For a decade, 200 artists, stress analysts, construction workers, and stone masons have been rebuilding the protestant church with unrelenting attention to detail, making it one of the world’s most important symbols of reconciliation, religious worship, and artistic mastery.

Destroyed during the Allied bombing of the city in February 1945, the church had stood as a reminder of the devastation of war until 1992, when the City of Dresden decided to rebuild it.

Reconstruction is being undertaken according to 260-year-old plans by architect George Baehr, and will go into history as the most extensive reconstruction effort to date, having involved more than 60,000 donors’ financial support.

Hundreds of individual stones laid as part of the building’s exterior bear the names of sponsors directly involved in the nearly $155 million effort.

The next major step in the church’s reconstruction is the mounting of a wooden cap on the dome, set for June 22. The church will be re-christened on Reformation Day (October 31) in 2005.
Republished with permission from "The Week in Germany"