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Overview
Dresden – The City That Won’t Give Up!
There is no dearth of beautiful cities in Germany or ones with storied pasts and a rich cultural heritage but none would be a patch on Dresden, “Florence on the Elbe” of yore and one of the most important cities in the country today. With its status as the ex-capital and royal residence of the kings of Saxony, its beautiful churches, incredible museums and a vibrant culture, Dresden charms the visitor with its enigmatic appeal. The city was founded in 1206 and has stood the test of time to become an industrial, political and cultural center recognized worldwide for its unique combination of beauty and hardiness.
This is the city that was renowned for its cultural and artistic accomplishments and was a center of Romantic Movement between the 18th and 19th centuries. Poets like Goethe, Schiller and Kleist have called it home at different points of time and the city has had its fair share of wars and battles - Dresden was nearly razed to the ground during controversial Allied bombings in WWII but considerable restoration in the recent times has helped it regain its beauty to some extent.
Visitors come to Dresden not just for its wonderful mix of baroque, renaissance and modern architecture and its wealth of museums but also for its frenzied nightlife rivaling that of cities like Berlin and Barcelona. The two districts of Altstadt and Neustadt spliced neatly into two by the silvery River Elbe offer enough for a holiday maker to do trendy restaurants, charming stores and boutiques as well as a whole other world of intertwining picturesque streets to wander.
Being nearly wiped out in the two day WWII nightmare hasn’t stopped Dresden from moving ahead and forging its own path of progress and the city is a beautiful homage to the grit and courage of mankind – isn’t that the making of a wonderful vacation?
A Turbulent History
Linear Pottery
Dresden takes its name from “Drezdany” or Slavic for ‘alluvial forest dwellers’ indicating that the city has a Slavic origin. Although this name for the area does not appear before the 12th century archeological evidence suggests that tribes from the Linear Pottery Cultures of the Neolithic Era had been settled here since 7500 BC. While the Drezdany occupied the southern bank of Elbe, another tribe made its home on the northern bank and though their Slavic name is lost in the winds of time, the settlement has been identified as Antiqua Dresdin and later as Altendresden since the mid 14th century.
Dietrich, Margrave of Meissen chose Dresden as his home in the early 13th century and the city later became the political nerve center of the Saxon dukes, electoral princes and kings. One of the most influential of these rulers was King August the Strong of Poland (1670 – 1733) who is credited with transforming this city of forest dwellers into Europe’s artistic and technological epicenter. Freidrich Schiller wrote his “Ode to Joy” which later became the basis of the European Anthem here right after the city had suffered untold destruction in the Seven Years’ War (1756-63).
Dresden has been a city of importance for several centuries - it graced the Kingdom of Saxony as its capital between 1806 and 1918; it was the chief French platform during the Napoleonic Wars and in 1849 the city suffered the ravages of the German Revolutions in 1849. However the city’s indomitable spirit got the better of war and Dresden once again rose from the ashes to become a major economic power in the 19th century with no small contribution from progressive industrialization.
During this time Dresden was a power to reckon with in the fields of motor car production, banking, manufacturing of medical equipment and camera works. The economic empowerment also saw an unprecedented boom in the city’s population which sadly took the hardest blow in the Allied Forces’ controversial bombing in the last weeks of the Second Word War. As one of the pivotal players in the German military industry, Dresden faced two days of incessant bombing (February 13 – 15, 1945) by the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force where thousands of people lost their lives, most of the city’s historic center was wiped out and the damage to the city’s collective psyche was immeasurable.
Getting back on its feet and healing its wounds was not easy for the city and its citizens but bit-by-bit they did it together. Restorations have been taking place for a good 5 decades and important landmarks like the Semper Opera and the Zwinger Palace have been fully restored. After the German re-unification in 1990, the city has experienced many more dramatic changes in its cityscape, its culture and economy. In its 800 plus years of existence Dresden has gone to glorious heights and then plunged into darkness only to rise again shining like the Phoenix. Today it is counted as one of the most important cities in Germany, noted for its green quotient, its attractive cityscape and a tourist friendly economy.
When to go
Dresden is located in the central – eastern part of Germany where the cold is able to beat down the best of outdoorsmen. Summers in contrast, are quite warm and humid and therefore a better bet than winters for visitors. So plan your visit between April and November when the temperatures are between a comfortable 20 and 30 degrees and the rain, if any, isn’t enough to keep you indoors. If snowy winters are what you crave then the rest of the months will not leave you complaining and you would also get to see the Dresden Christmas Markets – quite a delight in themselves.