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Dresden (Sorbian: Drježdźany; etymologically from Old Sorbian Drežďany, meaning people of the riverside forest) is the capital city of the German Federal Free State of Saxony and situated in a valley on the River Elbe. The city's population is 500,000 (2006) and the population in its agglomeration is 1.1 million. Dresden is part of the metropolitan area Saxon Triangle with a population of over 3.2 million. Dresden has a long history as the capital and royal residence for the Kings of Saxony with centuries of extraordinary cultural and artistic splendor. The controversial Bombing of Dresden in World War II and 40 years of GDR changed the face of the city dramatically. Since German re-unification Dresden has been an important cultural, political, and economic center in the eastern part of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Location Dresden lies on both banks of the river Elbe, mostly in the Dresden Elbe Valley Basin, with the further reaches of the eastern Ore Mountains to the south, the steep slope of the Lusatian granitic crust to the north and the Elbe Sandstone Mountains to the east at an altitude of about 113 meters. The northern parts of Dresden are in the West Lusatian highlands (Westlausiter Berg- und Hügelland). The depth influx valleys and the higher areas in the south of Dresden characterise the change to the eastern foothills of the Ore Mountains. The Elbe valley basin is a part of the Saxon Elbe Landscape. The highest point of Dresden is the Triebenberg, at about 384 meters in altitude. With a pleasant location and a mild climate on the Elbe, as well as Mediterranean architecture, Dresden was given the sobriquet "Elbflorenz" (Florence of the Elbe). After a series of incorporation of larger country communities in the past, Dresden became the fourth largest city in area in Germany. Only Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne are larger in area. The most important river in Dresden is the Elbe river, the only navigable body of water to flow through the city. There are also a number of tributaries such as the river Weißeritz. Surroundings The nearest German cities are Chemnitz (80 km to the southwest), Leipzig (100 km to the northwest) and Berlin (200 km to the north). The Czech capital Prague is about 150 km to the south; the Polish city of Wrocław is about 200 km to the east. There are some medium-sized towns such as Pirna (40,000 inhabitants), Freital (40,000), Radebeul (33,000 inhabitants) and Meißen (28,000 inhabitants) in the borough of Dresden. Riesa and Freiberg are not far away. Nature Due to the many rural districts it has incorporated, among other things, Dresden is one of the greenest cities in Europe, with 63 % of the city being green areas and forests. The Dresden Heathland ("Dresdner Heide") in the north of Dresden is a cohesive forrest of 50 km² in size. There are four nature reserves in Dresden. The additional Special Areas of Conservation cover an area of 18 km². The protected gartens, parkways, parks and old graveyards host 110 natural monuments in the city. The Dresden Elbe Valley is a world heritage site which is focused on the conservation of the cultural landscape in Dresden. One important part of that landscape is the Elbe meadows which cross the city, 20 kilometre long. Climate
Flood protection Due to its location on the banks of the Elbe and where some water sources from the Ore Mountains flow to, flood protection is an important aspect of the city's development. Large areas are kept free of buildings to provide a floodplain. Two additional trenches of about 50 metres in width have been built to keep the inner city free of water from the Elbe river. Flood regulation systems are almost all outside the city area. However many locations and areas have to be defended by walls and sheet pilings. A number of districts in Dresden become waterlocked when the Elbe river floods some of it's old bayous. City structuring Dresden is a spacious city, not only due to the most recent incorporations in the 1990s. The districts of the city differ in their structure and appearance. Many parts of city still contain an old village core, while some quarters are almost completely preserved as rural settings. Other characteristic kinds of urban areas are the historic outskirts of the city, the former suburbs with dotted housing. In Socialist times a lot of apartment blocks were built . Not unsurprisingly, the districts in Dresden are a mix of all these kinds of area. The original parts of the city are almost all in the districts of Altstadt (Old town) and Neustadt (New town). Growing outside the city walls, the historic outskirts were built in the 18th century. They were planned andconstructed on the instruction of the Saxon monarchs, which is why the outskirts are often named after the sovereigns. From the 19th century the city only grew by incorporating other districts. Dresden was divided into the five city districts "Mitte" (centre), "Ost" (east), "West", "Süd" (south) and "Nord" (north) between 1958 and 1991. Since 1991 Dresden has been divided into ten districts called "Ortsamtsbereich" and nine former boroughs ("Ortschaften") which have been incorporated. An "Ortsamtsbereich" hosts subunits of the Dresden community's political and administrative institutions. The "Ortschaften" are granted a higher degree of political self-rule. The district with the largest population is Blasewitz; the largest in area is Loschwitz. The largest "Ortschaft" is Schönfeld-Weißig covering an area called "Schönfelder Hochland" (Highlands of Schönfeld). The inner city includes the districts of Altstadt and Neustadt. Early and pre-war history
World War II Main article: Bombing of Dresden in World War II Dresden was not the only German city devastated by World War II bombing, but the British bombing of Dresden in 1945, ordered by Winston Churchill, is considered controversial by some historians of the war. The city was bombed on the early hours of Valentine's Day, 13-14 February 1945. The Altstadt ("old town") side of the Elbe River full of historical cultural treasures was the most damaged, and left smouldering. Because the raging fires stopped at the river, the newer Neustadt ("new town") became the older side of modern-day Dresden sustaining less damage. In hindsight, it is clear that the end of the war was approaching. At the time, however, Allied forces had only recently regrouped from a German counter offensive. The city was not particularly well defended, because as a cultural center with relatively little industry, it was not regarded to be important strategically. Early in the war it had been considered too distant for the Allied bombers to reach in safety, but even when it had been bombed the majority of Dresden's anti-aircraft defences were redeployed elsewhere in Germany. Dresden's reputation for culture is better known than its highly developed optics industry. Dresden was the home of Zeiss Ikon (which became Praktica), for example. Optics factories in Dresden produced precision aiming devices during the war. In addition many peacetime factories, such as the cigarette factories, had been converted to ammunition factories as part of the policy of "total war". These factories employed mainly local workers but also used Jewish slave labour. Some 300 Jews were kept as slave laborers at a camp in Dresden, of these the majority were killed before the war ended, along with almost all of the 6,000 Jews who lived in Dresden before the war (a famous survivor was Dresden native and writer Victor Klemperer). However these targets were not the main reason for the city being bombed. The Red Army was approaching from the East and Dresden was one of two key rail routes with marshalling yards. Although key industrial facilities were destroyed by the bombing (much of their capacity was quickly restored), the main goal of the "area bombing" was to create a firestorm, a technique refined by Britain's Royal Air Force. Civilian death estimates vary wildly, largely as a result of propaganda figures which received widespread publicity at the time. However the most recently available evidence from Friedrich Reichart of Dresden City Museum points to 25,000 deaths, which is less than the number that died in Hamburg, but Dresden was a smaller city. Numbers between 25,000 — 140,000 have been used in official statistics, with the Communist authorities of Dresden increasing their estimates across time; estimates in Nazi Germany by the Ministry of Propaganda varied between 350,000 and 400,000. At that time, Dresden's population was 600,000, but up to 200,000 refugees were living in cramped apartments and passing through Dresden as the Russians were now only fifty miles away. The entire inner city (15 square kilometres) was utterly devastated, and other quarters were damaged to some degree, the many villa quarters, however, on average much less than others. Many of the higher estimates are based on a fake TB47 report (which has been visibly altered by the simple expedient of adding a zero to the end of the totals). However the West German Federal Archive in Koblenz discovered a genuine copy of TB47. The official "Final Report and Situation (TB47)" produced by Reich Commander of the Order Police a month after the bombings. "TB47" is probably a reasonable guide to the order of casualty numbers. It states definite figures of between 18,000 and 22,000 with estimates of final numbers of 25,000 and includes the interesting sentence "Since rumours far exceed the reality, open use can be made of the actual figures." While some think that the bombing of Dresden was a tragic occurrence that Nazi Germany brought upon itself, others feel it should be treated as a war crime. Others see it as a necessary military action taken to support the advancing Red Army; Dresden was 22nd on the RAF's list of top 100 military/industrial targets and had a rail network which had been virtually untouched up to that point in the war. Fortunately, much of the city's beauty has been restored, thanks to the zeal of the populace in recreating the architecture of old Dresden. Today Dresden has a strong partnership with the English city of Coventry, which was heavily damaged by German air attacks. The camaraderie is deeply supported by the populace in both cities. Post-war period (communist rule) After the Second World War, Dresden became a major industrial center in socialist East Germany with a great deal of research infrastructure. Many important historic buildings were rebuilt, although the communists leaders of the city chose to reconstruct large areas of the city in a bland socialist modern style for economical and ideological reasons, namely to break away from the city's past as the royal capital of Saxony and a stronghold of the German bourgeoisie. However, some of the bombed-out ruins of churches were razed by Soviet authorities in the 1960s instead of being repaired. Among East Germans, Dresden also earned the nickname "the valley of the clueless" because the city's location in a valley prevented its residents from watching West German TV, an illegal but popular pastime among East Germans. On 3 October 1989, (the so-called "battle of Dresden"), a convoy of trains carrying East German refugees from Prague passed through Dresden on its way to West Germany. Local activists and residents, joined in the growing civil disobedience movement spreading across East Germany by staging demonstrations and demanding the removal of the undemocratically-elected government. Post-reunification Dresden has experienced dramatic changes since the reunification of Germany in the early 1990s. The city still has many of its wounds from the bombing raids of 1945 but Dresden has undergone significant reconstruction in recent years. The most important urban renewal/reconstruction project was the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche ("Church of Our Lady") and the surrounding Neumarkt district. The church, once the city's symbol and considered the world's finest Protestant church, was rebuilt following German reunification in 1991 from the remaining pile of rubble of the original church's ruins thanks to private and corporate donations. It was completed in 2005, a year before Dresden's 800th birthday. The new Frauenkirche was rebuilt according to historical drawings and photographs and is now open to public service since Reformation Day 2005. Despite the inner city's almost total destruction in World War II, many areas in the central city have been restored to their former glory. The urban renewal process in Dresden will continue for many decades but public and government interest remains high and there are numerous large budget projects underway — both historic reconstructions and modern plans — that will continue the city's recent architectural renaissance. In 2002, torrential rains caused the Elbe to flood 9 m, past its 1845 record height, damaging many landmarks (See 2002 European flood). The destruction from this "millennium flood" is no longer visible, due to the rapidity of reconstruction. Disaster relief for the millennial flood came from around the world. In 2004 the United Nation's cultural organization UNESCO declared Dresden and the surrounding section of Elbe river valley to be a "World Heritage" site. Dresden remains a major cultural center of historical memory, owing to the city's destruction in World War II. Every year on 13 February, the anniversary of the major British fire-bombing raid that destroyed most of the city, tens of thousands of demonstrators gather to commemorate the event. Similar ceremonies held during the period of communism were specifically directed at demonizing the Western Allies, above all the United States. Since reunification, the tone of the ceremonies has taken on a more neutral and pacifist tone. In recent years, however, right-wing extremist skinheads have tried to instrumentalize the event for their own political ends. Affiliated with the radical right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), they cite the bombing of Dresden in order to portray Germans as the real victims of the Second World War, and try to take advantage of anti-American sentiment to do it. In 2005, Dresden was host to the largest Neo-Nazi demonstration in the post-war history of Germany. Between five and eight thousand Neo-Nazis took part, mourning for the victims of what they call the Allied bomb-holocaust (German: Alliierter Bombenholocaust). Culture and architecture Dresden is attempting to take up its old cultural importance among the European cities that it had from the 19th century to the 1920s when it was a centre of fine and visual arts, of architecture and music. Dresden is home to several precious art collections, world-famous musical ensembles and important buidings of many epoques. Dresden is also a location of festivals. Culture is often to be found interacting with technology in many art collections and examples of architecture. Theatre The Saxon State Opera is the most important theatre institution in Dresden. It is descended from the opera group of the old Saxon electors. Its first own opera house, the first Semperoper, was opened in 1842. In particular, many operas by Richard Strauss had their premiere at the Saxon State Opera. The performances of the opera are often sold out months in advance. The State Theatre Dresden runs a number of smaller theatres. The theatre at the Zwinger is the largest theatre of dramatic art in Dresden. Still next to the Zwinger Palace, the theatre in Dresden castle is even smaller. The Dresden State Operetta is the only independent operetta in Germany. Due to the destruction of the inner city in 1945, it was built in Leuben in the outskirts of Dresden, in a rural hotel. It is not owned by the Free State (as the name of the ensemble suggests) but the city. Today the city council is trying to move the Operetta to a planned building next to the main train station. Other theatres are: Musical ensembles The "Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden" is the orchestra of the Saxon State Opera and was founded in 1548. It is one of the oldest orchestras and is known as Strauss-Orchestra. Nevertheless the musical ensemble was also moulded by Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner conducting the orchestra. The Kreuzchor (Choir of The Cross) is a boy's choir. It consists of pupils of the Kreuzschule, which is a grammar school today; the Kreuzchor is the choir of the Kreuzkirche. Choir, church and school were first mentioned in the 13th century and are as old as the city of Dresden. The "Dresdner Kapellknaben" (which are not related to the Staatskapelle) are the choir of the Catholic cathedral. The Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra is the orchestra of the city of Dresden. It was founded in 1870, called the Gewerbehausorchestra, and renamed in 1915. The Dresdner Sinfoniker are a symphony orchestra and newcomers to the international musical ensembles in Dresden. The orchestra was founded in 1996 and became famous for its crossover of classic and modern music and for its cooperation with the Pet Shop Boys dubbing The Battleship Potemkin film and releasing the album of that name. Museums, presentations and collections Dresden hosts the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden State Art Collections) which is one of the world's most important museums and collections. The art collections consist of eleven museums of which the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister and the Grünes Gewölbe are the best known. The art collection is owned by the Free State of Saxony and mostly uses the Zwinger Palace and Dresden Castle. Some of the museums, such as the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon, exhibit art within the context of technology, such as precious globes, measuring equipment and chronographs which are artistically formed and perfect in function. Other museums and collections owned by the Free State of Saxony in Dresden are: The Deutsche Hygiene-Museum was found for mass education in hygiene, health, human biology and medicine. It stood in context of the Dresden industry of medicine and hygiene products and was founded by the industrialist Karl August Lingner, who produced Odol hygiene products. The museum's Transparent Woman, showing the organs of human beings as a see-through sculpture, became world famous. Dresden also hosts the Military Historical Museum of the Bundeswehr in the former garrison in the Albertstadt. The former convention house of the farmer's estate (called the Landhaus) is now home of the Dresden City Museum, which exhibits a collection of historical objects and has a smaller collection of paintings. The city has some museums specialising in artists who lived in the city (for example the "Carl Maria von Weber Museum" and the Kügelgenhaus. Another museum, the Technische Sammlungen (Technical Collection) was established in the Pentacon building, the old factory where Praktika cameras were once built. The collection includes historic cameras, computing technologyand entertainment technology. Architecture Although Dresden is often said to be a Baroque city , its architecture is influenced by more than one style. Other epoques of importance are the Rennaissance and Historism as well as the contemporary styles of Modernism and Postmodernism. Royal household
Sacral buildings
Contemporary architecture
Technical buildings Dresden is also known for a couple of technical buildings. Most of them were build in the second half of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. A centre of technical buildings are the Schillerplatz and the Körnerplatz. This two places are named after Friedrich Schiller and Carl Theodor Körner and are connected by the "Blue Wonder" Elbe bridge. This bridge is one of the oldest cantilever russ bridges in Germany. It is often said to be called Wonder due to the static without a pillar in the river or due to its colour, that changed from green to blue. Nearby two mountain railways are connecting the Körnerplatz with two quarters of villas. The Standseilbahn Dresden is funicular railway overcoming a height in difference of 95 metres. It connects Loschwitz and Weißer Hirsch. The Schwebebahn Dresden is the oldest suspension railway of the world and connects Loschwitz and the upper parts of Loschwitz. The city's building officer Hans Erlwein is the architect of a couple of industrial buildings that were build in the inner city. His storage building nearby the Semperoper is adapted to its neighborhood by its dissected roof. Another building planned by Hans Erlwein is the slaughterhouse complex. This location became famous by the novel Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Also a landmark of technical buildings is the Yenidze which was build as a cigarette factory. Its architecture is enormously influenced by marketing and orientally styled to associate to the provenance of tabac products. Even the smokestacks are styled like minarets. The architecture was controversial discused but is now under monument conservation. The building is used as a block of offices. The Fernsehturm Dresden-Wachwitz is the TV tower of the city. It is 252 metres high and towers the valley above in 373 metres in height. There is a pumped-storage power station in the western part Niederwartha. It has a rated output of 120 MW and was build between 1927 and 1930 at a slope of the valley. The ground basin is nearby the Elbe river. The difference in altitude is about 143 metre. The capacity of energy given by the volume of the upper basin is about 560 MWh. This power station is reloading its capacity over night and produces electricity over day. There are also a couple of water stations in the city. Most of them are using the bank filtrated water of the Elbe river. One of the oldest water station is the Saloppe which is extracting fresh water from small rivers of the Dresdner Heide forrest. Bridges The place of the Augustusbrücke between Altstadt and Neustadt in the centre of the city is the location of the oldest bridges in Dresden. A bridge at that place is already reported in the 13th century. Also reported are the plural demolitions of that bridges in floods of the past as appeared the last time yet in the march floods of 1845. The first bridge passed by the river is the Loschwitzer Brücke (famously kown as Blaues Wunder, see above). The Albertbrücke at the border of the inner city is some kilometre downstream. The following bridges Carolabrücke, Augustusbrücke and Marienbrücke are in short distances. The Marienbrücke is divided into a road/tram bridges and a railway bridge. It connects the two train station of most importance in Dresden Hauptbahnhof and Dresden-Neustadt railway station on the historic Leipzig-Dresdner railway and is aslike the Carolabridge which hosts four lines of an important road and an extra double-track of the tram. Cinemas and cinematics There still a lot of small cinemas and theatres of cinematic arts offering a programm of cult films and current films of low budget or weak promotion that were selected by their cultural worth. Dresden also has a couple of Multiplex Cinemas of which the Rundkino is the oldest. The cinema build in a circular building is today out of order. Dresden has been a centre in the production of animated films and of the optical cinematic technics. The Dresden Filmfest hosts a contest of short subjects which is among the most endowed contests in Europe. Lifestyle
Infrastructure and economy In 1990 Dresden — an important industrial centre of East Germany — had to struggle with the economic collapse of the Soviet Union and the other export markets in eastern Europe. East Germany had been the richest Communist country but was faced with competition from western Germany after reunification. After 1990 a completely new law and currency system was introduced in the wake of Communism's downfall, and eastern Germany's infrastructure was largely rebuilt with funds from western Germany. Dresden as a major urban center has developed much faster and more consistently than most other regions in the former East Germany, but the city still faces many social and economic problems which stem from the collapse of the communist system, including high unemployment levels. Transport
Media The most important newspaper published in Dresden is the Sächsische Zeitung which has a circulation of around 300,000. The second main newspaper, Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, is a newspaper with a circulation of about 50,000. The Sächsische Zeitung was established in 1946 and became the press media of the socialist party SED in the district of Dresden until 1990. It is now a much more independent newspaper with a small influence by the social-democratic party. The "Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten" has even older origins. It first came out in 1893 and ran until 1943 when its offices were closed down by the Nazis. During GDR times, the same offices produced the newspapers "Die Union" (the regional press organ of the Christian Democratic Union), the "Sächsisches Tageblatt" (the regional press organ of the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany and the "Sächsische Neueste Nachrichten" (the press organ of the National Democratic Party of Germany). All these newspapers were controlled by Socialist censorship between 1949 and 1990. "Die Union" was the first newspaper in the GDR that reported about the Monday demonstrations in GDR realistically and freely. In 1990 the newspapers joined back together again and took back on the name Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten; the newspaper celebrated its 110-year anniversary in 2003. Dresden is the home of the Saxon Broadcasting Center which is a subunit of the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk and hosts the regional studios. Dresden Fernsehen is a television channel broadcast in Dresden while there are a number of private radio stations broadcasting throughout Saxony. Another sobriquet of Dresden is connected with the media: Because citizens of Dresden were not able to receive (uncensored) television programms broadcast in the former western states during Socialist times, Dresden gained the name "Tal der Ahnungslosen" which means "Valley of the Clueless". The television channel ARD was known as "Außer Raum Dresden" ("except the Dresden area"). Public utilities
Economy Historical background Many of the industries that made Dresden rich before the Second World War and disappeared under communism have resettled in the city including the optical industry and the high quality foodstuffs industries. An international famous example is the Dresdner Bank that left in the 1950s to avoid like many other enterprises its socialisation. Other branches like the microelectronics and aircraft construction came up in the 1960s. Dresden became a centre in the allocation of the former socialist combines that were centraly planned on the one side and had disposal of regional subunits of nationally-owned enterprises. Facts and figures This enterprises had been inefficient already before German reunification and were not competitive in the German social market-economy. This collapse of economy caused an unemployment rate of about 18 to 19 % in the early 1990s. The rate was lowered to 13 to 15 % but is still relatively high today. Nevertheless, Dresden is the city that has developed the most effectively in all of East Germany and has raised its GDP per capita to 26,200 Euro, which is equal to the GDP per capita of some poor West German communities. In the discussion of alternatives in the policy of promoting the weak states of the former GDR, Dresden is often cited as an example of successfully subsidising the better-developed centres and regions. With about 20 % of its employees having a university degree and the research institutes in background, the economy differs from the economy of low-priced subcontracting that is often criticized in East Germany. Nevertheless, the economy of Dresden is under extensive public funding. The rate of highly-qualified staff is also high because lower-qualified employable people are often unemployed. Enterprises Three major sectors can be seen as dominating the Dresden economy: The semiconductor industry was built in 1969 around the ZMD which is a joint stock company today. Knowhow of the labour and their technical education as well as intensive subsidies attracts other enterprises and global players like Advanced Micro Devices, Infineon Technologies (in parts now Qimonda), and Toppan Photomasks to site some of their producing capability in Dresden. Their factories attract many suppliers of material and enterprises of cleanroom technology to Dresden. The pharmaceutical sector came up at the end of the 19th century. The Sächsisches Serumwerk Dresden (Saxon Sera Plant Dresden), which is a part of GlaxoSmithKline, is a world-leader in vaccines production. Another traditional pharmacy producer is the Arzneimittelwerke Dresden (Pharmaceutical Plants Dresden). A third (traditional) branch is that of mechanical and electrical engineering. Volkswagen is currently manufacturing its Phaeton car model and the Bentley "flying spur" model at the Transparent Factory. A subsidiary of EADS, the Elbe Flugzeugwerke (Elbe aircraft plants) are the leading company for rebuilding Airbus passenger aircraft to become freight aircraft. Education and science
Twin cities Along with its twin city Coventry, Dresden was the first city to twin with a foreign city. The two cities became twins after World War II in an act of reconciliation as both had been nearly destroyed by bombing during the war. Dresden and fine arts Image:Canaletto (I) 016.jpg|Bernardo Bellotto (Canaletto): Zwingerhof (Backyard of the Zwinger from the perspective of the fortress, 1752) Image:Carl_Gustav_Carus_001.jpg|Carl Gustav Carus: View at Dresden from the Bruehl-Terrace (Blick auf Dresden von der Bruehlschen Terrasse, 1830/31) Image:Caspar_David_Friedrich_007.jpg|Caspar David Friedrich: The big enclosure (Das grosse Gehege, 1832) Image:1956-GerhardRichter-Stadtbild.jpg| Gerhard Richter: View on the city of Dresden (Stadtbild, 1956) Further reading | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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