DEL.ICIO.USFROM ATLANTA TO ... DRESDEN, GERMANY
Rebuilt church is just one facet of Dresden’s rebirth
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Dresden, Germany — House of worship, war monument, giant jigsaw puzzle: Over several centuries, the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) has been all three.
From its completion in 1743 as a Lutheran church, to its collapse near the end of World War II, to its reconsecration in 2005, the Frauenkirche has long had a special place in this medieval city.
BETTY GORDON / bgordon@ajc.com
Stones from the ruins of the original Frauenkirche were used in the reconstruction. Though darkened by age and war damage, the stones were cleaned and repaired and fitted among the new sections, giving the facade a patchwork look.
Associated Press / 1970 photo
Two stone sections and a pile of rubble were all that remained of the Frauenkirche after the February 1945 bombings in Dresden. A statue of Martin Luther was restored to his plinth long before the church was rebuilt.
BY THE NUMBERS
3,539 — stones from the original church used in the rebuilding500,000 — approximate number of total stones in the structure
1,854— number of seats at capacity
$210 million — approximate cost of reconstruction; 65 percent provided through donations
Source: "The Dresden Frauenkirche" (Schoning Verlag) International travel stories
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Not only has the church been restored to its original grandeur, but the surrounding Neumarkt in the city center and other nearby areas are in the midst of a building boom.
At least two new five-star hotels are in the works — the InterContinental is scheduled to open next year and a Swissôtel in 2010. Townhouses, a 559,723-square-foot shopping center (about three-quarters the size of Atlanta’s Phipps Plaza), a small concert hall and a Daniel Libeskind-designed update of the Museum of Military History are on the construction schedule, in addition to the ongoing renovation at the Zwinger museum complex.
Before the war, visitors came to see Dresden’s world-class art collection, its baroque architecture, palace and gardens. They came to attend a concert or opera in the sumptuous Semper Opera House, to indulge in the calorie-rich cuisine and fine German wines and to stroll along its wide boulevards and waterfront.
Nicknamed “Florence on the Elbe,” Dresden’s beauty was immortalized in the mid-1700s in the oil paintings of Italian artist Canaletto (aka Bernardo Bellotto, nephew of the famous painter who went by the same name). Those paintings are on display in the Old Masters Picture Gallery in the Zwinger complex.
Much of the splendor was lost in the destruction wrought by WWII, followed by the descent of the Iron Curtain that effectively shut out the world for decades.
But with Germany’s reunification in 1990, and vast sums of money pumped into the re-creation of the city center, tourists are rediscovering Dresden, which just may be Europe’s next hot destination.
More than 4 million visitors have toured the rebuilt pale pink sandstone church, sometimes standing patiently in a line that radiates from the structure. Some come because they are simply curious and want to hear its story. Others in a more religious mood light candles or pause a few minutes to sign the guest book near the Frauenkirche’s original cross.
Many sit quietly in the cushioned maple pews for a few minutes, craning their necks to look at the New Testament scenes painted on the dome’s ceiling, or swivel from side to side taking in the circular upper galleries decorated in pastel yellows, pinks and blues. Or they marvel at the rebuilt altar and the new organ and its 4,790 pipes.
The more you learn about the church, the more impressive its renewal becomes.
Bombed into ruin
In the late 1930s, Dresden, the capital of Saxony in eastern Germany, had a population of more than 600,000, making it the country’s seventh-largest city.
But all was not peace and beauty. Throughout Germany, the Third Reich was robbing Jews of their rights, property and livelihoods, including about 6,000 Jews who lived in Dresden.
During WWII, Dresden became an important communications and transport center. It housed military installations and was a manufacturing hot spot for munitions and armaments, fuses and bombsight optics.
The city, which had been bombed twice — in October 1944 and January 1945 — without much consequence, was about to become a controversial target.
On the night of Feb. 13, 1945, more than 700 bombers left England in two waves. The onslaught on Dresden began around 10:15 p.m., and within minutes, the central part of the city was in flames. A second wave of aircraft was overhead about three hours later. In total, they released more than 2,500 tons of bombs and incendiaries.
“We saw from a distance of about 30 kilometers a fire-lit, red night sky reflecting the raging firestorm that destroyed this great jewel of a city in one of the most catastrophic bombing attacks of World War II,” Dr. Günter Blobel, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, would later write in a short autobiography on Nobelprize.org. “It was a very sad and unforgettable day for me.”
Blobel was 8 years old and fleeing Silesia (in what is now Poland) from the advancing Russian army. He and his family had driven through Dresden days before the bombing, and Blobel recalled “its many spires and the magnificent cupola of the Frauenkirche.” Years later he would help raise funds to restore the church.
The onslaught on Dresden continued the next day with two waves of U.S. planes releasing more than 1,250 tons of bombs.
For two days, the sturdy stone Frauenkirche, with its heavily wooden interior, burned. On the morning of Feb. 15, the church’s dome came crashing down as did most of the rest of the building. Only two sections remained standing, and they were badly discolored from age and the intensity of the flames. Though the statue of the father of the Reformation, Martin Luther, survived, it toppled from its plinth in front of the church, coming to rest staring at the sky.
Estimates from most credible sources put the death toll at about 35,000 to 40,000.
Less than three months after the bombing, the war in Europe was over.
Raised from rubble
The task of rebuilding Dresden, where almost 80 percent of the buildings had sustained damage, would prove to be enormous. The need to construct housing quickly was the priority, not restoring the Frauenkirche. Also, as long as the church was in ruins, Communist East Germany could exploit it for political purposes and rail against the “evil” capitalist West. By the 1960s, East German state representatives were placing wreaths at the site on the anniversary of the raids.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and reunification, attention turned in earnest to the church’s restoration. The next year, organization and fund-raising began, and by 1993, volunteers and others began clearing the rubble, which was piled almost 43 feet high.
The intent was to use as many of the original stones as could be cleaned and repaired. The stones were cataloged and stacked on metal racks in the Neumarkt, where the church would rise again. Computer programs would help fit the patchwork of darker old stones among the new, which were hewn from sandstone from the quarries of an area nearby known as Saxon Switzerland.
On June 1, 1993, the crew was astonished to find the badly burned tower cross in the rubble. It had fallen more than 300 feet from its perch atop the cupola, but it was intact. Today it is mounted at ground level on the south side of the church’s interior.
Less than a year later, on May 27, 1994, the first stone of the new Frauenkirche was laid. The original plans left by master carpenter George Bähr were followed when possible (his grave in the cellar was also located and restored), and modern conveniences were incorporated such as an elevator to take visitors partway up to the dome. A wide, circular incline and narrow metal stairs wind the rest the distance. Once outside on the viewing platform, a serene view of the Elbe and Dresden’s skyline awaits.
In the 10 years that it took to reconstruct the exterior, several international groups were formed to raise funds and publicize the effort. Among them were the Dresden Trust in England and the Friends of Dresden, founded by Blobel in 1994, in the United States. The British, whose own 600-year-old Gothic cathedral in Coventry had been destroyed by German bombers in 1940, contributed the new 24-karat gilded tower cross and orb, an exact replica. Among those working on the cross in London was master silversmith Alan Smith, whose father, Frank, was a pilot with the first wave of Royal Air Force bombers.
From the American group, Nobel laureate Blobel contributed the majority of his almost $1 million award to the church. A portion also went to the New Synagogue nearby, replacing the Semper Synagogue destroyed in 1938.
Finally, on Oct. 30, 2005, one memorial bell and seven new ones rang out to begin the reconsecration service for the $210 million structure. Visiting dignitaries, politicians and early arriving Dresden residents packed the church, while the crowd outdoors, possibly numbering 100,000, watched the ceremony live on a giant screen.
Once again a house of worship, the Frauenkirche has added two more lines to its résumé: “symbol of peace and reconciliation” and “tourist attraction.”
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TIMELINE
AUG. 26, 1726: Foundation stone is laid.
MARCH 16, 1738: George Bähr, master carpenter and architect of the church, dies.
MAY 27, 1743: Church completed after 17 years of construction.
FEB. 15, 1945: Church collapses after two days of bombing by British and American planes during World War II.
AUGUST 1990: Society for the Promotion of the Reconstruction of the Frauenkirche is formed.
JAN. 4, 1993: Start of clearing of the debris.
MAY 27, 1994: Foundation stone laid and reconstruction according to Bähr’s original plans begins.
AUG. 21, 1996: Lower church is consecrated.
FEB. 13, 2000: Duke of Kent presents new gilded cross to church.
AUG. 14, 2002: River Elbe floods lower church; water is more than a foot high.
JUNE 22, 2004: New cross is mounted atop cupola.
OCT. 30, 2005: Frauenkirche consecrated after 11 years of construction.
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