The Dresden Roman Catholic Cathedral (below), originally known as the Hofkirche (Church of the Court) but renamed Kathedrale St. Trinitatis when elevated to cathedral status in 1980. Again, the extent of repairs or restoration is indicated by the variation in the colour of the stonework.
The blackened covered bridge is visible down the left side of the church in the penultimate photo above.
The heat from the fires must have been extreme to blacken the stonework to the extent where it is so ingrained to be visible nearly 70 years later.
Frauenkirche
The protestant Frauenkirche (Church of our Lady), located just beyond the porcelain fresco, survived the bombing and firestorm but collapsed a couple of days later when the fires finally reached the building and ignited the timber pews and other flammable materials, and the heat-affected crumbling sandstone eventually failed under the weight of the very heavy dome roof.
The blackened stonework in the first photo below is all that remained of the original building after it collapsed.
The division of Germany following WW2 left Dresden deep with the communist East and controlled by an administration that had little interest in restoration of damaged churches and some public buildings it considered important only to the bourgeoisie at that time. Consequently, it was many years before restoration of the two churches commenced and it was as recent as October 2005 when the consecration to mark the conclusion of the Frauenkirche reconstruction was celebrated.
Semper Opera House
Located to the right of and behind the Kathedrale St. Trinitatis is the Semper Opera House (below).
In 1678 an opera house was first erect on the land. A replacement opera opera house was was completed on the land in 1841, after which it hosted many premiers of works by a resident of Dresden, Richard Wagner.
Straying momentarily from the program, the little Austrian corporal with the toothbrush mustache was a fan of Wagner, and his "Ride of the Valkyries" was the music behind the helicopter assault ("I love the smell of napalm in the morning") in the motion picture "Apocalypse Now".
The building was destroyed by fire in 1869, and again destroyed in the February 1945 bombing and fire storm. It was reconstructed forty years later and symbolically reopened in February 1985 with a performance of Carl Maria von Weber's "Panther Quadriga Der Freischutz", the opera last played before the bombardment in 1945.