About this place
The Church of the Holy Cross has stood at the corner of Dresden's Altmarkt for centuries, its ninety two meter tower a fixed point above the old town and the seat of the state bishop of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Saxony. For more than seven hundred years it has been the home of the Dresdner Kreuzchor, the celebrated boys' choir whose young voices sang here week after week, even through the years when the Nazi dictatorship tightened its grip on the city and its Jewish citizens were driven out of public life. On the night of 13 February 1945 the church caught fire in the Allied firestorm and burned from within, leaving only the scorched outer walls standing while the square outside became a place of unimaginable horror. Rebuilt slowly between 1946 and 1955 and reopened on the tenth anniversary of the bombing, the interior was left rough and grey rather than restored to its former splendor, a deliberate scar that keeps the memory of that night visible to everyone who steps inside.
Key facts
- 92 meters — The height of the west tower, a landmark over the Altmarkt for centuries
- 11 choristers — Members of the Kreuzchor boys' choir killed in the firebombing of 13 February 1945
- 1955 year — The church reopened, exactly ten years to the day after the bombing, with a deliberately bare interior
📍 An der Kreuzkirche 1, 01067, Dresden