Destruction in Germany (post) World War 1

by Its_Mart

To what extent was the German landscape affected by war destruction? I'm aware of the destruction of World War 2 in Germany, but I never really heard about that kind of stuff in the WW1 / Interbellum context.

Bonnieprince

The war only really impacted German land during the start of the war in the East when the Russians marched into East Prussia in 1914. As with any army damage was done by the incursion, but as front lines never set in the east at this stage, and they were quickly thrown out of German land after the destruction of their invading armies at the Battle of Tannenburg, destruction that you’d see in trench warfare wasn’t present.

In the West almost no action took place on German land as the frontlines got set within France after the Germans initial push ground to a halt, effectively meaning the destruction of towns and countryside was confined to France (and Belgium) as that’s where the trench lines ended up. Germany surrendered without the Entente ever pushing then fully out of France or even entering Germany fully (a large part of the surrender was as they knew this was imminent and wanted to stop the potential destruction this would cause).