The Postcard
A postally unused postkarte that was published by Trau and Schwab of Dresden. The card has a divided back.
Dresden in the Second World War
During the Nazi era from 1933 to 1945, the Jewish community of Dresden was reduced from over 6,000 (7,100 people were persecuted as Jews) to 41, mostly as a result of emigration, but later also deportation and murder.
Non-Jews were also targeted, and over 1,300 people were executed by the Nazis at the Münchner Platz, a courthouse in Dresden, including labour leaders, undesirables, resistance fighters and anyone caught listening to foreign radio broadcasts.
Dresden in the 20th. century was a major communications hub and manufacturing centre, with 127 factories and major workshops. It was designated by the German military as a defensive strongpoint from which to hinder the Soviet advance.
Being the capital of the German state of Saxony, Dresden not only had garrisons, but a whole military borough, the Albertstadt. This military complex, named after Saxon King Albert, was not specifically targeted in the bombing of Dresden, although it was extensively damaged.
During the final months of the Second World War, Dresden harboured some 600,000 refugees, with a total population of 1.2 million. Dresden was attacked seven times between 1944 and 1945, and was occupied by the Red Army after the German capitulation.
The bombing of Dresden by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) between the 13th. and 15th. February 1945 was controversial.
On the night of the 13th.–14th. February 1945, 773 RAF Lancaster bombers dropped 1,182 tons of incendiary bombs and 1,478 tons of high explosive bombs on Dresden, targeting the rail yards at the centre of the city.
The inner city of Dresden was largely destroyed. The high explosive bombs damaged buildings and exposed their wooden structures, while the incendiaries ignited them, denying their use by retreating German troops and refugees.
Widely quoted Nazi propaganda reports claimed 200,000 deaths, but the German Dresden Historians' Commission, made up of 13 prominent German historians, in an official 2010 report published after five years of research concluded that casualties numbered between 22,500 and 25,000.
The Allies described the operation as the legitimate bombing of a military and industrial target. Several researchers have argued that the February attacks were disproportionate.
As a result of inadequate Nazi air raid measures for refugees, mostly women and children died.
The bombing stopped prisoners who were busy digging a large hole into which 4,000 prisoners were to be disposed of.
When interviewed after the war in 1977, Sir Arthur ('Bomber') Harris stood by his decision to carry out the raids, and reaffirmed that it reduced the German military's ability to wage war.
American author Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse Five is loosely based on his first-hand experience of the raid as a POW.
In remembrance of the victims, the anniversaries of the bombing of Dresden are marked with peace demonstrations, devotions and marches.
The destruction of Dresden allowed Hildebrand Gurlitt, a major Nazi museum director and art dealer, to hide a large collection of artwork worth tens of millions of dollars that had been stolen during the Nazi era, as he claimed it had been destroyed along with his house which was located in Dresden.
Dresden After World War II
Following his military service, the German press photographer and photojournalist Richard Peter returned to Dresden and began to document the ruined city. Among his best known works is Blick auf Dresden vom Rathausturm ("View of Dresden from the Rathaus Tower").
It has become one of the best-known photographs of a ruined post-war Germany following its appearance in 1949 in his book Dresden, Eine Kamera Klagt an ("Dresden, a Photographic Accusation").
When a skeleton that had previously been used as a model for drawing art classes was found in the ruins of the Dresden Art Academy, the photographer Edmund Kesting, with the assistance of Peter, posed it in a number of different locations to produce a series of haunting photographic images to give the impression that Death was wandering through the city in search of the dead.
Kesting subsequently published the photographs in the book Dresdner Totentanz ("Dresden’s Death Dance").
The damage from the Allied air raids was so extensive that following the end of the Second World War, a narrow-gauge light railway system was constructed to remove the debris, although being makeshift, there were frequent derailments.
The railway system, which had seven lines, employed 5,000 staff and 40 locomotives, all of which bore women’s names. The last train remained in service until 1958, although the final official debris clearance team was only disbanded in 1977.
Rather than repair them, the German Democratic Republic authorities razed the ruins of many churches, royal buildings and palaces in the 1950's and 1960's, such as the Gothic Sophienkirche, the Alberttheater and the Wackerbarth-Palais, as well as many historic residential buildings.
The surroundings of the once-lively Prager Straße resembled a wasteland before it was rebuilt in the socialist style at the beginning of the 1960's.
However, the majority of historic buildings were either saved or reconstructed. Among them were the Ständehaus (1946), the Augustusbrücke (1949), the Kreuzkirche (until 1955), the Zwinger (until 1963), the Catholic Court Church (until 1965), the Semperoper (until 1985), the Japanese Palace (until 1987) and the two largest train stations.
Some of this work dragged on for decades, often interrupted by the overall economic situation in the GDR. The ruins of the Frauenkirche were allowed to remain on Neumarkt as a memorial to the war.
From 1955 to 1958, a large part of the art treasures looted by the Soviet Union was returned, which meant that from 1960 onwards many state art collections could be opened in reconstructed facilities.
Important orchestras such as the Staatskapelle performed in alternative venues (for example in the Kulturpalast from 1969). Some cultural institutions were moved out of the city center (for example the state library in Albertstadt).
The Outer Neustadt, which was almost undamaged during the war, was threatened with demolition in the 1980's following years of neglect, but was preserved following public protests.
To house the homeless, large prefabricated housing estates were built on previously undeveloped land In Prohlis and Gorbitz. Damaged housing in the Johannstadt and other areas in the city center were demolished and replaced with large apartment blocks.
The villa districts in Blasewitz, Striesen, Kleinzschachwitz, Loschwitz and on the Weißen Hirsch were largely preserved.
Abba Eban
"History teaches us that men and
nations behave wisely when they
have exhausted all other alternatives".
This was said during a speech in London UK on 16th. December 1970 by Abba Eban (1915-2002), an Israeli diplomat and writer.
