Seventy years ago this Friday, the Allies celebrated "V-E Day" — victory in Europe over the Nazis and the rest of the Axis powers.
Ahead of the anniversary, German historical film company Chronos Media published on its YouTube channel a compilation of life in Germany just two months after the fall of Adolf Hitler.
Much of the early section of the video is devoted to showing Germans going about their lives after the war's end, doing what they can amid the destruction.
And though the video can be jarring when you realize that all of the sound effects were added in later, it's a pretty good slice of life.
Quick history lesson: After the German surrender, the city was divided into four sectors — American, French, British, and Russian. (That would come into play during the Cold War, but let's not skip ahead.)
It was apparently pretty easy to tell when you'd entered the Russian sector.
The most haunting part comes six minutes in, as the ruins of a building are shown with the words of Nazi information minister Joseph Goebbels delivering his famous "Total War" speech ringing out.
"I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even yet imagine?" Goebbels can be heard asking to cheers and applause. The next shot is the remnants of Berlin.
And the destruction just keeps on going, in a somber final tracking shot, a reminder of the cost that the war carried for so many.
