San Francisco — Interestingly enough, Google Earth is a great tool to explore places around the globe you may not be able to get to otherwise. But it does not ends just there, it takes you back in time. Google Earth has now made available historical aerial images taken during the Second World War depicting the extent of the devastation in several European Cities caused by bombing raids during World War II.
The Google Earth mapping software has been uploaded with the wartime images from 35 European cities and towns such as Berlin, Bordeaux, Hamburg, Cologne and Dresden, showing the effect of the extensive bombing campaigns on the old continent. These images clearly display the destruction of allied bombing raids, then offers current satellite photos for comparison.
In announcing the feature, Ed Parsons, Google’s Geospatial Technologist, said, “Many of us have heard stories, read books and watched films which show the many impacts of WWII across the world. Now we are offering you another way to understand this period in time — by exploring a new set of historical aerial images, taken over European cities during World War II. We hope that this World War II imagery will enable all of us to understand our shared history in a new way and to learn more about the impact of the war on the development of our cities.”
If you wish to see the most extraordinary difference, you can see the historic photos of Warsaw from 1935 and 145 to the present day. The firs images exhibits the heavy devastation caused to the Polish capital during the war, along with the city’s infamous thriving Jewish ghetto entirely intact — the largest in Nazi-occupied Europe. The pictures near the end of the war depict the heavy damage to the Polish capital, which had to be extensively rebuilt.
The images above show the same time sequence for Warsaw’s Old Town at top and Warsaw University.
“Images taken during reconnaissance mission in 1943 demonstrates the effect of wartime bombing on more than 35 European towns and cities. Imagery for Warsaw, which was heavily destroyed at the time, is available from both years 1935 and 1945,” Laura Scott from Google Europe wrote.
The viewers can easily move back and forth in time, with the help of a slider bar at top of the screen. Comparing photos such as those above Warsaw before the war, immediately after the war and today really brings to life the incredible destruction and amazing recovery of bombed European cities.
To trace an example, users can track the post-war reconstruction of Warsaw’s historic center in Poland within a span of history covering the 13th to the 20th century is particularly compelling.
The city, a UNESCO World Heritage site was amongst those most badly destroyed in the war.
“They inform us all of the devastating impact of war on the people in those cities and also the remarkable way in which urban environments are reconstructed and regenerated over time,” said Google’s Parsons.
“Applications like Google Earth should be used during lessons in primary and secondary schools to increase students’ awareness in history,” said Jan Oldakowski, director of the Warsaw Rising Museum.
Around three dozen cities have images available from 1943 in Google Earth’s historical imagery data bank that includes the German city of Stuttgart, hit by more than 50 air raids during the war; the devastated Italian city of Naples; and Lyons, France, in a region that was a center of the resistance movement against the Nazi occupation.
The photos were taken by Royal Air Force and U.S. Air Force pilots during the war and show the locations before and after bombing. The aerial perspective highlights the extent of the demolition. Many had to be reconstructed from damaged originals, according to Google.
To see the pictures, download Google Earth and click the clock icon in the upper status bar.