[WW2]The German Flak Towers

[Sea Skimmer]

One flak tower is actually responsible for pretty much singehandedly rescuing the entire contents of the Pergamon museum and other collections. It saved the vast majority of all the ancient artifacts that were stored in Berlin.

Due to the Nazis trying to insist the war was going well they didn’t go nearly as far as some other European powers did to remove artifacts to safety, Britain moved stuff from London to Scotland for example, until after several Berlin museums were hit in air raids. A fair bit of stuff was destroyed by fire in 1943 when the raids on Berlin became heavy for the first time. That’s probably why the stuff was hastily thrown inside valuable flak tower shelter space instead of being removed to the countryside as would make sense given the time and labor, and a not disrupted railway system to do it. It is impressive what was done to protect some European statues that couldn't easily be moved though, like sandbag piles several stories tall around this statue of King Charles I in Trafalgar square.

Parts. There are still tons of stuff that is missing and the Russian claims they do not have it, despite the inventory lists showing they clearly do.

I do believe it is illegal in Russia to return anything to Germany not already returned; I doubt that will change anytime soon. They also may simply have misplaced some of that stuff in the depths of Siberia and would rather not admit it.

[Thanas]

Due to the Nazis trying to insist the war was going well they didn’t go nearly as far as some other European powers did to remove artifacts to safety, Britain moved stuff from London to Scotland for example, until after several Berlin museums were hit in air raids. A fair bit of stuff was destroyed by fire in 1943 when the raids on Berlin became heavy for the first time. That’s probably why the stuff was hastily thrown inside valuable flak tower shelter space instead of being removed to the countryside as would make sense given the time and labor, and a not disrupted railway system to do it. It is impressive what was done to protect some European statues that couldn't easily be moved though, like sandbag piles several stories tall around this statue of King Charles I in Trafalgar square.

Yeah, tell me about it. Like nearly everything the Nazis did, it was not a perfect or even particularly good system. The preservation of culture was jumpstarted after the destruction of Hamburg though and generally, it managed to save most of the valuable artifacts.

I do believe it is illegal in Russia to return anything to Germany not already returned; I doubt that will change anytime soon.

Yes. Sadly, a lot of bad blood over this. To be honest, I do not care that much if it is now on display in Russia or Germany, but what matters to me is that this stuff is currently inaccessible to historians and may have already (or currently is) taking irreperable damage due to improper storage.

They also may simply have misplaced some of that stuff in the depths of Siberia and would rather not admit it.

No, that is not my belief. The Soviets organized this one loot very carefully and relegated a lot of resources to it - unlike with others. Summary. Of course, the matter is how much current Russia has to devote to opening stuff or not...but still, the scale is staggering. Link.

[ComradeClaus]

I was wondering about the value of flakturm for awhile too. (the open-topped gun positions seemed pretty risky)

How effective were the guns exactly? Aside from the 128, there were several types of 88 (L/56, L/71) too. Like, avg # of shells per gun to destroy a bomber, amount of metal to make those shells, amount of explosive & amount of powder to propel the shells? Did anyone ever calculate this during the war? Would the guns (& flak personnel) have been more valuable on the front?

And what would've been the most efficient layout of a heavy flak unit for targeting heavy bonber formations, like in numbers of guns for a given city & the configuration of them (square? cross? swastika?).

Also, despite the considerable number of air raid shelters built, the civillian casualties were staggering nonetheless. How come? Some of the things I read by Kurt Vonnegut about his experience in Dresden were unearthly & nightmarish.

Also, how would the flakturm have fared if the RAF decided to throw Grand Slams at them?

On a side note, would using the resources developing & building the V-2 (~5-6,000 built) have been more productive developing & fielding AA rockets? (wire-guided? ceiling ~40K feet) Being more likely to hit & destroy bombers than aa shells might have saved resources for dealing w/ soviet T-34 hordes?

Edit: I saw the date of the last post & noticed that this is probably a necro. I hope the questions in it are meaningful. (moreso than discussions about paintings & amber)

[Thanas]

Edit: I saw the date of the last post & noticed that this is probably a necro. I hope the questions in it are meaningful. (moreso than discussions about paintings & amber)

You got a lot of gall first necroing this thread, then flaming a forum moderator while being an acknowledged liar and poser.

Use the search function, everything you ask (most likely fishing) has been covered already in past threads.