On the day of our visit the market consisted of a number of stalls selling products of the area, including flowers, takeaway food and beer, all enthusiastically presented.
Market place
Another indicator of the destruction of Dresden is the absence of old buildings in the city centre. The photos below are of the market square where the surrounding buildings are all obviously post-WW2, while the building in the background in the first photo bears the black scar of the firestorm.
On the day of our visit the market consisted of a number of stalls selling products of the area, including flowers, takeaway food and beer, all enthusiastically presented.
On the day of our visit the market consisted of a number of stalls selling products of the area, including flowers, takeaway food and beer, all enthusiastically presented.
Rain, rain, go away ...
Shortly after we arrived in Dresden it began to rain, causing us to retreat to a hop-on-hop-off bus that took us on an extensive tour of the city and part of the surrounding suburbs.
As we were limited to four hours before we needed to catch a train back to Berlin, the visit looked to be very limited as the rain set in. Miraculously, the rain cleared when we stepped off the bus, giving us two hours to visit some of the surviving pre-WW2 buildings.
The following photos taken from inside the bus and slightly rain-affected show some of the dwellings and other buildings outside the city-proper.
As we were limited to four hours before we needed to catch a train back to Berlin, the visit looked to be very limited as the rain set in. Miraculously, the rain cleared when we stepped off the bus, giving us two hours to visit some of the surviving pre-WW2 buildings.
The following photos taken from inside the bus and slightly rain-affected show some of the dwellings and other buildings outside the city-proper.
Dresden risen from the ashes
During the period 13 February - 15 February 1945 Allied aircraft dropped tons of incendiary bombs on the German city of Dresden, causing a firestorm that consumed the whole city and is estimated to have taken the lives of around 250,000 people.
It's difficult, if not impossible, to determine the actual death toll. Though Dresden was a city of approximately 5,000 residents at the time, it is estimated that there were at least 600,000 refugees, mostly women and children, sheltering in the city considered safe in that it contained nothing significant that contributed materiel to Germany's war effort.
Towards the end of our stay in Berlin we took a train to Dresden to see for ourselves how the city looks today. Though only a couple of hours from Berlin, if we'd fallen asleep enroute we could have found ourselves in Prague or the end of the line in Budapest
The European rail network has always fascinated me, in that standing in the main railway station at Milan or Florence for example you can see destination signs for numerous other countries, like our trains go from Southern Cross to places such as Bendigo and Warrnambool. Maybe more about trains later in this blog.
Simply, buildings or parts of buildings that remained after the firestorm are blackened, while replacement stonework is relatively clean and lighter in colour.
Dresden Hauptbahnhof
With destruction of German's rail network important to disrupting the movement of troops and war fighting material the Dresden railway yards would have been important targets for Allied bombers.
The unblemished railway overpass and partial rebuilding of the main railway station facade (photo below) are evidence of the damage to the rail facilities.
It's difficult, if not impossible, to determine the actual death toll. Though Dresden was a city of approximately 5,000 residents at the time, it is estimated that there were at least 600,000 refugees, mostly women and children, sheltering in the city considered safe in that it contained nothing significant that contributed materiel to Germany's war effort.
Towards the end of our stay in Berlin we took a train to Dresden to see for ourselves how the city looks today. Though only a couple of hours from Berlin, if we'd fallen asleep enroute we could have found ourselves in Prague or the end of the line in Budapest
The European rail network has always fascinated me, in that standing in the main railway station at Milan or Florence for example you can see destination signs for numerous other countries, like our trains go from Southern Cross to places such as Bendigo and Warrnambool. Maybe more about trains later in this blog.
Simply, buildings or parts of buildings that remained after the firestorm are blackened, while replacement stonework is relatively clean and lighter in colour.
Dresden Hauptbahnhof
With destruction of German's rail network important to disrupting the movement of troops and war fighting material the Dresden railway yards would have been important targets for Allied bombers.
The unblemished railway overpass and partial rebuilding of the main railway station facade (photo below) are evidence of the damage to the rail facilities.
A fitting memorial
Adolf Hitler spent his final days in a bunker deep under Berlin. When it was obvious that the war was lost and to avoid capture by the approaching Soviets he shot himself. History has it that his body was taken out of the bunker and incinerated to avoid it falling into Soviet hands.
Today, the site of the bunker is an unkempt car park outside an apartment building. German authorities, anxious to avoid any memorial where Neo-Nazis may gather to celebrate Hitler as a martyr have allowed it to be marked with nothing other than the sign shown below.
The sign, though vandalised, recounts Hitler's final days and shows the layout of the large bunker network, provides information on how it was constructed and its fate after WW2.
I wonder what tales this tree (below) could tell, it's quite substantial at its base.
Today, the site of the bunker is an unkempt car park outside an apartment building. German authorities, anxious to avoid any memorial where Neo-Nazis may gather to celebrate Hitler as a martyr have allowed it to be marked with nothing other than the sign shown below.
The sign, though vandalised, recounts Hitler's final days and shows the layout of the large bunker network, provides information on how it was constructed and its fate after WW2.
I wonder what tales this tree (below) could tell, it's quite substantial at its base.
Holocaust Memorial
A visit to Berlin would not be complete without a walk through the Memorial to the Murdered European Jews, the Holocaust memorial for Germany.
The memorial is a Field of Stelae covering an area of 19,000 square metres and containing 2,711 concrete blocks of varying heights (photos below) and an Information Centre located below the south-eastern corner of the stelae. The ceiling of the Information Centre undulates in unison with the undulations of the stelae field above it.
Within the Information Centre, a Room of Dimensions exhibits extracts from personal diaries, letters and last notes written during the Holocaust set into the floor (below) and a Room of Families shows various Jewish lifestyles of the time, using the example of 15 families.
Turteltaub Family
The photos (below) show one family of Austrian Jews, the Turteltaubs and their fate.
In 2008 we visited the site of the Warsaw Ghetto, now a park with a large stone and bronze memorial (two photos below). Standing in that place with knowledge of the fate of the majority of its residents, young and old, was a very sobering experience.
Reading some of the records exhibited in the Berlin Holocaust Memorial reminded me of Warsaw and the dreadful persecution of Polish Jews by the Nazis. The Polish death toll estimated to be between 2.9 and 3.1 million far, far exceeds the death toll of Jews elsewhere in Europe.
The photograph below shows the locations of Nazi concentration camps across Europe and nearby.
A note alongside the map states that it was incomplete due to some of the Eastern European countries being less than cooperative in identifying camp locations within their borders.
If the ghost of the little Austrian corporal with the toothbrush mustache haunts the bunker then it's only a short walk across the road to the Holocaust Memorial where he can sit and ponder the fate of his vision of a Thousand-Year Reich.
And, maybe it's karma, Germany being called upon to again contribute financially to bailing out the Greeks and those other European countries with debt problems that they directly or indirectly brutalised in WW2. Maybe a form of war reparations when most needed.
The memorial is a Field of Stelae covering an area of 19,000 square metres and containing 2,711 concrete blocks of varying heights (photos below) and an Information Centre located below the south-eastern corner of the stelae. The ceiling of the Information Centre undulates in unison with the undulations of the stelae field above it.
Within the Information Centre, a Room of Dimensions exhibits extracts from personal diaries, letters and last notes written during the Holocaust set into the floor (below) and a Room of Families shows various Jewish lifestyles of the time, using the example of 15 families.
Turteltaub Family
The photos (below) show one family of Austrian Jews, the Turteltaubs and their fate.
In 2008 we visited the site of the Warsaw Ghetto, now a park with a large stone and bronze memorial (two photos below). Standing in that place with knowledge of the fate of the majority of its residents, young and old, was a very sobering experience.
Reading some of the records exhibited in the Berlin Holocaust Memorial reminded me of Warsaw and the dreadful persecution of Polish Jews by the Nazis. The Polish death toll estimated to be between 2.9 and 3.1 million far, far exceeds the death toll of Jews elsewhere in Europe.
The photograph below shows the locations of Nazi concentration camps across Europe and nearby.
A note alongside the map states that it was incomplete due to some of the Eastern European countries being less than cooperative in identifying camp locations within their borders.
If the ghost of the little Austrian corporal with the toothbrush mustache haunts the bunker then it's only a short walk across the road to the Holocaust Memorial where he can sit and ponder the fate of his vision of a Thousand-Year Reich.
And, maybe it's karma, Germany being called upon to again contribute financially to bailing out the Greeks and those other European countries with debt problems that they directly or indirectly brutalised in WW2. Maybe a form of war reparations when most needed.
Soviet War Memorial
A couple of hundred meters west of the Brandenburg Gate stands the Soviet War Memorial. It was the Soviets who took Berlin in the final days of WW 2, but at enormous cost in the lives of both Soviet and German troops.
As can be seen from the photographs (below) the memorial is very imposing with its huge statue and tanks. For Berliners wanting to move on from the last war and Soviet occupation through its East German client the memorial must be an unpleasant reminder.
As can be seen from the photographs (below) the memorial is very imposing with its huge statue and tanks. For Berliners wanting to move on from the last war and Soviet occupation through its East German client the memorial must be an unpleasant reminder.
Burning of the books
Infamous in the rise of the National Socialists or Nazi Party to power was the day of the “burning of the books” in Berlin. The photo (below) shows the plaza at the front of the Humbolt University Library, off Unter den Linden, where the books were burned.
Organised by the student body, the banned books consumed in the fires included works by such notables as Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.
To record this act of ignorant ideology-based destruction, a memorial in the form of a white room lined with empty bookshelves visible through a glass pane has been erected at the side of the plaza.
Organised by the student body, the banned books consumed in the fires included works by such notables as Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.
To record this act of ignorant ideology-based destruction, a memorial in the form of a white room lined with empty bookshelves visible through a glass pane has been erected at the side of the plaza.
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