About this place
The Altmarkt, or Old Market Square, has been the heart of Dresden since the city's founding and was first named in a document in 1370. For centuries it hosted markets, tournaments and public festivities, and by the Baroque era it was framed by elaborate merchant houses. Under National Socialism its scale made it a natural setting for rallies and the choreography of power. Then the Allied air raids of 13 to 15 February 1945 reduced the surrounding streets to rubble and killed tens of thousands. Because the dead were too numerous to bury, the Altmarkt itself became a place of mass cremation, where close to seven thousand bodies were burned on improvised pyres. Rebuilt from 1953 in the sober monumental style of the postwar German Democratic Republic, the square today carries a modest ground marker to the victims and stands as one of Dresden's most solemn sites of remembrance.
Key facts
- 6865 bodies — Cremated on open pyres here in the days after the February 1945 firestorm
- 1370 year — First documented mention, making the Altmarkt Dresden's oldest square
- 1953 year — Reconstruction of the destroyed square began in the postwar socialist era
📍 Altmarkt 7, 01067, Dresden