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Post-war period in Germany

In post-war Germany, life was shaped by hardship, a lack of housing, food shortages, and the immense task of reconstruction.

Germany after the bombing war 1945 Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, Dortmund, Munich, Frankfurt, Bremen - there was hardly a major German city that was not the target of British and American bomber fleets during World War II. The Allies dropped millions of bombs by the end of the war. More than 90% of Cologne's old town was destroyed, as were those of Frankfurt, Darmstadt and other cities. There were an estimated 400 to 500 million cubic meters of rubble throughout Germany, of which about one seventh fell on Berlin.

Germany after the bombing war 1945

Refugees and displaces people 1945 As a result of the Second World War, up to 60 million people in Europe lost their homes, including more than 10 million Germans. Many of them fled west in the last winter of the war from the approaching Red Army, and after the end of the war the displacement of German minorities from Eastern and Central Europe began.

Refugees and displaces people 1945

Start of Nuremberg Trials (20.11.1945) On November 20, 1945, trials for the prosecution of Nazi war crimes began in Nuremberg before an international military tribunal with proceedings against 24 major war criminals. Twelve defendants were sentenced to death and executed on 1 October 1946, including Ribbentrop and Rosenberg. Hermann Göring eludes the executioner by committing suicide. In the following three years, 12 further trials take place before US military courts, against doctors, lawyers, industrialists, SS- and police leaders.

Start of Nuremberg Trials (20.11.1945)

Post war - Every Day life and Reconstruction in Germany Housing shortage, poverty, cold, disease and hunger characterise people's everyday lives after the war. But life must go on: The focus is on the supply of food and heating material and the removal of rubble, and soon the first shops open, and the first trams are running again.

Post war - Every Day life and Reconstruction in Germany

A new political beginning after 1945 Life in the four occupation zones developed differently already in the first years after the end of the war. With the holding of local and regional elections, a federal system was established in the western zones, while a centralist system was created in the Soviet occupation zone, controlled by communist cadres.

A new political beginning after 1945

German Rubble Women - 1945 When the Second World War ended on 8 May 1945, most of the large cities were in ruins, many men had fallen in the war or were still in captivity. And so in the bombed cities many women took part in the clean-up work, the so-called rubble women.

German Rubble Women - 1945

First Care packages for Germany - 1946 On July 15, 1946, the first 35,700 of these shipments arrived aboard a U.S. freighter in Bremen's overseas port for the needy in war-torn Germany. In November 1945, American charities had founded the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe, or C.A.R.E. for short, and launched an unprecedented relief effort. 100 million packages of food, clothing or tools were distributed throughout Europe.

First Care packages for Germany - 1946

Gründung der SED (22.04.1946) On April 22, 1946, the SPD and the KPD merged in the Soviet occupation zone to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Until the fall of communism in 1989/90 and reunification, the SED was the sole governing party of the German Democratic Republic, which was founded in 1949.

Gründung der SED (22.04.1946)

Rising from the rubble

From the 'Trümmerfrauen' to the Berlin Airlift – these images tell the story of rebuilding and hope after devastation.