Danzig before the bombs fell

This recent book presents a collection of aerial photos taken over Danzig during the interwar period.  After WW1, Danzig (Polish: Gdansk, French: Dantzig) was declared a "Free City" under League of Nations control, something which later annyoyed Hitler as most of the population was German and as from the beginning of September 1939 he made it part of Germany.  At the end of the war it went the way of most German cities: smashed to rubble by bombs and shells.

This book, published in Poland but with German text, contains a collection of over 113 well reproduced big aerial photos over the city and its surrounds which show what it used to be like. After WW2 the Poles restored important parts of the city and in walking around it you can still get a good feel for its historic character: a much nicer city than you would expect from all the pictures of Solidarity shipyards screened during the 1980s. But not all of it was restored, thus this book provides an important historic record. Large format, hardcover. with jacket.