It takes years to rebuild what war can destroy in seconds. On the other hand, some ruins remain, to serve as a reminder on what we stand to lose if another major conflict will not be averted. In today’s blog are a few historic buildings which suffered greatly in the Second World War, and what they used to be, had war did not happen. John Eilermann
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source: tacdn.com |
PAST stands for Polska Akcyjna Spółka Telefoniczna (Polish Telephone Joint-stock Company), a telephone operator in Poland, operating between the First World War up to the Second World War. During the German occupation, it became the General Government’s regional telephone center, but was soon captured by Polish resistance fighters during the so-called Warsaw Uprising, where it sustained heavy damages. It was recreated after the war, but in a much simpler form. It is the tallest and first skyscraper within the Russian empire of that era. John Eilermann
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source: raxcdn.com |
This historic landmark were built for the German Empire’s Imperial Diet, which utilized the building from 1894 to 1933. In the years preceding the Second World War, a fire gutted the Reichstag on February 27, 1933, which many believed was the handiwork of Adolf Hitler. It sustained further damages during the Second World War, and had to wait for decades until the reunification of East and West Germany, in order to be restored. John Eilermann
Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, Japan
Before that fateful day of August 6, 1945, this historic site used to be an arts and education display hall. It was originally named as Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition, and was renamed twice to Hiroshima Prefectural Products Exhibition Hall (1921), and to Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall (1933). When the allies dropped the atomic bomb, the building found itself in the middle of the explosion. Not all of it was destroyed, however, but remained as it was among the ruins in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. John Eilermann