Kassel III

But hold it, before go on ranting about a city form that can only accommodate Nandos restaurants, I've got to realize it's our fault. As late as 8th March 1945, with a month to go before the very end, the RAF sent 176 bombers to blitz Kassel, and they'd already done it plenty of times already. On 3rd Oct 1943 they sent 547 aircraft and on the 22nd Oct 1943 569 for instance. The bombing decimated the population from 230,000 to 28,000 people.

London, with it's insistent Dickensian quality, may have been blitzed but hardly with the intensity of what happened here. And what happened here afterwards, rather low key application of modernist principles of town planning across a green slate, represents just how poor that methodology really was. If you want to eat anything here, you will paradoxically only find it in the restored remains of something or other, where you might find some kind of ambiance. I mean the Germans don't do Las Vegas, they seemingly can't turn a dumb shed into a fantastic eating experience, I guess a certain dourness forbids it. However, I'd be dour if I had that many British high explosives, fire bombs and so on dropped on my head.