Augustus the Strong, Sun King of Saxony
Dresden’s Baroque brilliance is thanks to Augustus II (1670–1733). The Saxony Elector was nicknamed “Augustus the Strong” either because of his physical strength – they say he showed off in court by snapping horseshoes – or his potency. Even if contemporary rumours that he fathered around 370 illegitimate children are hyperbolic, his twelve or so mistresses – from aristocratic ladies to French dancers via an Ottoman noblewoman – suggest a man of considerable appetites. The sobriquet also suits a ruler with an absolutist streak. Impressed by Versailles and Italian courts as an 18-year-old, Augustus styled himself as a Saxon Sun King and began to transform his capital into a mirror of his own magnificence. The upshot was such fantastic fripperies as the Zwinger and outrageous collections of porcelain and jewels that were hoarded with an almost obsessive-compulsive need. Indeed, his passion for porcelain, a “white gold” that had to be imported until his alchemist, Johann Friedrich Böttger, cracked the secret while incarcerated in the Königstein fortress, was directly inspired by the god-like rule of Oriental emperors. Yet Augustus was as ruthless as he was extravagant. Despite Saxony’s role as a wellspring of the Reformation, he converted to Catholicism to claim the Crown of Poland in 1697 and spent huge sums on bribes for its nobility and clergy.
The bombing of Dresden
Historians continue to debate the bombing of Dresden. Some now describe it as immoral or a war crime, and no other Allied raid has attracted more condemnation than that launched on the night of February 13, 1945. Records show that RAF and USAF Command carried out an incendiary raid on a city that had hitherto escaped destruction. Thereafter the issue is contentious. Without doubt it was an annihilation: if the obliteration of the architectural gem of Germany does not put the raid in a different class, the casualty figures do. Around 25,000–35,000 people were killed in a city swollen by refugees; always sketchy at the time, the number of dead was exaggerated first by Nazi propagandists, who stated that 200,000 had died, then by the communists, who put the figure at 135,000.
The tragedy of Dresden is that the raid seems pointless. The stated military aim was to restrict movement of troops and armaments in order to aid the Russian advance west. As leaflets dropped on the city explained: “To the people of Dresden: we were forced to bomb your city because of the heavy military traffic your railroad facilities have been carrying. Destruction of anything other than military objectives was unintentional.” (As it turned out, those key railroads were knocked out for barely two days.) Allied bombing of civilian targets was nothing new. Yet Dresden, a city whose tradition of arts and humanism was so anathema to the Third Reich that Hitler had only visited twice, was no military lynchpin, and passing comments by High Command about shattering German morale at the end game of the war did not help the military’s case. Contemporary Allied journalists and intelligentsia sniffed something rotten, something punitive, and the raid provoked the first public dissent over High Command bombing policy. Churchill, who must have approved the plan, distanced himself from it, leaving Air Chief Marshall Arthur “Bomber” Harris to carry the can. Few historians now concur that the attack shortened the war. Just as depressing is the fact that “Dresden’s Holocaust” is a cause célèbre of neo-Nazi parties.