Dresden

Dresden - darkometer rating : 3 - A city in the south-east of Germany that is in the dark annals of world history primarily as the victim of one of the worst aerial bombing raids in the entire history of warfare. What made it additionally controversial is the fact that this happened only shortly before the end of WWII and hit almost exclusively civilians, including large numbers of refugees. Regardless, Dresden was largely incinerated in a massive Allied air raid that created a fire storm which killed tens of thousands of people. And that wasn't the end of dark history for the city. During the GDR era that followed until Germany's reunification, Dresden was the site of some of the communist regimes' crimes of repression (and worse), which are also commemorated at a couple of sites. And then only a couple of years ago, the old military museum in Dresden received a complete overhaul and remodelling to a modern standard that is simply second to none within its category. All this together makes Dresden a prime dark tourism destination on various levels – even though some chances of doing it even better have been missed … > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: This old grand city of Saxony on the River Elbe has had a long and proud history. At its peak it was one the world's foremost centres of culture. It was (and is) most famed for its almost excessively exuberant baroque architecture. But the single most significant event in Dresden's entire 800 year history was the Allied aerial bombing of the city in WWII . The name Dresden stands for the horrors of conventional carpet bombing of civilian targets more than that of any other city (even Coventry or Guernica ).