On 13 February 1945, allied air forces bombed Dresden. It had been a centre for industry, food manufacturing, banking and trade. Notably at that time, its airport was used for an airbridge to Wroclaw. This city, now in Poland, was being held by Germany, but surrounded by its enemies.
During the German Democratic Republic, many historic buildings were rebuilt in their original style. Other parts of the damaged city were raised to the ground and newly designed buildings were constructed on the cleared ground.
Reflecting that the GDR did not hold much with religion, the rebuilding of the Lutheran Fraunkirche didn’t start until after reunification. The reconstruction started in 1994 and was completed in 2005. Where possible, original stones were placed into the positions they had held.
This explains the rather unusual colouring of the building. You can see in the picture above that there are many more new stones than old ones. The best-preserved part is the north side of the building, part of which you can see on the left-hand side of the picture.
It is a popular tourist attraction. The queue to enter was very long on the day we visited, so we decided not to stand out in the cold and have a good reason to return to Dresden another time.
The square in front of the church is one of the locations of one of the many Christmas markets in Dresden. The statue of Martin Luther was rather drowned out by the Christmas decorations.
travel tales 