In 1940 the blast waves of Allied bombing blew part of the windows away. On 24 May 1944, a bomb of combustible liquids entered the roof lantern of the dome. The fire could not be extinguished at that unreachable section of the dome. So the lantern burnt out and collapsed into the main floor. Between 1949 and 1953 a temporary roof was built to enclose the building. On 9 May 1967 the then still undivided Evangelical Church of the Union decided a committee for the reconstruction of the Supreme Parish and Cathedral Church, then located in East Berlin. The government of the Eastern German Democratic Republic did not oppose the work of the committee due to the concomitant inflow of Deutsche Marks.In 1975 reconstruction started, simplifying the building's original design and demolishing the northern wing, the 'Denkmalskirche' – Memorial Church. Compared by some to the Medici Chapel, it had survived the war completely intact, but astonishingly, was demolished purely for ideological reasons by the communist government due to it being a hall of honour for the Hohenzollern dynasty. It resulted in the surreal circumstance of scaffolding for restoration appearing on the church while detonation charges were applied to its undamaged rear. The government also demanded the removal of as many crosses as possible. The demolition and redesign cost 800,000 marks, while the restoration (done on the cheap) cost just 50,000 marks. The Berlin Cathedral Building Society now seek to rebuild the Denkmalskirche