Many things allow us to recognize that the Poles have a greater and fuller affinity with the Poznań Land than the Germans, even today. It is interesting, for example, with what confidence Polish architects, in contrast to their German counterparts, incorporate historical and regional characteristics in their designs.
Moritz Jaffé
The Archive of the Town Curator of Monuments in the Polish city Poznań contains material about streets, monuments, Old Town Square, the cathedral, and other valuable constructions there. A folder labeled Nowy Ratusz (New Town Hall) attracted my attention, because I knew nothing about such a building. The folder contained photographs of a large neo-Gothic building. It looked like a typical Prussian public building, similar to hundreds of other postal, school, and government offices throughout the Prussian/German state. But what of this building? Had it been another casualty of the Second World War? The postwar images showed, that although seriously damaged, the building still stood in the ruins of the Old Town Square.