American soldiers relax in front of the Excelsior Hotel Ernst in Allied occupied Cologne near the Cologne Cathedral. One soldier plays the accordion as another stands watching appreciatively. The city suffered massive damage beginning in 1940, with the Allies bombing it in 262 separate air raids, destroying over 95% of the city center by the war’s end. By the time the First United States Army took Cologne in early March 1945, the population of the city had been reduced by 95%; mainly due to a massive evacuation of the civilian population to rural areas. Cologne, Rhine Province (now, part of North Rhine-Westphalia), Germany.
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