 London, Thursday, April 15, 2004
Rebuilt church
reopens row of Dresden bombs From Roger Boyes
in Berlin THE GIANT jigsaw puzzle of
rebuilding Dresden's Frauenkirche, which was
destroyed in the devastating Allied
[sic.
British] bombing raid of
1945, was close to completion yesterday when the
last sandstone block was levered into position -
but this symbolic act was overshadowed by a fierce
debate on whether the attack constituted a British
war crime against German civilians and their
cultural heritage. Only an orb and cross, crafted by Alan
Smith, a British goldsmith, has still to be
hoisted on to the dome of the 18th-century Lutheran
church. The 18ft cross was sponsored by the
British-based Dresden
Trust.  David
Irving comments: AFTER I SPOKE IN
Dresden's Kulturpalast on the anniversary
of the raid in February 1990, before the
reunification of the two halves of
Germany, I directed that my share of the
"gate money" taken for that function
should be donated to the Frauenkirche
reconstruction fund which was just then
being set up.
I also provided
the photos used by the British Trust which
has shared in the cost and the
project.
IBM donated a
virtual-reality computer display of the
reconstructed cathedral soon after, and
for a long time my own contribution, and
my pioneering book on the air raid which
first brought it to the attention of the
English-speaking world in 1963, were
commemorated in the IBM display.
Alerted to this infamy
by Der Spiegel and other
newspapers, the German Government then
intervened, and ensured that my name was
expunged from all references to the air
raid. . .
Being permanently banned
from German soil, I am of course unable to
attend any of the commemoration
ceremonies. But I am there in spirit, as
regular readers of this website will
attest. |
Mr Smith's father, Frank, was one of the
Lancaster bomber pilots who flew in the raid. "He
could never forget the bombing and, until the day
he died, he thought it was morally wrong," Mr Smith
said. The reconstruction work, which began after
the fall of communist East Germany, is regarded as
one of the most successful attempts at
British-German postwar reconciliation. However, a
new book by the
historian Frederick
Taylor has scratched open wounds in Germany
that were supposed to have healed in the slow,
painstaking rebuilding of the church. The Dresden
Trust has raised money not only for the cross, but
also for a stained glass British window surrounded
by 96 large stones, all sponsored by British
benefactors. The implicit aim is to make amends and
acknowledge that the bombing and subsequent
firestorm of a city known as the Florence of the
North was a dreadful error of judgment in the dying
days of the war. More than
35,000 people were
killed; one of the most terrible images was that of
90 asphyxiated young girls found sitting upright in
a basement as if still alive. Mr Taylor argues that
Dresden was a legitimate military target and
puts the raid in the context of the overall
Allied bombing campaign, pointing out that
Dresden was producing not only porcelain but
also weaponry, and that it was a significant
railway junction. The raid on February 13, 1945, came at a
significant strategic moment, the Eastern Front
having edged very close to the city. His critics
reply that the existence of a railway junction
meant merely that the city was bursting at the
seams with civilian refugees, women and children,
who were unable to shelter when the fireball rolled
through the streets. Allan Russell, the
British chairman of the Dresden Trust, regrets that
the book "does not answer the question of why
the old city centre was targeted when the
military installations were mainly outside the
centre . . . I personally know many pilots who
were very unhappy about what they had to do, and
stayed unhappy for the rest of their lives." The dome of the Frauenkirche (Church of Our
Lady) was almost as high as that of St Paul's. It
stayed seemingly intact until the morning after the
raids, and then collapsed with what one witness
described as "a whisper". The eight sandstone
pillars supporting the dome -- known as the Stone
Bell because of its distinctive shape -- exploded;
the outer walls shattered and 6,000 tonnes of stone
plunged to the ground. The wreckage of the church was kept untouched as
an anti-war symbol. Only after the end of communism
was it possible, with the help of computers and
electronically generated images, to start piecing
the church together. Each stone, each chunk of
rubble was numbered; the effect was of a giant
jigsaw puzzle. Dresden will win back its skyline on
June 22, when Alan Smith's orb and cross are
carried by crane to the top of the dome. Copyright 2004 Times
Newspapers Ltd. 
Free
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