Anklam was nearly completely destroyed by several bombing raids of the U.S. Air Force in 1943 and 1944 and in the last days of World War II, when the advancing Soviets burned and leveled most of the town. After Prussia and its Pomeranian province were dissolved and most of Pomerania was allocated to Poland under the terms of the Potsdam Conference, Anklam became part of the East German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. That was soon to be dissolved, too, and Anklam was within the district of Neubrandenburg. The town was rebuilt in the rather uniform socialist style.