Berlin was one of the most heavily bombed cities of World War II. Over the course of the war, it endured 363 separate air strikes. British bombers alone dropped 45,517 tons of bombs on the city. American aircraft added another 23,000 tons. The death toll from these raids is estimated between 20,000 and 50,000 people. On top of Allied bombing, Soviet aircraft — especially in 1945 — targeted Berlin as Red Army forces closed in from the east.
Early in the war, U.S., French, and British forces limited their air raids to military targets — ports, railways, and other infrastructure with direct battlefield value. That policy did not hold. As the war dragged on, the strategy shifted, and bombing campaigns were expanded to include housing and civilian infrastructure across the city.
The destruction left behind was massive. Entire city blocks were leveled. Streets that had stood for generations were reduced to rubble and ash. Berlin had to be almost entirely rebuilt after the war ended in 1945.
Photographer Sergey Larenkov set out to show just how much — and how little — had changed. He spent time researching footage and photographs held in war archives, selecting images that captured specific, identifiable locations across Berlin.
For each wartime photo he chose, Larenkov tracked down the exact spot where the original camera had been positioned. He matched the angle, the height, and the framing as precisely as possible. Then he photographed that same location as it looks today.
The final step was combining the two images into a single frame — wartime Berlin and modern Berlin occupying the same photograph at the same time. The results are striking. Soldiers and rubble share the frame with pedestrians and rebuilt facades.
