Article: Strasbourg also offers high-class eclecticist buildings in its very extended German district, the Neustadt, being the main memory of Wilhelmian architecture since most of the major cities in Germany proper suffered intensive damage during World War II. Streets, boulevards and avenues are homogeneous, surprisingly high (up to seven stories) and broad examples of German urban lay-out and of this architectural style that summons and mixes up five centuries of European architecture as well as Neo-Egyptian, Neo-Greek and Neo-Babylonian styles. The former imperial palace Palais du Rhin, the most political and thus heavily criticized of all German Strasbourg buildings epitomizes the grand scale and stylistic sturdiness of this period. But the two most handsome and ornate buildings of these times are the Ecole internationale des Pontonniers (the former Hohere Madchenschule, girls college) with its towers, turrets and multiple round and square angles and the Ecole des Arts decoratifs with its lavishly ornate facade of painted bricks, woodwork and majolica.

Question: What war caused severe damage to Germany?
World War II