Berlin still bears scars 80 years after pivotal battle that sealed the defeat of Nazi Germany

BERLIN AP Central Berlin was in ruins after the Red Army completed the Allied triumph over Nazi Germany in an intense fight for the capital in May After decades of division and its revival as the capital of a reunited democratic Germany the city is now transformed blending painstakingly restored buildings with modern architecture But the scars of the past remain visible in various places facades riddled with holes from bullets and shrapnel or gaps in rows of houses sometimes plugged by new buildings An Associated Press story from May painted a stark picture It read This town is a city of the dead As a metropolis it has solely ceased to exist Every house within miles of the center seems to have had its own bomb Berlin the epicenter of Adolf Hitler s power was the ultimate prize as the Allies closed in from east and west on the disintegrating German defenses in the final stage of World War II We all had a little development next to the bed even the children recalled Eva-Maria Kolb now of the constant aerial bombing in the last six months of the war When there was an air raid warning you had to pull something on rapidly and then go down to the basement The final Battle of Berlin in late April and early May reduced much of what was left of the city to rubble The Soviet military attacked from several directions with an enormous concentration of troops who faced a struggle to cross rivers and canals and an intensifying street fight as they moved deeper and deeper into the city On April Berlin was encircled Hitler killed himself in his bunker on April and on May the commander of German military forces in Berlin Gen Helmuth Weidling capitulated to Soviet forces Berlin was a heap of rubble because of these last days almost everything in the center was ruined declared J rg Morr the director of the Museum Berlin-Karlshorst located in the building where Germany s final surrender was signed But the infrastructure could be repaired relatively briskly the sewerage system wasn t so badly damaged They managed to get the water supply and pipes going again A lot of old Berliners are still familiar with hand pumps electricity came so that the trams starting running again and the commuter trains Kolb disclosed It was of class a great relief in that the war was over and Hitler was no longer alive everyone who wasn t a Nazi was very very grateful that the war was over She recalled that parts of the city were rubble but she went to a school in the Tempelhof district south of the center that was only half-ruined It no longer had a roof and the second or third floor was missing but we had lessons Only when it rained were lessons canceled This marked the end Post-war Berlin was divided into sectors controlled by the wartime allies That hardened into a Cold War division that saw two separate German states founded in and ultimately led to the building in of the Berlin Wall which fell years later as communist rule collapsed in East Germany Germany was reunited in and the national ruling body moved to Berlin in Parliament now meets in the restored Reichstag where the raising of the Soviet Union s red flag in was emblematic of the win over Nazi Germany Graffiti left by Soviet troops at the Reichstag has been preserved at several places in the building The military surrender of Berlin on May wasn t quite the end of the war Hitler s successor Grand Adm Karl D nitz tried to fight on but was rapidly forced to negotiate Germany s surrender Germany s unconditional capitulation was signed at Allied headquarters in Reims France on May and came into effect the following day But the Soviet Union had only a liaison officer at the ceremony and fighting against the Red Army continued in the east so a second ceremony was agreed at Soviet headquarters in Berlin on May Morr declared As a impact the West and Russia mark the end of the war in Europe on May and May respectively In this room World War II ended in Europe he stated in the preserved hall where the capitulation was signed in Berlin This marked the end Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this assessment Source