Dresden

. After election Isaias Samakuva won and it is today the new president elected of UNITA. Moreover, Dresden hosts many world-class research institutes:. The interim leader, secretary-general, and also a candidate, is General Paulo Lukamba; his opponents are Dinho Chingunji and Isaias Samakuva. Dresden is home to a number of renowned universities:. As of June 2003 UNITA has not yet chosen a new leader. Between five and eight thousand Neo-Nazis took part, mourning for the victims of what they call the Allied bomb-holocaust (German: Alliierter Bombenholocaust). Savimbi was apparently succeeded by Antonio Dembo, who died shortly after Savimbi.

In 2005, Dresden was host to the largest Neo-Nazi demonstration in the post-war history of Germany. In August, UNITA officially gave up its armed wing, effectively ending the civil war. Affiliated with the radical right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), they cite the bombing of Dresden in order to portray Germans as the real victims of the Second World War, and try to take advantage of anti-American sentiment to do it. Under an amnesty agreement, UNITA soldiers and their families, about 350,000 people, were gathered in 33 demobilisation camps under the Program For Social and Productive Reintegration of Demobilizeds and War Displaced People. In recent years, however, right-wing extremist skinheads have tried to instrumentalize the event for their own political ends. The conflict ended only after the death of Savimbi in an ambush in February 2002, after which UNITA agreed a ceasefire with the government in April 2002. Since reunification, the tone of the ceremonies has taken on a more neutral and pacifist tone. UNITA then returned to guerilla tactics.

Similar ceremonies held during the period of communism were specifically directed at demonizing the Western Allies, above all the United States. UNITA again broke away from this agreement in 1998, but an MPLA offensive in 1999 destroyed UNITA as a conventional force. Every year on February 13, the anniversary of the major British fire-bombing raid that destroyed most of the city, tens of thousands of demonstrators gather to commemorate the event. peacekeepers arrived. Dresden remains a major cultural epicenter of historical memory, owing to the city's destruction in World War II. In 1995, U.N. In 2004 the United Nation's cultural organization UNESCO declared Dresden and the surrounding section of Elbe river valley to be a "World Heritage" site. After failed talks in 1993, another agreement, the Lusaka Protocol, was implemented in 1994 to form a government of national unity.

Disaster relief for the millennial flood came from around the world. implemented an embargo against UNITA, and the U.S, government finally recognized the MPLA government. The destruction from this “millennium flood” is no longer visible, due to the rapidity of reconstruction. The U.N. In 2002, torrential rains caused the Elbe to flood 9 m past its 1845 record height, damaging many landmarks (See 2002 European flood). Failing to win an overall majority and questioning the election's legitimacy, UNITA returned to armed conflict, this time establishing a base in Huambo. Volkswagen is currently manufacturing its Phaeton car model and the Bentley "flying spur" model at a modern factory located in central Dresden, delivered by city tramway. Following the 1991 Bicesse Accord, signed in Lisbon, there were United Nations-brokered elections between Savimbi and dos Santos in 1992.

The city has also attracted many new firms to the region (including AMD, Motorola, net-linx, Toppan Photomasks, Infineon Technologies, and Airbus Industries). A ceasefire was negotiated and the MPLA leader José Eduardo dos Santos and Central Committee rejected its Marxist past and proposed democracy. Many of the industries that made Dresden rich before the Second World War and disappeared under communism have resettled in the city including the optical industry, the high quality foodstuffs industries, and the watchmaking industries (including the Glashütte brand). Fighting continued until 1989, when, with UNITA advancing militarily, Cuba withdrew its support and 50,000 troops from the MPLA. Dresden as a major urban center has developed much faster and more consistently than most other regions in the former East Germany, but the city still faces many social and economic problems which stem from the collapse of the communist system, including high unemployment levels. Savimbi drew the praise of former President Ronald Reagan, who hailed him as a freedom fighter and spoke of Savimbi winning a victory that "electrifies the world.". After 1990 a completely new law and currency system was introduced in the wake of Communism’s downfall, and eastern Germany's infrastructure was largely rebuilt with funds from western Germany. Johns and other American conservatives met regularly with Savimbi in his clandestine military camps in southern Angola.

East Germany had been the richest Communist country but was faced with competition from western Germany after reunification. In the late 1980s, Savimbi was influenced heavily by military and political guidance from American conservatives, including The Heritage Foundation's Michael Johns, who helped elevate Savimbi's stature in Washington and facilitated the transfer of American weapons to his war. In 1990 Dresden--an important industrial centre of East Germany--had to struggle with the economic collapse of the Soviet Union and the other export markets in eastern Europe. UNITA controlled much of the highlands interior, notably the Bié plateau. The urban renewal process in Dresden will continue for many decades but public and government interest remains high and there are numerous large budget projects underway - both historic reconstructions and modern plans - that will continue the city's recent architectural renaissance. The MPLA was strongest in the cities, the coastal region and the strategic oil-fields. Despite the inner city’s almost total destruction in World War II, many areas in the central city have been restored to their former glory. support during the 1980s.

The new Frauenkirche was rebuilt according to historical drawings and photographs and is now open to public service since Reformation Day 2005. UNITA was hard-pressed but recovered with South African aid from 1975 and then U.S. It was completed in 2005, a year before Dresden's 800th birthday. UNITA was nearly destroyed in November 1975, but it survived and set up a second government in Huambo. The church, once the city's symbol and considered the world's finest Protestant church, was rebuilt following German reunification in 1991 from the remaining pile of rubble of the original church's ruins thanks to private and corporate donations. Backed by Cuban and Soviet money, weapons and troops, the MPLA broke the FNLA and forced them into exile. The most important urban renewal/reconstruction project was the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche (“Church of Our Lady”) and the surrounding Neumarkt district. MPLA leader Agostinho Neto became the first president of Angola.

The city still has many of its wounds from the bombing raids of 1945 but Dresden has undergone significant reconstruction in recent years. After the Portuguese withdrawal in 1974-75 the groups splintered, creating civil war. Dresden has experienced dramatic changes since the reunification of Germany in the early 1990s. Whatever its politics, UNITA guerillas proved themselves especially effective before and after independence. Local activists and residents, joined in the growing civil disobedience movement spreading across East Germany by staging demonstrations and demanding the removal of the undemocratically-elected communist government. It was the most 'African' of the groups and was also considered the most radical. On 3 October 1989, (the so-called “battle of Dresden”), a convoy of trains carrying East German refugees from Prague passed through Dresden on its way to West Germany. Its leadership was drawn from the majority Ovimbundu tribal group and its policies were Maoist, aimed at rural rights and recognized ethnic divisions.

Among East Germans, Dresden also earned the nickname "the valley of the clueless" because the city's location in a valley prevented its residents from watching West German TV, an illegal but popular pastime among East Germans. In March 1966, Jonas Savimbi broke with the FNLA to form his own group, UNITA, initially based in Muangai but later in Jamba in the southeast portion of the country. However, many of the bombed-out ruins of churches were razed by Soviet authorities in the 1960s instead of being repaired. The two original groups were the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA, founded 1957) and the socialist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA, founded 1956). Many important historic buildings were rebuilt, although the communists leaders of the city chose to reconstruct large areas of the city in a bland socialist modern style for economical and ideological reasons, namely to break away from the city's past as the royal capital of Saxony and a stronghold of the German bourgeoisie. The group was formed from the politicized split in the Angolan independence movement. After the Second World War, Dresden became a major industrial center in socialist East Germany with a great deal of research infrastructure. From its foundation until his death, the group was dominated by its leader and founder, Jonas Savimbi.

The comradery is deeply supported by the populace in both cities. Until 2002, the group was largely a military force and had been fighting a civil war since 1975. Today Dresden has a strong partnership with the English city Coventry, which was heavily damaged by German air attacks. The União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA) is an Angolan political faction. Fortunately, much of the city's beauty has been restored, thanks to the zeal of the populace in recreating the architecture of ‘old Dresden'. Others see it as a necessary military action taken to support the Red Army.

While some think that the bombing of Dresden was a tragic occurrence that Nazi Germany brought upon itself, others feel it should be treated as a war crime. It states definite figures of between 18,000 and 22,000 with estimates of final numbers of 25,000 and includes the interesting sentence "Since rumours far exceed the reality, open use can be made of the actual figures.". "TB47" is probably a reasonable guide to the order of casualty numbers. The official "Final Report and Situation (TB47)" produced by Reich Commander of the Order Police a month after the bombings.

However the West German Federal Archive in Koblenz discovered a genuine copy of TB47. Many of the higher estimates are based on a fake TB47 report (which has been visibly altered). The entire inner city (15 square kilometres) was utterly devastated, and other quarters were damaged to some degree, the many villa quarters, however, on average much less than others. At that time, Dresden's population was 600,000, but up to 200,000 refugees were living in cramped apartments and passing through Dresden as the Russians were now only fifty miles away.

Numbers between 25,000 - 140,000 have been used in official statistics with the communist authorities of Dresden increasing their estimates across time; estimates in Nazi Germany by the Ministry of Propoganda varied between 350,000 and 400,000. Civilian death estimates vary wildly largely as a result of propaganda figures which received widespread publicity at the time, however the most recently available evidence from Friedrich Reichart of Dresden City Museum points to 25,000 deaths, which is less than the number that died in Hamburg, but Dresden was a smaller city. Although key industrial facilities were destroyed by the bombing (much of their capacity was quickly restored), the main goal of the "area bombing" was to create a fire storm (an objective inspired by the Luftwaffe's raids on Coventry, Bath and London but refined by Britain's Royal Air Force). The Red Army was approaching from the East and Dresden was one of two key rail routes with marshalling yards.

However these targets were not the main reason for the city being bombed. Some 300 Jews were kept slave laborers at a camp in Dresden, of these the majority were killed before the war ended, along with almost all of the 6,000 Jews who lived in Dresden before the war (a famous survivor was Dresden native and writer Victor Klemperer). These factories employed mainly local workers but also used Jewish slave labour. In addition many peacetime factories, such as the cigarette factories, had been converted to ammunition factories as part of the policy of "total war".

Dresden's reputation for culture is better known than its highly developed optics industry (Carl Zeiss later Praktica), which produced precision aiming devices during the war. Evidence uncovered after the war shows that Germany's Anti-Aircraft batteries employed "a flak militia of Juveniles" (Führer-Order 20/90/42). Early in the war it had been considered too distant for the Allied bombers to reach in safety, but even when it had been bombed the majority of Dresden's anti-aircraft defences were redeployed elsewhere in Germany. The city was not particularly well defended, because as a European cultural center, lacking industry, it was not seen as militarily strategic.

However at the time Allied forces had only recently regrouped from a German counteroffensive. In hindsight it is clear that the end of the war was approaching. Because the raging fires stopped at the river, the newer Neustadt ("new town") ironically became the older side of modern-day Dresden sustaining less damage. The Altstadt ("old town") side of the Elbe River full of its historical cultural treasures was the most damaged, and left smoldering.

It was carpet bombed on the early hours of Valentine's Day, February 13-14 1945. Dresden was not the only German city devastated by World War II bombing, but the bombing of Dresden in 1945 has become one of the most controversial events of that war. Main article: Bombing of Dresden in World War II. The city has suffered repeated destruction: by fire in 1491, from bombardment by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1760, and during the suppression of the constitutionalist May Uprising in 1849 and the destructive Allied bombing raid of February 1945.

In the early 20th century Dresden was particularly well-known for its camera works, such as Ihagee and Pentacon, which produced the Praktica , and the cigarette factories, one of which was in the impressive Yenidze, a building with a multicoloured glass roof shaped like a mosque which still stands today. The city’s population quadrupled from 95,000 in 1849 to 396,000 in 1900 as a result of industrialization. The city also developed into an important center for the international sale of art works and antiques. During the 19th century, the city became a major center of industry, including automobile production, food processing, and the production of medical equipment.

During the Napoleonic Wars the French emperor made it his base of operation, winning here a famous battle on August 27 of that year. Between 1806 and 1918 it was the capital of the Kingdom of Saxony (which was from 1871 a part of the German Empire). His son Frederick August II also reigned from Dresden as Augustus III of Poland from 1734-1763: during his reign the city was seat of a treaty that ended the Second Silesian War, and suffered heavy destructions in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). His reign marked the beginning of Dresden's emergence as a leading European city for technology and art.

He also gathered many of the best architects and painters from all over Europe to Dresden. Because he planned to make Dresden the most important royal residence, Augustus set out to discover the Chinese secret of porcelain (‘white gold’); under his rule, European porcelain was invented in Dresden and Meißen. From 1697-1706 and 1709-1733 Elector Frederick Augustus I ruled from Dresden as King August the Strong of Poland; the city is also known as Drezno in Poland. From 1485 it was the seat of the dukes of Saxony, and from 1547 the electors as well.

It was restoered to the Wettin dynasty about 1319. After the death of the former, however, the city became property of the King of Bohemia and , later, the Margrave of the Brandenburg. Since 1270, starting with Henry the Illustrious, Dresden became the capital of the margravate. Founder of the city was Dietrich of Meißen, Margrave of Meißen.

An ancient Slavic settlement known as Drežďany ("alluvial forest dwellers") on the northern bank of the river was joined in 1206 by a German town on the southern bank, the heart of the present day Altstadt (“old town”), while the Slavic part is called Neustadt ("new town"). Meißen is situated to the west of Dresden, most famous for the invention as well as production of European porcelain. More east is Saxon Switzerland, a large prime climbing destination. In the northeast is the Bühlau quarter; in the east Kleinzschachwitz, another villa quarter.

Nearby, at a higher elevation, are the villages Bannewitz and Rundteil at the foot of the Erzgebirge mountains. The major sights of Dresden include:. The city now once again features a wealth of tourist attractions. Many of the city's greatest monuments were rebuilt in the decades following the war; this process was given new impetus and funding after the reunification of Germany in 1990.

The city area also reportedly had in some quarters the highest living costs in Europe before World War II. The style of architecture that predominated under August I of Saxony is known as Dresden Baroque. Before the bombing raid of World War II, Dresden with its unmatched collection of baroque architecture was famous as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. The Großer Garten (“big garden”) is the largest urban park in the city.

In 2002 Dresden was listed as one of Europe's greenest (large) cities: a third of its area is covered by the forested areas called Dresdner Heide. Because of its location in a relatively narrow river valley, Dresden's climate is much more characteristic of southern Germany and is considerably warmer than most other places in eastern Germany. The Dresden University of Technology, is one of the world's oldest technical universities. The city is often called the "Silicon Valley of Germany" because numerous computer hardware and hi-tech development firms have opened offices and research facilities in the region.

Dresden is also an important center of the sciences and is home to many researchers. Often seen as an important culture center, it is called the "Florence of the Elbe" (Elbflorenz in German) because of that. Unlike many large cities in Germany, which feature a clearly defined inner city, Dresden has several important centers of social and economic activity spread throughout the city's area. About an hour northwest of Dresden is Leipzig, another big city in Saxony.

Dresden is located at 51°03′N 13°45′E, in the southeastern corner of eastern Germany; about two hours south of Germany's capital, Berlin, and about two hours north of Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. . Today, Dresden is an important cultural, political, and economic center in the Eastern part of the Federal Republic of Germany. The controversial Bombing of Dresden in World War II and 40 years of GDR changed the face of the city dramatically.

Dresden has a long history as capital and Royal residence for the Kings of Saxony with centuries of extraordinary cultural and artistic splendor. Dresden is part of the metropolitan area Saxon Triangle with a population of over 3.2 million. The city’s population is 480,347 (as of December 2004) and the population in its agglomeration is 800,000. Dresden is the capital city of the German Federal State of Saxony and situated in a valley on the River Elbe.

- Columbus, Ohio; United States. - Salzburg; Austria. - Strasbourg; France. - Rotterdam; Netherlands.

- Hamburg; Germany. - Florence; Italy. - Brazzaville; Republic of the Congo. - Ostrava; Czech Republic.

- Skopje; Macedonia. - St.Petersburg; Russia. - Wroclaw; Poland. - Coventry; United Kingdom.

Leibniz Gemeinschaft: IÖR - Leibniz Institute of Ecological and Regional Development, IPF - Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research, IFW - Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research and FZR - Research Centre Rossendorf. Max-Planck-Gesellschaft: MPI of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, MPI for Chemical Physics of Solids and MPI for the Physics of Complex Systems. Fraunhofer Society: Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Sintered Materials IKTS, Fraunhofer Institute for Electron and Plasma Technology FEP, Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS, Fraunhofer Center Nanoelectronic Technologies CNT, Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS, Fraunhofer Applications Center for Processing Machinery and Packaging Technology AVV, Fraunhofer Institute for Transport and Infrastructure Systems IVI as well as branches of other Fraunhofer Institutes headquartered elsewhere in Germany. The Palucca Dance School is the only college of Fine Arts in Germany devoted exclusively to the academic study of dance.

The Dresden International University is a private foundation, postgradual, university, founded few years ago in cooperation with the Dresden University of Technology; most students there have to prove some years of successful practise. Other universities include the Hochschule für Kirchenmusik, a school specializing on church music, the Evangelische Hochschule fuer Sozial Arbeit, the Fachhochschule der Wirtschaft and the Offizierschule des Heeres. University of Music - Carl Maria von Weber, founded in 1856. The Palucca School of Dance, founded by Gret Palucca in 1925.

The Dresden Academy of Art, founded in 1764, known for its former professors and artists like Otto Dix, Oskar Kokoschka, Canaletto or Caspar David Friedrich. The University of Applied Sciences Dresden, founded in 1992, with 5.000 students (2005). Dresden University of Technology with almost 35.000 students (2004), founded in 1828, is one of the oldest and largest technical universities in Germany. The Transparent Factory, Volkswagen's luxury car assembly plant with a glass exterior opened in 2002.

Unfortunately the observation deck is closed. Fernsehturm Dresden-Wachwitz - TV Tower of Dresden. Standseilbahn Dresden - the funicular cable railway in Dresden. Schwebebahn Dresden an aerial cable car similar to the Schwebebahn Wuppertal.

Blue Wonder historic bridge considered a "wonder" of 19th century engineering. The German military history museum (with exhibits dating back to the Stone Age). Many of these hold world records in collection sizes, just as an example the biggest porcelain collection of the world can be found in the Zwinger.