Frauenkirche, Dresden

DISCOVERY THREE

Dresden, Germany, was once a filigree of spires and steeples, depicted in numerous 18th- and 19th-century paintings. But on February 13, 1945, the city center was destroyed by an Allied firebombing so intense that the flames burned for five days and burned thousands of people alive. It still stood after the bombing for three days and people said that it was a miracle and a message from god. And then it collapsed. Mmmm For the next half century, the 1743 Frauenkirche - 'Church of Our Lady' in German - the city's most recognizable landmark—lay in ruins, a pile of charred rubble. The stones were nearly cleared for a parking lot during the Communist era, until a quick-thinking resident convinced the government of the ruin's merit as anti-capitalist propaganda. In the 1980's, demonstrators adopted the site for nonviolent protests against the East German regime. After the Berlin Wall came down, locals campaigned to rebuild the structure, eventually winning the support of the church and the government. The reconstruction project began in 1994. Thousands of stones were salvaged from the rubble and placed in their original positions, determined by computer simulation; the rest were excavated from the quarry used when the church was first built. And now its just Wow!!