World War II

Wissant, a seaside resort between the rocky capes of Cap Gris-Nez and Cap Blanc-Nez, has been inundated with tourists since the late nineteenth century. The dunes teem with holiday homes and villas in Art Deco style, such as Villa Le Typhonium. However, during the Second World War, sun worshippers were not welcome at the beach of Wissant.

In Karlshorst, deep in the east of Berlin, the signing of the capitulation by Germany meant the end of the Second World War.

In 1937, architect Albert Speer unveiled his plans for converting Berlin into Welthauptstadt Germania. In his imagination, the new Berlin was teeming with ostentatious monuments that kept pace with the megalomania of the Third Reich.

In the summer of 1945, only a few months after the Third Reich was removed from power, the Soviet government erected the Panzerdenkmal (German for 'Tank memorial') near the AVUS highway.

The residents of the German village of Wünsdorf saw many neighbors coming and going during the Second World War when the army quickly built bunkers to hide the German Army High Command.

From 1928 until the end of World War II, the German army, hidden deep in a remote corner of the country, tested aircraft, water, and amphibious vehicles.

During the Second World War, the German Air Force developed an unmanned flying bomb, the V1 (Vergeltungswaffe).

A 5-meter-thick concrete dome protects the underground complex dug out by forced laborers in 1943 for the storage and launch of German V2 rockets.

In every district of Berlin, you will still come across Russian memorials for the soldiers of the Red Army who died in the Second World War.