The Bombing of Dresden: The Story Behind the Firestorm (Ep. 83)

For centuries, Dresden has been one of the great cultural centers of Central Europe.

The city had developed along the River Elbe and became the capital and royal residence of Saxony, particularly flourishing under the rulers Augustus the Strong and Augustus III in the 18th century.

Art collections grew, and magnifici- magnificent buildings were constructed.

Music became an important part of the city's identity, and Dresden gradually acquired a reputation that reached far beyond Germany.

Its museum contained important works of European art, and its architecture reflected the wealth of the Saxon court, and its cultural life was so impressive that the city eventually became known as the Florence of the Elbe.

Some of the known names from Dresden is, for example, author Erich Kastner, who wrote Parent Trap or Emil and the Detectives, or even The Flying Classroom.

Other names include Peter Rösel, which is a German classical pianist who was born in Dresden on the 2nd of February of 1945.

Imagine, only 11 days before the bombing, bombing.

And his mother was a singer of the Dresden Opera Chorus.

Some of the other known names that weren't actually Dresden native, but worked there and had a huge connection to Dresden was, for example, Robert Schumann, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, all in the musical field, and not to forget Gerhard Richter, one of the most known German painters in the post-war period, among others, of course.

But Dresden wasn't only known as an art hub.

Before the Second World War, Dresden was a major industrial and technological city, as well as a cultural city.

In fact, some of the things being manufactured there were surprisingly modern for the period.

Some of them was cameras and photographic equipment.

Dresden was one of Germany's major centers of the photographic industry.

Companies such as Ernemann, ICA, or later Zeiss Ikon, manufactured cameras and optical equipment.

Dresden was also involved in electro- electrical engineering, in medical technology, and high voltage engineering, such as X-ray machines.

Dresden was also a huge center of the cigarette industry.

[laughs] Before the First World War, the city reportedly produced every second cigarette in Germany.

So as you can see, Dresden was a booming city.

It was famous for its churches, palace, museums, and music, but also a city of factories, engineers, cameras, electrical equipment, X-ray machines, cigarette machinery, precision instruments, and railway infrastructure.

This is just to give you context about the city itself.

Because when people imagine Dresden before the war, they imagine the skyline of the historic center, the dome of the, and I'm sorry for my German, Frauenkirche, the Zwinger Palace complex, the Semperoper, the Royal Palace, and the terraces overlooking the river.

It was a city that could easily make a visitor forget how quickly European history could turn violent, because its architecture seemed to belong into another world.

One of the palaces and paintings, it was music and elegant streets, and then it turned to tanks and trenches and bombers.