Panorama of the Old Town from the Laufer Schlagturm

This postwar panorama is
composed of sixteen 35-mm color slides, all taken from the Laufer Schlagturm
tower in July 1956.  They provide an
impressive pictorial documentation of the destruction of the Old Town in World
War II and its rebuilding during the 1950s.

From the Castle, which
appears above the scaffolded Egidienkirche, the gaze is drawn to the
Willstätter-Gymnasium at the lower edge of the picture, its modern
atrium-centered structure almost complete. The overgrown wasteland between the
buildings still gives an idea of why this part of the Old Town was nicknamed
the "Sebald Steppe" in the postwar years. In the air raid on January
2, 1945, Allied bombers destroyed 90 percent of the city center; the district
northeast of the Pegnitz was leveled. Once the rubble and ruins had been cleared
away, the area formed a single, virtually empty space that was gradually
overgrown with "pioneer" vegetation. The many construction sites bear
witness to the rapid advance of the reconstruction work that began in 1952. A
major priority here was to preserve the general appearance from the prewar era,
and an extensive attempt was made to maintain the historic street layout and
the old building proportions and roof lines. By 1960, residential construction
in the Sebalder Altstadt district was largely complete.