After 1945, together with leading architects of the time such as Egon Eiermann and Paul Baumgarten, Walter Rossow played a key role in reconstructing Berlin.

[6] In 1930 he started a two-year course of study at the "Lehr- und Forschungsanstalt für Gartenbau (LuFA)", a long-established training institute for gardening and horticulture that had relocated in 1903 from a former royal park to Berlin-Dahlem.

But in the context of those times it was hard to avoid becoming, in addition, politically aware: Rossow and his friends were critical of the rising tide of National Socialism.

Meanwhile, Rossow tried to find a more permanent position as a horticultural architect, but failed on account of the Great Depression and its continuing unemployment crisis that had hit Europe after the 1929 Wall Street Crash.

After Hitler survived the attack, Kunrat and Ludwig - who were also being sought by the authorities as "army deserters" at the time - went into hiding and managed to evade capture.

(The city had been divided into four separately administered zones of military occupation although there were no physical barriers, at this stage, preventing Berliners from walking freely between them.)

In addition to this generalised responsibility for the green spaces in the south-western quarter of Berlin, he also accepted an appointment as provisional head of the city gardens department, located in Berlin-Zehlendorf.

[1][12] In December 1949 the architects Hans Scharoun and Max Taut joined with the cultural polymath Edwin Redslob to relaunch a Berlin-centred version of the old Deutscher Werkbund, which had been closed down in 1934 under the dictatorship.

There was a renewed commitment to the 1907 founding objectives for "humanisation" of design, whether affecting the home, city planning and construction or the nurturing both of the countryside and of the landscaped environment.

[1][13] In 1948, with most of the rubble cleared away and the slow rebuilding of the city underway, Rossow began to receive freelance commissions for garden architecture projects.

It was also in 1948 that he took a job lecturing at the Architecture Faculty of the Berlin Fine Arts Academy, which turned out to be the launch pad for a parallel teaching career in the German universities sector.

The development later achieved the rare distinction of becoming part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site[14][15] Between 1954 and 1957 Rossow served as a member of the steering committee masterminding the "Internationale Bauausstellung" (Interbau buildings exhibition).

[1][16] In terms of his later reputation and lasting influence on "greenspace architecture", his careful design for the outdoor space surrounding the German pavilion for the 1958 World fair in Brussels.

[7][17] Another high-profile commission, in 1960, was for the layout of the greenspaces in and around the Berlin Arts Academy complex at Berlin-Hansaviertel for Werner Düttmann, the modernist lead architect on the project.