy and finally by German kings who turned out be German Emperors.

Excuse me, so what about archbishops of Prague in the Bohemian era, were they all German/-ic? What about Bohemian nobility? How about the Charles University in Prague (the oldest one in Central Europe; Jagiellonian University in Kraków was founded 16 years later), which was sectioned into the parts called nations: the Bohemian, Bavarian, Polish and Saxon (no German natio as such)?

Dzwonsson said:
It doesn't matter if the majority of the state's population was Czech, there was no Czech national state at the time.

As far as I know, there had been no nation states until XIX century.

Dzwonsson said:
Talking about Czech Breslau is even ignorant as talking about Polish Warsaw over the course of the 19th century. While the city's population was predominantly Polish, at the time Warsaw was Russian as it was incorporated into the Russian Empire.

Don't get too excited, pal. If you want to focus on the administrative ruler, regardless if the given territory & city had been subject of military invasion or not, then yes, we can say that at some stage Warsaw was Russian, so was Helsinki, Cairo or Calcutta were British, Havana or Mexico were Spanish, etc. But then, in case of Wrocław/Breslau, we should be saying that it was neither Czech nor German, but a Bohemian city.

KonstantinasŠirvydas;98281716 said:
Poles and Germans will never make an agreement because there is different logic in Poles and Germans.

...

When both sides understand the logic of other part, they will be able to make quazi-agreement, what is doomed to fail anyway. :lol:

I find it a bit difficult to follow your rationale (to be able to say if I agree or not), but many thanks for your opinion anyway.

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Dzwonsson

· #1,135 · Dec 14, 2012

^ I assume the emperor Miximilian must have been a medieval troll naming his empire the Holy Roman Empire of the German National while, following your logic, such a nation didn't exist at the time.

I agree though, Breslau was a Bohemian city... within the German ruled Empire as was for example Berlin (do you consider medieval Berlin Czech/Bohemian?). And to make even more fun out of it, again following your logic, I could say there was no Polish Wrocław between 1138 and 1320, as it was ruled by the Silesian monarchy and while Silesia clearly made a part of the strongly divided Duchy of Poland, it was, uhm, Silesian! :lol:

1+1=3

· #1,136 · Dec 14, 2012

Dzwonsson said:
Kingdom of Bohemia was a German state

:lol:

ja.centy

· #1,137 · Dec 14, 2012

Dzwonsson said:
^ I assume the emperor Miximilian must have been a medieval troll naming his empire the Holy Roman Empire of the German National while, following your logic, such a nation didn't exist at the time.

Ok, I'd suggest you to read your previous comment and my response again, in particular:

Dzwonsson said:
Kingdom of Bohemia was a German state within the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. It was ruled by German nobility, German mercantiles, German clergy and finally by German kings who turned out be German Emperors.

ja.centy said:
Excuse me, so what about archbishops of Prague in the Bohemian era, were they all German/-ic? What about Bohemian nobility? How about the Charles University in Prague (...), which was sectioned into the parts called nations: the Bohemian, Bavarian, Polish and Saxon (no German natio as such)?

(1) You did not make any comment on the links I gave (i.e. whether the Bohemian senior clergy and nobility were all German/-ic)...

(2) By nations at a medieval university were meant the regional corporations of students, who 'were all born within the same region, usually spoke the same language, and expected to be ruled by their own familiar law'. Again, after establishment of the Prague university it was sectioned into the four nations: Bohemian, Bavarian, Polish and Saxon.

By the way, as the oldest university in the German-speaking world is considered not the one in Prague, but the University of Vienna (founded in 1365, i.e. one year after the Jagiellonian in Kraków).

(3) You keep telling about German-ness of the Holy Roman Empire, but the Empire's name was changed to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in 1512. As Wikipedia says:

The new title was partly adopted because the Empire had lost most of its Italian and Burgundian (Kingdom of Arles) territories by the late 15th century, but also to emphasize the new importance of the German Imperial Estates in ruling the Empire due to the Imperial Reform. By the late 16th century this title again fell out of fashion, but was occasionally still used in German literature.

(4) Also, the Golden Bull of 1356 set the election system of the Holy Roman Emperor, whereby the emperor now had to be elected voice of the majority and not the consent of all of the seven electors. The electors' sons should know the imperial languages - German, Italian and Czech.

So it seems to me the Holy Roman Empire wasn't that purely German 'PLC', as you are trying to portray here...

Again, I wouldn't mind to listen to the opinion of a Czech forumer in this regard.

Dzwonsson said:
I agree though, Breslau was a Bohemian city... within the German ruled Empire as was for example Berlin (do you consider medieval Berlin Czech/Bohemian?). And to make even more fun out of it, again following your logic, I could say there was no Polish Wrocław between 1138 and 1320, as it was ruled by the Silesian monarchy and while Silesia clearly made a part of the strongly divided Duchy of Poland, it was, uhm, Silesian! :lol:

Well, I'm pleased for having offered you a bit of amusement.

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Pedro Paulo Carreira

· #1,138 · Dec 14, 2012

Beautiful cities before WWII.

Klassiker

· #1,139 · Dec 14, 2012

Breslau Kaiser Strasse and Southwestern part

Does somebody has pictures of magnificent Breslau Gründerzeit Buildings of the Kaiserstrasse or the big round Platz in the Southwestern part of the city in the suburbs? Aerial photography still puzzles me, where Breslau has a very blockedge structure with large inner gardens (like Dresden).

Must have been a wonderful city to live in as pictures on page 6 already showed.

Rocky031

· #1,140 · Dec 14, 2012

I hate you Hitler,so many beautiful buildings lost forever,so many cities devastated..

Berlin was such a grand city,I wish I could go back in time and do something to save the Europe..

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