At Dresden's Altstadt is the Kreuzkirche, a church which has been many times destroyed and rebuilt throughout the centuries. From the 13th to the 20th century the church has been reconstructed, burnt, damaged, collapsed, bombarded and rebuilt five times, with the latest rebuilding works being completed in 1955 following the Allied bombardment of Dresden in 1945.
Today the Kreuzkirche is one of Dresden’s historical attractions, its tower offering the visitor beautiful views of this German town's historic centre. The tower is reached through a wide staircase of 256 steps that narrows in the final stretch. It was from that tower that Richard Wagner observed the battle raging in the barricades during the Dresden uprising of 1849.
Wagner and the 1848 Revolution
Richard Wagner joined the revolutionary camp in 1840s Dresden soon after the Prussian King rejected the staging of Wagner’s latest work: the famous opera, Lohengrin. Wagner was distraught to have his request for a command performance rejected by the King in 1847 and his plans for the reorganisation of the German theatre quashed. As the wave of revolution swept Vienna and Berlin in 1848, the production of Lohengrin by the Dresden Opera was also cancelled.
Wagner joined the ranks of the 1848 revolution soon after. He published inflammatory articles and participated in meetings held in a house rented by Russian anarchist, Mikhail Bakunin. He worked together with the revolutionary paper publisher, August Roekel, and personally ordered some 1,500 grenades. When fighting broke out on 4 May 1849, Wagner went on to distribute leaflets to Saxon troops urging them to join the revolution.
Wagner in Dresden’s Kreuzkirche
When the Prussian army arrived in Dresden on 5 May 1849 to quell the insurgents, Wagner was asked by the revolutionary leaders to go up the tower of Kreuzkirche as an observer. In his Opera Offstage, Brener writes that he passed the time “with a nonstop flow of animated abstract discussions on an endless variety of erudite subjects” exclaiming that the view was splendid and the “combination of the bells and the cannons intoxicating”.
He used straw mattresses to protect himself from the bullets although he reportedly boasted that the bullet that would kill him had not yet been cast. Eventually, the uprising was suppressed and Wagner managed to escape arrest and with the assistance of his friend, the famous pianist and composer, Franz Lizst, he eventually found refuge in Switzerland.
Largest Church of Germany
The Kreuzkirche is one of the largest churches of Germany and home to the internationally famous choir, the Kreuzchor. The Dresdner Kreuzchor is one of the city’s oldest institutions and has produced several recordings with prominent record companies, such as the Deutsche Grammophon and Capriccio. The tower is 92 m high and holds a bronze bell which is the second biggest in Germany (after the bell of Cologne's cathedral).
 |
 |
 |
