Eighteenth-century Dresden was one of the loveliest cities in Europe. The capital of Saxony since the Middle Ages, under the rule of Prince-Elector Augustus the Strong (who ruled 1694-1733) Dresden was a leading center of art, culture and technology. All of these came together in some surpassingly lovely architecture, including a large Lutheran church in central Dresden’s Neumarktplatz (New Market Square).
The Dresdner Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) was begun in 1726 and completed in 1743; it represents in stone something akin to what the music of J.S. Bach does in notes and staves: the apotheosis of the German Late Baroque style. (It is poetically appropriate that Bach, on a visit to Dresden in 1736, gave a recital on the Frauenkirche’s superb Silbermann organ.)
The church’s most distinctive feature was its unconventional 96 m-high dome, called die Steinerne Glocke or “Stone Bell”. An engineering feat comparable to Michelangelo’s dome for St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the Frauenkirche’s 12,000-ton sandstone dome stood high resting on eight slender supports. Despite initial doubts, the dome proved to be extremely stable. Witnesses in 1760 said that the dome had been hit by more than 100 cannonballs fired by the Prussian army led by Friedrich II during the Seven Years’ War. The projectiles bounced off and the church survived.
The Frauenkirche would not always be so lucky: in 1945, along with most of Dresden, it was destroyed during the Allied bombings. The postwar Communist régime would have cleared the site for a parking lot were it not for the citizens of Dresden and their determination that somehow, someday the Frauenkirche would be rebuilt. Popular sentiment was so strong that the government, not wanting to restore the church but unwilling to risk the wrath of the people, did… nothing. For decades it sat, a pile of rubble in the Neumarktplatz; an eyesore, a painful reminder, a reproach to modern “civilization” – and, finally, a monument to peace.
In 1966, the remnants were officially declared a “memorial against war”, and state-controlled commemorations were held there on the anniversaries of the destruction of Dresden.
In 1982, the ruins began to be the site of a peace movement combined with peaceful protests against the East German regime. On the anniversary of the bombing, 400 Dresdeners came to the ruins in silence with flowers and candles, part of a growing East German civil rights movement. By 1989, the number of protesters in Dresden, Leipzig and other parts of East Germany had increased to tens of thousands, and the wall dividing East and West Germany toppled. This opened the way to the reunification of Germany.
Finally, the time was ripe. Thanks to an international coalition of organizations and donors, notably including a group from Coventry, England – which, like Dresden, had been heavily damaged by enemy bombing during the war – the Frauenkirche eventually resumed its distinctive place in Dresden’s skyline. The restored building was reconsecrated in 2005; as part of its mission of peace and reconciliation, Anglican services are held weekly, in English.
Two 18th-century views of the Frauenkirche:
A photograph from 1880:
The weed-covered ruins as seen in 1967:
Old and new – the dark patches are original stonework; the contrast, intentional:
The statue of Martin Luther at bottom right was erected in the 1880s. It can also be seen in front of the ruined church, a few photos above:
View from the river Elbe (compare with the second 18th-century view above):
The restored interior, altar and organ:
Finally, the jewel in its setting, which shows how the new buildings surrounding the church have been sensitively designed to approximate in size, scale and profile those lost in the bombing:
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