Dresden, Zwinger [Credit: Herve Donnezan/Photo Researchers, Inc.]ZwingerHerve Donnezan/Photo Researchers, Inc.city, capital of Saxony Land (state), eastern Germany. Dresden is the traditional capital of Saxony and the third largest city in eastern Germany after Berlin and Leipzig. It lies in the broad basin of the Elbe River between Meissen and Pirna, 19 miles (30 km) north of the Czech border and 100 miles (160 km) south of Berlin. Sheltering hills north and south of the Elbe valley contribute to the mild climate enjoyed by Dresden. Numerous parks and cultural monuments exist along the Elbe’s course, particularly a steel bridge (1891–93), a cable railway (1898–1901), and a funicular (1894–95). The Elbe valley around the city was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2004, but the construction of a four-lane bridge across the river caused UNESCO to revoke the designation in 2009. Pop. (2006 est.) 495,181.


Dresden originated as the Slav village of Drezdzany, meaning “Forest Dwellers on the Plain,” on the Elbe’s north bank. First mentioned in 1216, the town on the south bank was founded at a ford by Margrave Dietrich of Meissen as a German colony. The Slav settlement on the north bank, although older, was known as New Town and the later German town on the south bank as Old Town.

In 1270 Dresden became the capital of Margrave Henry the Illustrious, and after his death it belonged to the king of Bohemia and the margrave of Brandenburg until it was restored about 1319 to the margraves of Meissen, who chartered it in 1403. Upon the division of Saxony in 1485 it became the residence and capital of the Albertine line of Wettin rulers, later electors and kings of Saxony. Dresden accepted the Protestant Reformation in 1539. After a disastrous fire in 1491, the city was rebuilt and fortified. The electors Augustus I and Augustus II modernized the city in the Baroque and Rococo styles in the late 17th and 18th centuries, rebuilding New Town (burned in 1685) and founding Friedrichstadt, northwest of Old Town. The Treaty of Dresden (1745), between Prussia, Saxony, and Austria, ended the second Silesian War and confirmed Silesia as Prussian. Two-thirds destroyed in the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), Dresden’s fortifications were later dismantled. In 1813 Napoleon I made the town a centre of military operations and there won his last great battle on August 26 and 27 (see Battle of Dresden). Dresden’s prosperity grew rapidly during the 19th century, accelerated by the completion of railways connecting the city to Berlin and Leipzig. Industrial suburbs began to grow up, mostly on the south bank.

Before World War II, Dresden was called “the Florence on the Elbe” and was considered one of the world’s most beautiful cities owing to its architecture and art treasures. During the war, however, it was almost completely destroyed by massive bombing raids that took place on the night of February 13–14, 1945, by an Anglo-American force. The raids obliterated much of Dresden and killed thousands of civilians; various postwar estimates placed the death toll between 35,000 and 135,000 people, but in the early 21st century an official German commission concluded that up to 25,000 had perished. The city continued to be bombarded in raids lasting until April 17, 1945, but little was achieved militarily.

The city was so badly damaged that it was suggested that the best approach might be to level the site. After the war a compromise was reached by rebuilding the Zwinger, the Saxon royal palace, and the Baroque buildings around the palace and creating a new city in the area outside. Much of the city was subsequently reconstructed with modern (though rather plain) buildings, broad streets and squares, and green open spaces, with the aim of preserving as far as possible the character of the old city.

The contemporary city

Manufacturing in Dresden expanded greatly after World War II. Owing to the paucity of raw materials in the vicinity, the city traditionally eschewed heavy industry in favour of high value-added manufacturing. Its industries currently produce precision and optical instruments, electrical equipment, specialized chemicals and pharmaceutical products, motor vehicles and airplanes, and food products. Microelectronics has also grown in significance. Market gardening is extensive, and flowers and shrubs are grown for export. The European porcelain industry originated in Dresden but was moved to Meissen, 15 miles (24 km) northwest, in 1710. Dresden lies at the centre of an extensive railway system, has an airport, and is connected by the Elbe River with the inland waterway system as far as Hamburg and into the Czech Republic.

Dresden: Frauenkirche [Credit: © Jeffrey S. Campbell]Dresden: Frauenkirche© Jeffrey S. CampbellThe heart of Dresden is still a cluster of Baroque churches and the Rococo-style Zwinger on the south bank of the Elbe, in the old city. These churches suffered severely during World War II: the Frauenkirche (“Church of Our Lady”; 1726–43), Germany’s largest Protestant church, was destroyed; the Hofkirche (“Court Church”; 1738–55) and the Kreuzkirche (“Church of the Holy Cross”; restored 1491, 1764–92, and 1900) were restored shortly after the war. The ruins of the Frauenkirche were kept as a memorial until the 1990s, when reconstruction began; in 2004 it was topped with a cross built by a British silversmith who was a son of one of the pilots who had dropped bombs on the city. Work was completed in 2005, and the Frauenkirche subsequently opened to the public. The Georgenschloss, the former royal palace (1530–35, restored 1889–1901), was also heavily damaged by bombing. Other historic buildings have also either been restored or reconstructed, including the Taschenbergpalais, which has been rebuilt as a hotel, and the Wettinerpalais.

Dresden has several major museums and art galleries. The famous Zwinger (1711–32), which was originally planned as the forecourt for a castle, has been restored and its numerous collections (including pewter and porcelain) and museums (zoology, mineralogy, mathematical and scientific instruments) reopened. In the open space north of the Zwinger, the Semper Gallery (1846) was destroyed in 1945 but was reopened in 1960, with renovations continuing into the 1990s. The gallery houses important Renaissance and Baroque paintings by Italian, Dutch, and Flemish masters, including Raphael’s Sistine Madonna (1513). The Japanese Palace, formerly housing a manuscript and map library, has been rebuilt and is now a museum of anthropology and ethnography.

Dresden is also a city of music with a great operatic tradition, where Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner conducted and where operas by Richard Strauss and others premiered. The Opera House (1878), destroyed in the war, was reconstructed. The city is the home of the Dresden State Theatre and the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra (founded 1870). There is a music college and colleges of medicine, plastic arts, transport, and teachers’ training, as well as a celebrated Academy of Art. Dresden is also a major centre for scientific education and research, particularly in the atomic field. The city is the site of a Technical University (1828), with a library containing more than one million volumes; the Central Institute for Nuclear Physics; and the German Museum of Hygiene, internationally known for its manufacture of transparent plastic anatomical models. There are several historic parks, notably the Grosse Garten (1676), which lies southeast of the old city and has botanical and zoological gardens.

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