The restoration of Polish cities from WW2 destruction

where do you live actually?

Thats a lie i'm sorry, people needed homes , nobody "forfeited" them.


Not a single town was destroyed by Poles.


You're an idiot none of cities you listed lost their old town, not even partially.


And these actually did lose their old towns and more so you can stop talking now.

Omitted ones I won't comment about and I left just Wroclaw.
In short, in regards to that city, you have no idea what you are talking about.
Google Festung Breslau.

I am afraid it is not true.

Lost pawian? Last i checked to lose an old town is to have it nuked like Warsaw.

Why? Klotzkos old town was partly destroyed between 1959 and 1970 due to subsidence damages, which the new owners of the town didn't correct at an early stage.


Then Poles historians lie, since my Polish source mentions Legnica and Lwówek Śląski. And btw., all Communist regimes prefered to built precast concrete slabs to counter the housing shortage, since it was much cheaper than preserving historic town centers.


So, you think the old town of Jelenia Gora always looked like this:

Because, earlier the town looked like this:

Strange, isn't it? But since you ignored the pictures of Legnica too I think you don't want to know the truth but prefer to believe in your little fairy tale.

Oh, and thank you for calling me an idiot, you uninformed *]/%°>.


As I previously said, not everything can be explained by the war. During the early 50s Wrocław delivered up to 165 million bricks to Warsaw... each year. The whole eastern part of the old town, which was partly rebuildable, was sacrificed for it. Usually people like you have no clue how big the old town of Wrocław actually was.

But Wrocław is a completely different case anyway, since it was the main stage of the Communist propaganda efforts.


That's all I want to say here... ;)

Strange. Słupsk is my home town, I spent most of my life there, and I've never heard about
Polish units destroying the city. Słupsk was taken by Soviets at the beginning of March 1945
and Soviets ruled the city until August 1945.

So, the lands came under Polish administration, as late as August, and by then it was already
known that Słupsk will be a Polish city, so I can't see why LWP would want to raze it.

Ever since I remember we were taught that those were Soviet units who destroyed the city centre,
and nobody ever mentioned Polish involvment. Oh, well - I'm going to have to ask local historians about it.

I know it is. It's entirely possible that the people who told me were completely wrong, two drunkish guys in a bar are not generally regarded as the most reliable of sources when it comes to history.


Do feel free to go tell that to the guys who told me. You may wish to note that I have not ascribed it to Poles, I said that I've heard Poles doing so.


Torq, it that first building still a school? I'm pretty sure I taught a few lessons there years ago.

I asked because originally I thought you were Polish, and then you jump up with Klotzko :) now I am not that surprised you couldn't read a forum discussion in Polish (I mostly can't read forums in German so you are excused)

as for destroying German cultural objects say monuments - hmm I'm pretty curious how do you imagine Polish population walking past all those Frederick the Greats, Keiser Wilhelms and Hindenburgs on a daily basis in the post war years

as for the cemeteries - various cemeteries had various stories - some still do exist (there is a big old evangelical cemetery in Opole for example, Wrocław Jewish cemetery has been left intact too (maybe because it was Jewish - it is a museum now AFAIK))

it is true you won't find too many German graves - i know cemeteries not in use anymore where the monuments/graves were razed -

some German cemeteries have been 'recycled' in a way (however nasty it may sound to you) like the big cemeteries in Wrocław - I don't know if they were emptied of German monuments before they started to fill with Polish graves (graves on big cemetries in big cities are 'cleared' anyway after 25 years in Poland to give place to new burials (unless you pay a considerable fee to let them stay longer)

That building is starostwo powiatowe, but right next to it, in Szarych Szeregów street, is an old
highschool, and that's probably the school you're talking about.

Głogów, Poland City

The town was made into a stronghold by the Nazi government in 1945 during World War II. Glogau was besieged for six weeks by the Soviet Red Army and was 95% destroyed. After the Yalta Conference, the city, like the majority of Lower Silesia, was given to Poland and German-speaking inhabitants were expelled. In May 1945 the first Polish settlers came to the renamed city of Głogów to find only ruins; the town has not been fully rebuilt to this day. The town started to develop again only in 1967, after a copper foundry was built there.

Glogow, Poland - Before WW2



Glogow, Poland - After WW2

Communist times in Poland

Democracy in Poland:

Symbolic views in Poland:

Pawian - Poland was left alone to fight Germany and Russia - while the world watched. After the war Poland was sold off to the communist scum. Most of the country was destroyed in the battles between Germany Russia and Poland.

After the war - Poland was left alone to rebuild.

Poland can rebuild it's cities and towns HOWEVER the F**ck she wants to because they are Polish. Poland has worked miracles to rebuild what it can with the communist scum trying very hard to screw it up.

Germany and England did not reconstruct their historical centres.

If anyone tells you that they have not rebuilt properly - F**k them. It's none of their business.

Interesting.

Even Coventry wasn`t reconstructed?

Itr seems it wasn`t.

Following the raids, the majority of Coventry's historic buildings could not be saved as they were in ruinous states or were deemed unsafe for any future use, although several were later demolished simply to make way for modern developments which saw the city centre's buildings and road infrastructure almost completely altered by 1970.

Interesting how the same old whine about communism comes back like a bad penny from people seemingly oblivious to the fact that the international movement in architecture and post-war housing needs were much the same regardless of the politics of the country.

People can get sniffy about high rise buildings, but unlike the pre-war homes they replaced, they were warm, dry, and clean.

Those are fabulous places. Thanks for the share.:)

Some places haven`t been reconstructed properly and will never be.

Malbork, a town in northern Poland, whose 80% was destroyed during WW2, was destroyed one more time by Polish communists with ugly socialist buildings.

The Old Town in the past







Today



Malbork

Pity.

And yet the castle was hugely restored after being hammered by bombs. Strange, you'd have thought a monument to German Teutonic might would have been dismantled.

Fortunately, despite WW2 massacres of Polish intelligentsia by Nazis and Soviets, after the war there were still intelligent people who understood the value of ex-German heritage and they negotiated the restoration with communists, often successfully.

Fortunate indeed :-)

Yeap. And many intelligent communists agreed with architects that some non-Polish things had to be rebuilt. :):):):)


50% destruction

Great pictures. Thanks.

If you really want to see more restoration/renovation going on in the castle, check this site: skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=367241

Poland restoration

As much as I despise communism, I have to defend the bastards in this case. Destruction of fixed assets in Poland at the end of WW2 was so terrible that millions of people had to be quickly housed somewhere, so visual quality of the buildings was obviously not the top priority. Even If Poland had been a democratic/free market country after WW2, we wouldn't have avoided "ugly" public housing projects.

As for germanic whinning present in this thread, It's not really surprising that German monuments were taken down, too bad they were often replaced with Lenins and similar disgusting crap, however that was quickly "fixed" after 89... Deliberate destruction of historical German buildings/old towns ? I really doubt it happened, renovation of damaged historical buildings is much more complicated than razing them down and building new ones instead, so in many cases it happened simply because there were crowds of people without roof over their heads, not because they were "German" buildings. Additionally, what can be seen now as "historical", worth preserving etc. was not always the same in those times, buildings from late 1800's were not that much historical in late 40's.

Unfortunately Poland would have, i see it first hand every day.
The preferred architecture was of course the same, but while West Berlin favored restoring or even rebuilding buildings the eastern part tore a lot down and build a lot of those efficient and cheap but ugly Plattenbauten.

Not saying West Germany doesnt have them, but by far not to the extent of Eastern Germany.

You are probably right. The needs were gigantic, the resources very scarce. Poland didn`t receive aid from the Marshall Plan.


True. Warsaw was raized to the ground in 70%. Communists built new houses according to Soviet pompous architectural style but at least those houses had all facilities.

Before the war



Today:

Obviously they weren't going to build everything as it was: nor would it have been desirable to do so. In almost every case, what came after was better than what existed before, and a thousand times better than some of the rural homes that people came to the cities from.

You mean facilities, not appearance, of course. As for external looks, that Soviet Stalinist style is revolting.

That depends. Not everyone lived in a Secessionist kamienica or an Eighteenth century Dwór and I have something of an aversion to single story cottages with outside toilets or crowded tenements with the loo on the landing and damp rising up the walls.

The Socialist Realist style of architecture has a lot of charm. The MDM development in the last picture you showed was based as much on Paris as Moscow and prices of apartments there are consistently high.

OK, I see your point now.

Merged: Restoration & Reconstruction,criterias,stratagies&principles for polish cities after WW2

Hello everyone......
i'm an architect doing master of rehabilitation of historical cities,and doing research about the the thread title......
and the thread which was posted by PAWIAN..about the polish cities restoration from WW2....is amazing and i tried to send him an email but thanks to the stuppied programing of this fourm i was forced to have two threads at least.....

so plz if any one can help me with the criterias or principles which was used in the reconstruction and restoration processes after the ww2,i would be thankful.....

i'm From Syria....and most my country cities are badly destroied....and i set up my mind to do a research about the stratagies which may needed to reconstruct the syrian cities in the light of the remarkable experiances of the europian cities and Poland is one of them....

so plz if anyone can offer me some help.contact me on facebook:fadi alexender
or skype:fadi.belouni

and thanks in advance...
bye
((pawian i'm waiting your add,and everyone who's interested))