Dresden eighty years on

I recently posted a link through an online article about the rebuilding of Potsdam and how moving a story it is. On the eightieth anniversary of the bombing raids on Dresden it seems appropriate to say something, not least about the ongoing resurrection of the historic city centre of the “Florence of the Elbe”

Wikipedia has what is clearly intended to be a balanced account of the raids of February 13th-15th 1945 and the subsequent smaller raids. It looks at the events and the interpretations offered over the subsequent decades and can be read at Bombing of Dresden

The Duke of Kent, patron of the Dresden Trust, and representing The King, was present in the city for the anniversary and spoke of the work of reconciliation, something to which he has long given his support.

The Daily Telegraph has an article to mark the anniversary and which outlines the delights of the rebuilt city and its surroundings such as the royal palace at Moritzburg Castle

The article can be seen at How Germany’s most beautiful city was miraculously rebuilt

I have a slight reservation about one point it makes: just because the Germans did terrible things to other historic and beautiful cities such as Warsaw does not to my mind, excuse us from doing the same to similar cities such as Dresden and the difference in the scale of destruction makes the bombing of Coventry - terrible as that was - a rather shallow and overworked parallel to invoke.

Ed West has two really excellent articles about the Dresden that was lost and indeed the threats to it had it survived, and about the rebuilding of the city in recent years. They are very well worth reading and can be seen at  The beautiful rebirth of Dresden (1)

and at The beautiful rebirth of Dresden (2)

Quite a few years ago now I visited a small exhibition in the historic University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford about the rebuilding of the Frauenkirche and the British gift of the new orb and cross to crown the dome as a sign of reconciliation. Viewing the photographs of the church before and since 1945 I found myself virtually in tears, tears that people could destroy such beauty, and tears that it was being re-born.

Dresden

Friday night was the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden in 1945. The story of the raid and the continuing debate about its justification or otherwise can be found in the illustrated online account Bombing of Dresden in World War II

As I said, the debate continues about the raid and its morality, and indeed timing in the context of the Second World War. The speech by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the commemorations in Dresden has both highlighted that and has brought about some fairly predictable reaction from some press and politicians here. 

As the link above indicates there are complex issues which intersect around the raid, but I do wonder why, after seventy years, we as a country cannot be allowed to say that maybe, just maybe, we got something wrong on that terrifying February night.

There have, of course, been significant attempts at reconciliation - of which the Archbishop's visit is one further sign - and the rebuilding with British financial help of the great Lutheran church of the Frauenkiche is a physical sign of that. I was impressed by an exhibition about that project I visited in the University Church of St Mary in Oxford some years ago.

Built in 1726-43 the Frauenchiche collapsed as aresult of the effects of the raid and fire storm tow days after the bombing. A small portion remained as a ruin under the DDR until after German reunification. Then came the rebuilding which was completed in 2004-5.

The rebuilding commences

Image:dp.expo2000.de

The rebuilt Frauenkirche

The portion on the left is all that survived standing from the original church

Image:eurobricks.com

There is a history of this spectacular building at the illustrated online article  Dresden Frauenkirche and there are more photographs of the building in the German version of the same article here.