Results by title
2 books match the query 'Dresden (Germany)'
Icon Dresden
Baroque City, Air War Symbol, Political TokenSusanne Vees-Gulani
University of Michigan Press, 2026
Icon Dresden explores how memory and politics in Dresden after its 1945 bombing are deeply intertwined with the city’s urban history. It highlights the complex origins of Dresden’s reputation as an exclusively cultural center, focusing on urban planning, marketing, tourism, and the city’s visual archive since the 17th century. Based on this iconic status, a narrative of victimhood arose after its destruction that ignored responsibilities while highlighting the city’s innocence. Despite its origin in Nazi propaganda, this narrative influenced postwar political discourse in socialist and post-reunification Germany. Icon Dresden also provides insight into Dresden’s role under National Socialism and the GDR’s evasive response to this history. It reveals how the strong presence of far-right movements in the city today stems from multiple discourses formed over centuries and communicated from generation to generation.
Drawing on urban, heritage, and tourism studies, visual and memory studies, and environmental psychology, Icon Dresden examines Dresden’s history, identity, visual representations, and rebuilding decisions. It exposes the narratives that define its place in German and international memory and how, paradoxically, they support both Dresden’s current image as a symbol of peace and reconciliation and its backing of nativist and far-right movements.
Drawing on urban, heritage, and tourism studies, visual and memory studies, and environmental psychology, Icon Dresden examines Dresden’s history, identity, visual representations, and rebuilding decisions. It exposes the narratives that define its place in German and international memory and how, paradoxically, they support both Dresden’s current image as a symbol of peace and reconciliation and its backing of nativist and far-right movements.
[more]
The Song Is Over
A Jewish Girl in DresdenHenny Brenner
University of Alabama Press, 2010
A moving story of German Jews saved by the firebombing of Dresden.
February, 1945. After heavy bombing by Allied air forces, Dresden was on fire and in ruins. Ironically, for the few Dresden Jews who had not yet been deported and murdered by the Nazis, the destruction meant rescue. With the Gestapo order for the family to report for deportation still in hand, Henny Wolf Brenner and her parents ran for their lives. They went into hiding and waited for the end of the war. Despite the family’s fears, the Gestapo did not succeed in tracking down the city’s last few Jews, and the family survived.
At the end of the war the Red Army liberated Dresden. But instead of the desired release from terror into a resumption of a peaceful, productive life, different forms of repression awaited Brenner and her parents. In the new communist-run East Germany, she was refused advanced schooling because she was not a Party member. Under the communist regime, it was clear the Jewish population was not welcome, and consequently normal life was impossible. With heavy hearts, the family decided to abandon their beloved home and risk the dangers of flight from East Berlin to West Berlin. With the help of good friends, they were successful in their venture.
[more]