Two major disasters dominate the history of Hamburg and have caused the most profound changes to the city's landscape: the Great Fire of 1842 and the Allied bombing raids of July 1943, which have been indelibly etched into the city's memory under their biblical codename "Operation Gomorrah." About a third of all buildings in the city were destroyed, tens of thousands of Hamburg residents lost their lives, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless due to the devastation. Through the eyes of six prominent city photographers and a recently rediscovered Hamburg photographer, this illustrated book showcases the National Socialist prehistory and the traumatic aftermath of this epochal event in Hamburg's history between 1939 and 1949 - from the year the Second World War began to the founding year of the Federal Republic.