Flying over the ruins of Berlin in 1945 (in color), Part 1

The Allied air raids on Berlin in World War II were flown by British, American and some French bombers, also there were some Soviet air raids on Berlin. Overall, there were 310 air raids on Berlin.
The first air raid took place in the night of 7th on the 8th June 1940. Given the experience of the First World War, the fear of an attack with chemical weapons was still high and the population was asked during the air raids to wear respirators because they feared the use of gas bombs. On the same night, an industrial district was attacked by a French aircraft.
On 25 August, the Royal Air Force attacked for the first time in Berlin. One day before, the German Air Force had for the first time dropped bombs on London during the Battle of Britain. The British had by then deliberately not attacked Berlin, on the one hand, for fear of a German counter-attack against London, on the other hand because of the large distance of Berlin from the British Isles and the strong air defense.

Medium attacks continued until the end of 1941, when, after a particularly costly attack on 7/8 November (21 of 169 aircraft were lost) a strategic rethinking began. The British focused from now on lighter targets such as the Ruhr.

From the 16th January 1943 to 30 March 1943 the Tempelhof district, the Deutschlandhalle, St. Hedwig's Cathedral, the great auditorium of the Pharmaceutical Institute of the University of Berlin, the German Opera House in Bismarck Street, the Theater am Kurfürstendamm and the comedy were destroyed. Moreover, 600 major fires caused damages to 20,000 houses, entire neighborhoods were partially destroyed. Several hundred people died.

From 2 to 26 November 1943, entire neighborhoods were destroyed, as well as the main building of the Technical University of Berlin, many buildings of the institute in the area, the Zoological Garden Berlin, the School of Engineering Beuth in Berlin-Wedding, the head office of the Berlin Transport Services in Köthen (Berlin - Kreuzberg), the Chemical Institute of the Agricultural College of Berlin, the Haus der Berliner Burschenschaft Arminia, the office of the German Pharmaceutical society and the Holy Trinity Church (at the corner Mauserstrasse / Kanonierstrasse - today: Glinka street in Berlin-Mitte), as well as the KaDeWe in the Tauentzienstraße (Berlin- Schöneberg) and the transmitter of the TV broadcasting station Paul Nipkow. During this period, nearly a thousand people died.
In December 1943, the hotel Fürstenhof, parts of the S-Bahn on Sundgauer Strasse Station, parts of the St. Bernhard church in Berlin-Dahlem, the Berlin-Lichtenrade parish school, the building of the Berlin University and the village church Lichtenrade were destroyed by fire and bombs. In addition, there was extensive damage to many homes.

In the evening hours of 27 January the British Royal Air Force attacked Berlin with 481 bombers. They threw 1,761 tons of bombs on the city, while 33 aircrafts were lost. According to the report of the High Command of the Wehrmacht especially densely populated residential areas and cultural sites had been destroyed by mines, explosive-, incendiary and phosphorus bombs.

As of April 1944, the German fuel production were attacked by the Americans to reduce the supply of aircraft and tanks. On 3 February 1945 Berlin was attacked by 958 U.S. bombers of which 939 came through the German defense line.
On 26 February 1945 1,184 U.S. aircraft reached Berlin and threw 1628.7 tons of explosive bombs and 1258 tons of incendiary bombs.
On 18 March 1945, a Sunday, began shortly after 11 in the morning the largest air raid on Berlin. 916 B-24 and 305 B-17s of the 8th U.S. Air Force, accompanied by 632 fighters, dropped more than 4,000 tons of bombs. This mainly affected the government district and the area around the Schlesischer Bahnhof.
Berlin was the German city with the most air attacks. Nevertheless, the number of casualties remained lower than for example in Hamburg. The author Jörg Friedrich mentions in his book a total of 11,367 deaths. In Berlin (unlike in other German cities with denser buildings or in valleys such Wuppertal or Stuttgart) no firestorm had occured.

Text translated from Wikipedia: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftangr...