Title: How Did Germany Rebuild After World War II? - The Aleppo Project
Headings: How Did Germany Rebuild After World War II?
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How Did Germany Rebuild After World War II?
What was the impact on planning on reconstruction in Germany?
When did thinking about reconstruction start in Germany?
What were the implications of local management?
How did German’s clear the rubble from their cities so effectively?
How was Berlin rebuilt after the war?
How did Germany deal with buildings with histories of terror and violence?

Content: Contractors who had been building roads in occupied areas returned from those places and started doing rubble clearance after the war. In many cases, towns took them up on this as they had the heavy equipment and the skills. But, in many cases there were objections to Nazi-linked companies coming in and doing clearance. In many badly damaged cities such as Berlin and Hamburg, people collected bricks and stones to be reused but they lacked the skilled labour to rebuild. In East Germany they mostly said it was pointless trying to rebuild with old materials and therefore moved to modern materials like pre-cast concrete. The lack of skilled workers really shaped the reconstruction process. The Bauhaus (the modernist design school in Dessau, closed under the Nazis) was also very influential in calling for the use of new materials. The issue of labour shortages is a potential problem in Aleppo—will they be able to find enough skilled workers to repair buildings or will they have to say that something has been too damaged and will have to be forgotten about? How was Berlin rebuilt after the war? Berlin is physically a very large city and there were people who after the war just said let’s continue to modernise.