Nissen huts

Nissen huts were corrugated iron shacks developed in 1916 by the Canadian architect, Peter Norman Nissen, and served during the First World War as cheap accommodation for the military. In the Second World War the Allied forces also used such huts to house their soldiers. In addition, they served as storage space for equipment and weapons. After the war Nissen huts in German towns were set up as provisional accommodation for refugees, exiles and people whose homes had been bombed. However, the winter of 1946/47 proved the poorly insulated Nissen huts to be problematic, as the temperature at night dropped several degrees below zero.

An eye-witness reported on a bombed-out German city in the British Occupied Zone:
„In order to master the housing shortage, Nissen huts were erected in open spaces and on land with ruined buildings. They were semi-circular, badly insulated corrugated iron huts with one window at both of the end walls, in which up to 25 people were to supposed to live. In the first months after the war the housing shortage was seriously aggravated by the fact that many refugees came into the bombed-out city."
(Dr. Bau, Andreas: Kindheit in Hamburg nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg Teil 1, in: ZeitFragen, Nr. 40 vom 27.10.2003, Artikel 7)

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