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Monday, August 12th - Dresden
I would have preferred to catch the train to Regensburg today, but for some reason it doesn't run on Mondays. Heiko makes up breakfast of cereal and sliced fruit, and then heads off to work. I walk down to the train station and buy a ticket for the 9 am train to Regensburg tomorrow morning.
The extra day is unexpected and I have no planned itinerary. It is excellent weather out, not too hot or windy. I take my bike out and do some unloaded touring around the city core. It is shocking how many buildings still show the markings of the great bombing by American and British air forces that destroyed the city in February, 1945. The stone railings and lamp posts are blackened either from the fire or from the immense amount of soot that was left behind. The once-famous Frauenkirche, whose tall spire made the Dresden skyline distinctive before WWII, still lies in rubble. A couple partial walls are standing on either side of the rubble and the altar, with a stone statue of a preacher giving a sermon standing in front of the mess, presumably against the evils of violence.
I ride and walk my bike along the banks of the Elbe River and to the Zwinger Palace, which too has been partially restored. When I look beyond the immediate tourist attractions, the city is in depression, like a wounded soldier lying in a hospital bed. But cities, unlike some humans, eventually recover from their injuries.
After I am tired of walking around, I do some more shopping to replace the items that were stolen on the train to Berlin, such as a sewing kit, Band-Aids and nail clippers. If there anything else I am missing it will wait until I am in Bavaria.
I return to Heiko's place around 4 to work on his journal and to read. Ralph arrives home first and we begin the dinner preparations. Both he and Heiko have to go out later in the evening so I am left alone. If there was more to see and do here I'd be out on the town too, but there isn't. I relax and take it easy.
"The bomb is the natural product of the kind of society we have created. It is as easy, normal and unforced expression of the American Way of Life as electric iceboxes, banana splits and hyrdomatic-drive automobiles."
- from Dwight McDonald, 'Politics' (August, 1945).
"God gave the United States the atomic bomb to use as we see fit."
- adviser to President Ronald Reagan, shortly after his inauguration in 1980.
PHOTO 1: view of Dresden from the Elbe River
PHOTO 2: decorative tower on Elbe R bridge near Zwinger Palace
PHOTO 3: me with my new friends
PHOTO 4: ruins of the Frauenkirche
PHOTO 5: the rebuilt Frauenkirche (circa 2001)
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