A lot of the buildings in Hamburg were rebuilt/restored most however, were damaged during operation Gomorrha when the British and Americans carpet bombed the city for several days and nights.
As far as I can remember the Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) was also damaged but was repaired, I think because most bombs were incendinary and the Station was/is mainly made of metal and glass.
(bear in mind that Hamburg had been destroyed by a fire 100 years before the war so most of the city was still relatively new compared to others in Germany.) I'm afraid I don't share the view of the original poster and feel that Hamburg looks like a city that was rebuilt after the war.
Most of the damage was in the residential areas in the East and North East of the city Hamm, Rothenburgsort, Horn, Barmbek etc.. If you go to these areas today you will notice that all the houses/apartment blocks are from the 50's.
These were destroyed during the fire storm. The British used a large amount of incedinary bombs to burn down the residential areas, this was during a rather hot spell during the summer and the result was that a storm of fire tore it's way through the city, it created winds so strong that trees were ripped out of the ground. The Storm sucked the oxygen out of the bunkers asphyxiating those sheltering inside, others were killed by the smoke and the incredible heat some were even sucked off their feet into the fire.
Around 65,000 people were killed during this operation, roughly the same amount of civilian casualties that the whole of Britain suffered from bombing during the duration of the war.
You won't hear much about the Battle for Hamburg as it was overshadowed by Dresden and the fact that it still is a bit of a taboo subject for the allied powers today (much like Dresden).
The deliberate bombing of residential areas in Germany by Bomber Command is one of the reasons why Goering was not charged with the bombing of Europe (Warsaw, Rotterdam, Coventry, Belgrade, Stalingrad, Guernica, London: Total 103,600 casualties) at the Nuremberg trials. If he had then Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris, head of Bomber Command, who was a firm believer of area bombing would have to be held accountable for the 600,000 civilian casualties brought about by the 1.35 million tons of bombs dropped on Germany during the war.
As you can tell I'm not a big fan of Harris and his area bombing campaign
I don't want to start an area bombing debate just wanted to get that off my chest.
