Musings on Dresden

In his travel documentary on Eastern Europe, Michael Palin said that it was uncomfortable being an Englishman in Dresden. Having spent two days looking around the city, I think I would agree with him. The evidence that it was bombed to bits in February 1945 doesn't stare you in the face. In fact, if you knew nothing about the history, you might just think it was a very clean and tidy baroque town with lots of development going on. But delve a little deeper and the truth is that this is a city which is still in the process of being rebuilt, and almost all the buildings you can see in the Old Town are reconstructions of ones which were completely destroyed by the bombs of the Allies. As a result, the Neustadt (which is where we're staying) is in fact the oldest part of the city, something which is very bizarre to realise. The reconstruction has been incredibly good. The Opera House in particular, the Frauenkirche and the Zwinger Palace have been beautifully done, and the only give away that they aren't the original buildings is that the statues are bright and clean rather than stained with soot. Some of the statues look no more than a year or two old, and others are still in the process of being made. We only realised the full scale of the destruction when we saw some photographs taken the day after the bombs fell - it looks like a ghost city with just skeletons of buildings standing in the dust and the huge historic buildings completely flattened.

At least 35,000 people were killed in the night of 13th February, probably many more as the city was full of refugees fleeing the Red Army. This of course makes it a tragedy by any reckoning, as we knew before we came here. What I hadn't appreciated before was what a symbolic blow it was against Germany's very heart. Dresden was renown for being the most beautiful city in the country, the seat of the Bohemian and Saxon nobility, the centre of the arts for hundreds of miles around. To strike it was therefore not only to take German lives, but also to humiliate the nation as a whole. While we were in the Old Masters Gallery earlier today, we kept coming across the same apology on all the information sheets: there was only a copy or an early sketch surviving of this or that famous painting, as the original had been destroyed on 13th February. Immense ceiling paintings, which must have taken years to do, now only exist in tiny sketches done by 19th century tourists.

I appreciate of course the desire for revenge in nations which had been so horrifically bombed themselves, though I can't help feeling that to use the motivation of revenge to plan military strategy is highly morally and practically dubious. I'm no historian, and I don't pretend to know whether the British policy of carpet-bombing hastened the ending the war, or not. But I do know that the bombing of Dresden was an act designed to cause the utmost hurt and destruction not to the military bases or the industrial centres, but to the German civilians themselves, their homes and their entire cultural heritage. And we have a statue of Bomber Harris in London. Enough said.

We discussed whether or not we felt guilty as English women in the city, and decided that we didn't really, although there was a degree of discomfort which must have its roots in a guilt of sorts. How far should later generations feel complicit in evils done by their countrymen? I think we have a duty to remember Dresden, not to get too complacent about being on the right side in WW2, and certainly to remember that terrible things can be done in the name of right. But I don't think it's right for generations afterwards to feel that they are to blame for what was done before they were born. I've seen how crippling and unfair this can be with some of my German friends who feel that they are equated with the Nazis even when their families resisted and were persecuted by the regime, or simply when they were born far too late to have any choice in the matter.

In any case, Dresden as it is now is not a city to encourage guilt-ridden gloom. One of the things the inhabitants make most of, generously in my opinion, is that a lot of money was given by the UK and US to assist in its rebuilding, and the Frauenkirche is known as the Place of Reconciliation (can't remember the German, sorry, but it's probably a hugely long compound word of some sort). It's a city with a lot going for it and very friendly people. I have to say it's nice to get smiley and welcoming service in cafes and bars rather than the "service with a snarl" which is pretty much standard in Eastern Europe. And we're loving the fabled German efficiency. When we crossed the border from the Czech Republic we changed to a beautiful little commuter train with comfy seats, automatic doors (I think, the first on the trip) and announcements telling you what side of the train the platform would be on at the next stop. I know it's trivial, but Sarah and I have spent a lot of time on trains recently and so have become something of connoisseurs, aka geeks.

We spent yesterday exploring the Old Town, with all its obvious historic and cultural sights, and then today we were in the New Town, a very attractive area with a beautifully designed modern market place to replace the one which was destroyed, lots of quirky little bars and an artists' corner called the Kunsthof which is packed full of galleries, completely pointless but gorgeous arts and craft shops, hippy clothes stores and Aladdin's Cave-esque antique shops. We had a very happy couple of hours browsing and planning what we would spend our money on, if we hadn't needed to eat for the next month.

Tomorrow we go back to Poland again on a horribly early train to spend the day and night in Wroclaw before going to Warsaw on Saturday. It's been nice to be somewhere where we have at least some grasp of the language (though I can't say my A'level presentation on the importance of environmental issues came in very useful). Now it's back to the land where zs, ks and ws rule supreme....