History

Recent History

Reunification in 1990 was no less a shock for Dresden than for the rest of the former GDR, but the city has bounced back harder than most. Dresden remains an industrial powerhouse, with some of the prewar manufacturing that made Dresden a household name returning - including optics, packaged foods and horology. With the recent development of newer, high-tech industries, Dresden has become known as the 'Silicon Valley of Germany'.

Reunification has also meant reconstruction. While the scars of 1945 are still visible, significant landmarks have been restored, most recently the Frauenkirche, in the Neumarkt district, which was reopened to some fanfare in 2005. Damage from record-breaking floods in 2002 has been patched up, for the most part, and in 2004 the city and its surrounds were added to the Unesco World Heritage list.

The politics of the past continues to haunt this historic city: in recent years, the peace rallies that have long been held on the eve of St Valentine's Day have been hijacked by neo-Nazis. Their 2005 gathering was the largest in post-war German history.

Modern Day History

By the turn of the 20th century, Dresden's population was nudging 400,000 and development was continuing apace. It became a centre of car manufacturing, processed foods, medical equipment, photographic equipment and cigarettes. Dresden had long been a city of reknown, but its name was about to enter into the annals of infamy.

During WWII, Dresden was left relatively lightly defended due to its unstrategic position, deep within the bosom of Saxony. Its factories were mostly manned by locals, although some 300 Jews were interned in a camp in the city and used as slave labour. Most of them didn't live to see the end of the war, nor did the majority of Dresden's 6000-strong pre-war Jewish community.

In the early hours of Valentine's Day 1945, with Soviet forces a mere 85km (50mi) away, Allied bombers carpet-bombed the city with the intention of creating a firestorm. The German anti-aircraft batteries were largely manned by children. One American prisoner-of-war interned in Dresden at the time witnessed the event and would later famously describe it in his novel, Slaughterhouse Five. Nazi propaganda reported casualties of up to 400,000, but it's now thought about 25,000 residents perished in the conflagration. This remains a bone of contention among historians to this day, some of whom have argued that it constituted a war crime. The Altstadt was utterly destroyed.

Following the collapse of the Nazi regime, Dresden fell under Soviet control and became a leading industrial and R&D centre in the socialist East Germany. Though much of its historical centre (apart from some historic churches) was rebuilt, the socialists raised entire neighbourhoods with drab, concrete monoliths that, ideologically, were intended to signal a break away from the city's royalist past and, economically, to save moolah. An accident of geography meant that Dresden's citizens were unable to tune in to West German TV (which many East Germans liked to do despite official sanctions) but when reform's bandwagon began rolling in late 1989, local activists and residents were quick to jump aboard.

Pre 20th Century History

Long the site of a Slavic settlement on the Elbe River's northern side called Drežd'any, modern Dresden was born with the establishment of a Germanic town on the opposite bank in 1206 - the two paradoxically were referred to as Neustadt and Altstadt, respectively. By the end of that century, it had assumed the status of a margravate, or regional capital.

Dresden continued to grow in importance until, by the turn of the 18th century, it became the seat of government for the King of Poland, under whose auspices European porcelain was invented to rival China's. His reign was the beginning of Dresden's golden age: it was among the leading cities of 18th-century Europe and, as such, susceptible to attack from rival powers in times of war. Dresden suffered heavily from Prussian bombardment in 1760 during the Seven Years' War. Unfortunately, it was not to be the last time.

By the early 19th century Dresden had become the capital of the Kingdom of Saxony. In August 1813, the outskirts of Dresden were the site of one of Napoleon's more remarkable victories; fortunately the battle left the city more or less unscathed. In 1849, when a constitutionalist uprising was suppressed in May as revolutionary fever spread throughout Europe, the city's population was 95,000.

The city's rapid growth throughout the second half of the century was spurred by rapid industrialisation. Its political status was undiminished by German reunification in 1871 and the kingdom was only dissolved with the collapse of imperial Germany following its defeat in WWI.