Day 3 of my recent tour along the Elbe. Crossing from Czechia into Germany I head to Dresden, scene of the terrible Alloed bombing raid in 1945, stopping off at a couple of other sites along the way.
#cycletouring #cyclinghistory #cycletour #Dresden #elberadweg #pirna #sonnestein #badschandau
[Music] This marker behind me is the floods over the different years. The very top is 2002. I’m going up this elevator. It was built in 1904. Uh, and it’s 54 m high. It is a good view. Although I wasn’t so keen on the elevator. Stopped for about the little town of Pa. This was one of six uh sanitariums that the Nazis used for their secret T4 program whereby the mentally and physically disabled uh will be taken to place like this and then eventually murdered. I’m not in the basement of the sanitary. This is the waiting room. The inmates will be waiting before they go to get gassed just next door. This is the gas chamber. It’s rather innocuous looking room and almost 14,000 mentally and physically disabled people were murdered in here. The door is gone. It was just right in front of me, but you can still see traces of it on the walls. The Nazis removed it in 1942. The next few rooms off of the disposal of the bodies. Some standing in the morg and the next room on was the crerematorium. In the corner of this room was where the creremator were. So usually about two bodies burnt at a time and then then ashes were taken out. just dumped large bones ground up in a mill. Obviously, families would be writing to find out news of their relations that were kept in the sanitarium and the Nazis kept that a secret and they just be reported that they had died and then they just sent them some random ashes. After the war, the hillside next to the sanitarium was excavated by archaeologists and that’s where the bodies are. The ashes were dumped and this cabinet contains some of their personal effects. The army is the memorial to the victims here. News eventually began to leak out of what the Nazis were doing and in 1941 Archbishop Galen spoke out against the T4 program and as a result the Nazis closed it down and all the six sanitarium were closed. However, most of the inmates were simply moved to other concentration camps or extermination camps and no T4 experts there anyway who continued the killing. [Music] Just coming into Dresden now where I’m stopping for the rest of the day. Here I am in Dresden, the Florence of the El with all these beautiful Barack buildings. Of course, many of them are postwar reconstructions. On the night of 13th of February 1945, uh the first of three bombing raids took place over the next couple of days was launched by the RAF. In total, over a thousand bombers were used between Americans and the US Army Air Force, and almost 4,000 tons of bombs were dropped on Dresdston. In the first wave of the attack, the first aircraft dropped flares, magnesium flares to signal the target. And then the next wave of RAF bombers uh dropped a mix of high explosive and incendury bombs. After three hours when the German fire crews were putting the fires out, a second wave came over and bombed the city again. The next day, the Americans did it as well. The incendurary bombs in particular created a firestorm where the rising heat from the fire sucked in oxygen at ground level and created a whirlwind which has fed the fires with more and more oxygen. Ever since it’s been a very controversial attack. Did the British really need to attack Dresden. [Music] Behind me is probably the most famous building in all of Dresden of Fraen Kirk. This was completely destroyed in the February 45 bombing raids and the communists left it as a heap of rubble as a memorial to war. After reunification in 1991, the console decided to rebuild it and it was complete in 2005. This bit of wall behind me is actually part of the dome of the original Fowler and the little memorial that you can read there tells the story of a man who comes in the next day after the bomb raid to um find his wife and watches the dome collapse. The cross at the top was donated by Britain. It was made by a silver smith in Coventry which Coventry as you know was heavily bombed during the war by the Luvafer. The silver smith that made it. His father was actually a bomber pilot and he took apart in the Dresden raid. This is the original cross from the top of the dome pulled from the rocket. I think it’s safe to say they’ve done a good job. So why was the bombing of Dresden controversial? Well, the Allies argued that Dresden had many factories uh that contribute to the German war effort. It was also a major rail marshalling hub and in fact those were the main targets of the bombers. However, much of the destruction took place in the city center. In other words, in the cultural heart of Dresden and people that argue it was morally wrong say that well the rail yards and the factories weren’t really hit. In military terms the allies argued that it hastening the end of the war. Counter argument that of course it was February 1945. The Germans already in retreat. the war was going to be over in a matter of time and therefore the destroying of the cultural heart of Dresden was very much just a an act of cultural vandalism basically behind me is demonstration of socialist realist art just a reminder that after the war dresdon resumed the DDR it’s really letting trees grow over it but I guess they’re not keen remembering the DDR here anymore.