The article reports the first experimental demonstration of femtosecond diffractive imaging using a soft-X-ray free-electron laser (FEL). The FLASH facility at DESY in Hamburg generated a 25 fs, 4 × 10^13 W/cm^2 pulse at 32 nm wavelength, which produced a coherent diffraction pattern from a nano-structured non-periodic object before destroying it at 60,000 °K. A novel X-ray camera, which filters out parasitic scattering and plasma radiation, was used to detect single photons. The reconstructed image, obtained through phase retrieval, showed no measurable damage and extended to diffraction-limited resolution. This technique, known as "flash diffractive imaging," has implications for studying non-periodic molecular structures in biology and other fields where high spatial and temporal resolution is valuable. The results validate the concept of single-shot imaging with extremely intense and ultra-short soft X-ray pulses, which can destroy anything in their path while carrying high-resolution structural information.The article reports the first experimental demonstration of femtosecond diffractive imaging using a soft-X-ray free-electron laser (FEL). The FLASH facility at DESY in Hamburg generated a 25 fs, 4 × 10^13 W/cm^2 pulse at 32 nm wavelength, which produced a coherent diffraction pattern from a nano-structured non-periodic object before destroying it at 60,000 °K. A novel X-ray camera, which filters out parasitic scattering and plasma radiation, was used to detect single photons. The reconstructed image, obtained through phase retrieval, showed no measurable damage and extended to diffraction-limited resolution. This technique, known as "flash diffractive imaging," has implications for studying non-periodic molecular structures in biology and other fields where high spatial and temporal resolution is valuable. The results validate the concept of single-shot imaging with extremely intense and ultra-short soft X-ray pulses, which can destroy anything in their path while carrying high-resolution structural information.