rebuilding Goethehaus Frankfurt post-WW2

Model of the Goethe House before the renovation in 1775Frankfurt was hit by a very large air raids of WW2 in March 1944. Av­oid­ing German anti-aircraft defences, 816 British planes dr­op­ped thousands of heavy bombs and 1.2 million incendiary dev­ices. Al­tst­adt-Old Town particularly suffered when the entire quarter was dest­roy­ed down to rubble.bombed out Al­tst­adt Frankfurt, 1944Creating the most pain was an elegant 5-storey building that had been the cradle of German culture, home of Jo­hann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). Goethe had recalled it was to Goethehaus that he owed his lit­er­ary passion, where he’d learn­ed to love Italy, antiq­uity and nat­ure; where he wrote some of his most famous works including Faust.This house had been bombed in 1943 by the British but the blaze was contained. Luckily prisoners of war ensured a temporary roof protecting the house. The next British bomb in 1944 was much wor­­se when nothing was left ex­cept the cellar, foundations and one…