When Rudolf Mauersberger walked into his parents’ house in the evening of 17 February 1945, his mother breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God you’re here,” she said, looking her son up and down. He was in his mid-fifties, an imposing man, solidly built and bestowed with an inner confidence that had always made him special. But his mother saw that he was a changed man.
It was more than the holes in his coat, the singed eyebrows, the stiff right hand that protruded at an odd angle from his sleeve. There was numb shock in his eyes. Pain. Loss. How had it come to this?
Mauersberger had been in Dresden when the city was bombed on 13 February 1945. The shock of the blast had flung him to the ground, where he lay paralysed for a long time, “like a pig”, as he wrote in a letter shortly after. But he was lucky. He was still alive when so many others were not. In the morning, he fled the burning city that had been his home, carrying only the clothes he wore and his backpack. His flat was gone forever, and so were many of the people he had known.
Three days later, he arrived in Mauersberg, the village in the Ore Mountains of Saxony where he had grown up. Looking at it now through swollen, heavy-lidded eyes, it appeared achingly beautiful and pristine — an absurdly whole chocolate box village with cobbled streets, timber-framed houses and the beloved church he had known since he could walk and talk. People told him that they had seen the glow of Dresden burning in the sky. Yet Mauersberg appeared untouched, as if nothing had happened.
It took Mauersberger a while to let it all sink in. The Dresden he had known was no more, and the city would never be the same again, no matter how much time passed. Some wounds are so deep they never heal.
He was the long-serving director of the Dresdner Kreuzchor, a boys' choir with centuries of history rooted in the city's Kreuzkirche (Church of the Holy Cross). The bombing destroyed large portions of Dresden, including the historic city centre and the Kreuzkirche itself. Approximately 25,000 people died in the attacks, though the numbers remain contested. What Mauersberger knew for certain was that among the dead were some of the choristers he had known and taught. Having never had any children himself, they were like his sons to him.
As a musician, he felt there was only one way to process what had happened. He turned to music as a means of comprehending and expressing the grief and loss he and the city experienced. He sat down in his childhood home, so comfortingly familiar while his Dresden flat was reduced to ashes, and composed the motet Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst ("How Desolate Lies the City").
Yesterday, eighty years later, I found myself pressing down a key on the piano on which Mauersberger had tried out notes with his injured hands in 1945. It was a brilliant, sunny day, and Mauersberg looked beautiful, as if untouched by time and history. There was the village church Mauersberger had known, the same timber-framed houses, the same clean mountain air. Older people still remembered him from when they were children. He seemed a larger-than-life figure to them. A respected musician, yet also a local man.
Mauersberger is part of a fascinating journey I am undertaking in the German state of Saxony this week, of which Dresden is the capital. I am here to help make a feature for BBC Radio 3 that explores the various musical responses to the destruction of Dresden from 1945 to now. The city continues to mark this traumatic moment in its history every year, maintaining a memory laden with politics and controversy. Musical responses reflect this complexity, presenting different notions of concepts like suffering, responsibility, mourning, despair and hope.
Mauersberger produced the first major piece. Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst was composed in 1945. He selected texts primarily from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, which mourn the destruction of Jerusalem, as well as from the Book of Isaiah and the Book of Revelation. The choice of biblical texts served as a framework for expressing the destruction of Dresden without direct political commentary, allowing the work to remain within the tradition of sacred music and liturgical lamentation. This approach is not without its critics, particularly today, since Mauersberger’s instinct wasn’t to look for complexity as regards responsibility and agency. His piece is about grief, loss and victimhood.
Musically, the motet is characterised by its austere and sombre tone. It uses chromaticism and dissonance to underscore themes of destruction and despair. There is a clear emphasis on word-painting; for instance, harmonic tension accompanies phrases about desolation and suffering. Despite its mournful nature, the work ends with a call for faithfulness in the face of death, quoting Revelation 2:10: "Sei getreu bis in den Tod." (“Be faithful unto death.”)
The motet was first performed by the remaining boys of the Kreuzchor in the ruins of their church. It quickly became one of Mauersberger’s most recognised works, not only as a memorial to the bombing but also as a symbol of cultural resilience. Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst is now widely regarded as one of the most significant pieces of German choral music to emerge from the Second World War, both for its musical merit and its historical context.
Other pieces that followed — many of them requiems — have had to take this legacy into account. When we first arrived in Dresden on Tuesday, we spoke to composer Sven Helbig, whose Requiem A wants to be “A Requiem for the 21st century”, full of hope rather than sorrow.
Helbig is an incredibly versatile musician who is equally at home working with symphony orchestras as he is with Rammstein or the Pet Shop Boys. His Dresden requiem premiered this year on the 80th anniversary of the city’s destruction in Dresden itself. It will also be performed in London on 4th October, bringing together four European choirs from France, Poland, the UK and Germany. It is very different from Mauersberger. It has to be.
Over the next few days, in and around Dresden, we will explore more of this painful and contested chapter of this proud city’s past. It’s always fascinating but not always easy to talk about this with locals and experts. People have different ideas as to where the future lies for commemoration, and they range from sombre remembrance to hopeful messaging, from overcoming to reckoning.
One thing that is certain is that music and memories continue to echo through Dresden today, and they will continue to do so for a long time to come.
I must look for Mauersberger’s music on Spotify. I briefly visited Dresden and at the risk of repeating myself the recreation of the Frauenkirche is quite remarkable. If I may a couple of book recommendations. Dresden by Frederick Taylor (Bloomsbury 2005) and Dresden: The Fire and The Darkness by Sinclair McKay (Penguin/Viking 2020). Looking forward to listening to your program on BBC R3.
Fascinating. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying I’d be very interested to hear more about the work you are doing for Radio 3. Do let us know when it is broadcast.