old days in Kolberg

Strandschloss (beach palace) and Rosengarten (rose garden)

 

 

Nowadays called Kolobrzeg in Poland, the Ostsee or Baltic Sea port of Kolberg before 1945 was part of German Pommern (Pomerania).  At the time of these pictures around 1900, the population was put at 20,000; this doubled by the outbreak of WW2.  At the end of 1944 an expensively produced (in colour) German movie Kolberg was made based on the siege of the town by Napoleon in 1807, intended to inspire the Germans to resist the Russians.  In March 1945 the town did but about 80% of it was destroyed during the fighting, followed by the German population fleeing or being expelled.  Today Kolobrzeg is a popular tourist destination once again, but only a minority of the pre-WW2 buildings remain. Multilingual website

The main railway station survived WW2, as did the Post Office.