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If anyone wants some haunting footage: Berlin, Pre-War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-m9A8mY-U0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-m9A8mY-U0 It's bizarre

• Spooky23 12y ago
  I always find early video like the first one kind of sad -- you know that everyone you see and most of their children are dead. It's doubly sad here in that most male children pictured here were of military age in 1914, and were likely cut down in the slaughter.
  • frozenport 12y ago
    Don't worry a few of them grew up to join the NSDAP and do it all over again!
    • simonh 12y ago
      I was going to vote this comment down, but stopped myself and reconsidered. The thing is, it's actually true and is important context. Sentiment is all well and good, but wars are started by people making a choice. They aren't natural disasters we have no control over or responsibility for.
      • tormeh 12y ago
        You have to remember what kind of society Germany was. It was very disciplined and Japan-y. It's not that Germans were specially inclined to be Nazis, but they were specially inclined to follow crazy orders. It was the inheritance from Prussia. Japan was, of course, even worse. When you visit the two countries you can still notice it. Germany is mostly rid of it except an excruciating attention to detail, bureaucracy and status. Japan is more recognizably hierarchical and disciplined. Be wary of people who are patriotic and proud of following orders.
        • simonh 12y ago
          Oh yes, for sure. The reason I initially was going to vote the comment down was because I percieved it as casting blame, on children no less. Even so, the comment is still basically true. Europe of that time was a very different place, where wanting to grow up to be a soldier and go and fight and kill fellow Europeans was a laudable ambition, not just in Germany. It doesn't make the loss of life any less tragic, but it's also important not to over-sentimentalise things because that can blind you to the stark realities. I think all of Europe learned some valuable lessons from WW2. I hope Japan did too. Overall I'm very proud of my nation's role in history, as a Brit, but we perpetrated enough massacres and precipitated enough famines that it's tinged with a realisation that my heritage carries a fair few obligations with it as well.
        • JoeAltmaier 12y ago
          At the WWI memorial they provide some insight into the prevailing mindset of that age. 40 years before WWII, Darwin published his famous work. It got applied to everything, including nations. The Chancellor of Germany was certain that war was normal competition between states, that only the fit would survive, and that Germany was thus destined to rule the world.
        • hnnewguy 12y ago
          >they were specially inclined to follow crazy orders. This sounds more like post-hoc justification for war. It isn't exactly novel to paint the enemy as "not like us" or as having that one trait that happens to make them a dangerous people.
      • yodsanklai 12y ago
        > They aren't natural disasters we have no control over or responsibility for. I have an opposite point of view. There's something about human dynamics we're unable to control.
• _nedR 12y ago
  Another similar tragedy has been unfolding in Syria as we speak : http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/26/syria-heritage-in-ruins-before-and-after-pictures http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/26/syria-heritage-... The 11th century Umayyad mosque is mostly destroyed. The state of the Crusader castle Krak des Chevaliers (one of the finest examples in the world) is currently unknown : http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26696113 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26696113 People forget the rich heritage of Syria from various ages going back through the Crusades, the Islamic Golden age, all the way to Mesopotamia and the cradle of civilization. The destructiveness of modern technology is erasing it all in one fell swoop.
  • omegaworks 12y ago
    >The destructiveness of modern technology is erasing it all in one fell swoop. The destructiveness of global political, territorial and resource disputes endemic to the area is erasing it all again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh41Wxez9PE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh41Wxez9PE
    • _nedR 12y ago
      Sorry. I should have been clearer. What I meant was that the effectiveness of modern weaponry, was destroying these monuments which have survived countless wars in the past.
  • kenver 12y ago
    I was fortunate enough to go there as a tourist about a year before everything started getting blown up. It was a beautiful place with some of the most amazing heritage anywhere in the world. It's really hard to do it justice with words, but there was something very magical about the place. I still consider it to be the best place I've ever been to. Here are a few images I took while I was there. I have hundreds of photos, of places that probably no longer exist or are severely damaged. There is a particularly memorable photo there (to me) of some kids who were running around a mosque in Aleppo. Just behind the citadel in Aleppo was the souk which I think is also completely destroyed now. I remember having a conversation with a teenage boy there who was selling some soap (trying to rip me off!) that Aleppo was/is famous for. http://imgur.com/a/gkqlj#0 http://imgur.com/a/gkqlj#0
• more_original 12y ago
  > Berlin, Pre-War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-m9A8mY-U0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-m9A8mY-U0 Some scenes are also from Munich. Around 3:00 you can see Odeonsplatz, for example. It pretty much looks the same today ;).