Dresden Blick: Dresden

A unique perspective

The ‘Dresden Blick’ viewing platform is located on the top floor of the exhibition. It opens the themed tour and offers both a physical and a conceptual perspective on the events it explores.

Foyer of the Dresden Blick viewing platform.

Bombers over Dresden

On the night of 13/14 February 1945, British aircraft launched a large-scale air raid on Dresden. The first flares marking the target were dropped over the district of Friedrichstadt.

The tip of the wedge driven by architect Daniel Libeskind into the traditional symmetry of the old building’s façade when he redesigned the Military History Museum points precisely to this location. In addition, the angle of the wedge – 40.1° – refers to the angle of destcruction caused by Allied bomber formations during the Second World War in Dresden, an angle that burned itself into the city’s memory that night.

German attacks on civilians

Before visitors step onto the viewing platform suspended 25 metres above the ground and experience the view of Dresden’s rebuilt city centre for themselves, they pass exhibits from the European cities of Wieluń and Rotterdam, both of which were devastated during the war. In these cases, however, it was the German military that attacked civilian targets.

Long before American and British bombs fell on Dresden, the German Wehrmacht had already acted with merciless force against civilian populations.