Fall of Hitler's Capital

Fortunately, Museum staff had started in 1942 to safely store valuable collection items, such as the large dinosaur skeletons from the Tendaguru expedition, in the building's basement. In April 1943, large portions of the collection, particularly the wet and insect collections, were either stored in the basement or moved to other locations deemed secure. To keep especially valuable items, such as the extinct quagga or type specimens from the bird collection, a bank safe was hired.

The year of 1945 was devastating on the German army. The German started to realise that Hiller's dream will not happen. The different fight fronts changed all the calculations.Nevertheless, in November 1943, incendiary bombings damaged portions of the Tendaguru and mineral collections, a lecture theatre, the enormous snake hall, and the vertebrate collection of the neighbouring Zoologisches Institut.The Museum was severely damaged during a daytime raid by US bombers on February 3rd, 1945, when the East Wing was hit by a 500 kg bomb and collapsed to its foundation.There were deaths and injuries in an air raid shelter in the Museum's basement. The main library of the Museum was destroyed, as were the anatomy hall and an exhibition of complete large mammal skeletons. In the final days of April, heavy artillery bombardment caused fire damage to other parts of the buildings, and grenades tore holes in the walls of previously undamaged exhibition hall.

The US Eighth Air Force joined up over England on March 18 and set a course for northern Germany, with 1329 bombers and 733 fighters. Berlin was the objective for 1,221 of the bombers. This operation, the biggest wartime raid on Berlin, was designed to aid the Russian advance by attacking the city's rail stations and tank factories.
Fires broke out on May 6, 1945, shortly after the Soviets entered Berlin, in Flakturm FriedrichsHain, which housed a number of objects from the former Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (renamed the Bode Museum in 1956). More fires broke out between May 14 and 18, and by the time they were put out, the flames had incinerated three floors of paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts, destroying some of Europe's most impressive and valuable art collections.

The Flakturm FriedrichsHain fire is without a doubt one of the worst art disasters in history. More than 400 paintings and approximately 300 sculptures from the Berlin Museum were lost, either because of looting at the time of the fires or because they were presumed destroyed in the flames. Many old master paintings were destroyed, including works by Caravaggio, Tintoretto, Cranach, and Rubens, as well as several sculptures by Donatello and his followers. 

Some of the sculptures from the fire have resurfaced in the years since, albeit severely damaged, but only one of the 434 lost paintings has ever been found.