You can’t walk far in Dresden’s glorious city centre, the Altstadt, without bumping into a palace, a fort, an opera house or a cathedral. It is so stacked with Baroque and Rococo culture that it has the nickname “Florence of the Elbe”. These buildings have doors…
Heavy wooden doors are wonderful, but next week’s instalment shows some doors from the Neustadt or New Town, which is actually older than the Old Town.
From 13th to 15th of February 1945, 800 British and American bombers dropped 2,700 tons of high explosives and incendiaries onto the beautiful city of Dresden, capital of Saxony. Over 25,000 people died in the bombing and the firestorm which burned up so much oxygen that those in air raid shelters were suffocated. Half the residential buildings and a quarter of the industrial sites were destroyed. This horrific event was not as devastating as the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the firebombing of Tokyo. Or even the prolonged bombing of Hamburg in 1943.
What purpose did it serve? Disruption of military communications for the Wehrmacht facing the advancing Russian forces? Destruction of industry? A legitimate military target? Or to terrorise the population, lowering morale and sapping the will to fight? Revenge for the bombing of Coventry at the blitz in London?
Was it a war crime? Even Winston Churchill raised questions about the conduct of Allied bombing following the destruction of Dresden.
Seventy seven years later, I visited the city which has been painstakingly rebuilt, using some of the original stone which was blackened by the feuersturm. There were plenty of doors to photograph.
A short tram ride from the city centre there is a huge park, laid out in the Baroque style, named Grosser Garten. It reminded me of Victoria Park in Leicester. Originally a hunting lodge, it became a public park in the early 19th century. The summer palace was destroyed and the façade was reconstructed in the 1950s, using some of the original stone.
The Botanical Gardens looked inviting, but sadly the narrow gauge railway was not operating when I visited, so I walked to the city centre, past a skateboard park and a slab of East German apartment block, to the town hall and Protestant Cathedral.
The residential housing of the city centre has been replaced by modern shops, offices, restaurants and administrative buildings.
More doors from Dresden to come in the next instalment.
Seattle is a wonderful city, even when your luggage was left in Europe and you are left with the clothes you stand up in, plus a carry-on bag filled with camera equipment. On Sunday morning, Target opens at 8am and $200 later, we had a basic set of clothes and toiletries.
PNW = Pacific North West. The top left hand side of the contiguous United States of America. This summer, we visited friends living on San Juan Island, close to Vancouver. The weather was glorious and despite notices warning against sea bathing, we braved the waves and shivered in the 14 degree Celsius water.
There were pods of orca patrolling the channels, feasting on salmon. Harbour porpoises played in the bay, but vanished as soon as anyone took an interest in their activities. Further north, close to Canada, we saw a humpback whale.
San Juan Island is (slightly) famous for the Pig War of 1859. The “49th parallel” border between Canada and the USA was fixed at the Treaty of Oregon in 1846. However, on the west coast there was an untidy group of islands between Puget Sound and Vancouver Island which both US and UK claimed. Was the boundary the Haro Straight to the north west (off Vancouver) or Rosario Straight to the south east (off the mainland)? It didn’t matter until the Hudson Bay Company saw the commercial advantage of San Juan Island and established a sheep farm, followed by some American settlers who started farming.
In 1859, Lyman Cutler (an American farmer) shot a pig belonging to the Hudson Bay Company, which was digging up his garden. The Brits tried to arrest him, but the US government sent a company of infantry (commanded by George Pickett – heard of him?) to the island to protect the settlers’ interests. The Royal Navy rattled their cutlasses and sent three warships and a detachment of Marines to Garrison Bay, where they built a fortified camp. The Americans also built a camp at Granma’s Cove at the other end of the island. Sensibly, peace prevailed and relations between the two sides remained cordial (mixed with alcohol). After the US Civil War, the matter was settled by arbitration, with the German Kaiser deciding that the boundary was the Haro Straight, giving San Juan Island to the USA.
Have Stethoscope, Will Travel 