Description

This large rare map of Chișinău, in Moldova was made in 1941 by the Luftwaffe, who invaded the city in the same year. Marked are 60 important buildings in the city, including the printing house “Cartea Romaneacsa”. The cartographer remarks this are positions of buildings before the foundation of Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1940. 

The first years of the 1940s were devastating for the city. In the first half of the year if fell under the newly founded Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian SSR or MSSR), and on 10 November 1940 it was almost completely destroyed in an earthquake. 

In June 1941 Chișinău came under bombardment by Nazi air raids. In the years under the German occupation sadly almost all Jewish population was murdered. Chișinău was taken by the Red Army on 24 August 1944 as a result of the Jassy-Kishinev Operation.

The map was published as an appendix to a map of Ukraine with Moldova and Crimea, and was intended for military use only.