Battle of the Seelow Heights
Near the end of World War II, in spring 1945, the entire Oderbruch was heavily damaged in connection with the largest battle of the war on German territory. The Red Army crossed the Oder River at Kienitz (Now part of Letschin) and established a 300 square kilometer bridgehead before commencing the Battle of the Seelow Heights at the western border of the Oderbruch. Innumerable fields were destroyed and villages reduced to rubble, putting an end to the livelihood of large parts of the population. The Oderbruch is still plagued with the legacy of the war in the form of hazardous military waste which becomes ever more dangerous as the vast amounts of remaining buried bombs, grenades, rockets and infantry shells continue to corrode.