Wiederaufbau, heute ist nicht das Ende der Notre Dame

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 name: 'rtyler'
 description: 'a moderately technical blog'
-baseurl: 'https://brokenco.de/'
 
 tag_page_layout: tag_page
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_posts/2019-04-16-wiederaufbau.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Wiederaufbau"
+tags:
+- opinion
+---
+
+
+The fire at Notre Dame is certainly unfortunate, but with President Macron
+having committed to rebuilding the famed cathedral, the destruction is in no
+way permanent. Restoring or building new architectural masterpieces is
+expensive and challenging, but it is definitely not impossible.
+
+Since Dresden is my second home-town, my mind jumped to "DIe Frauenkirche"
+(apparently "The Church of Our Lady" in English). In the morally reprehensible
+[firebombing of
+Dresden](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frauenkirche_(Dresden)#Zerst%C3%B6rung_der_Frauenkirche_im_Zweiten_Weltkrieg)
+in 1945, the surroundings of the church were mostly burnt to the ground but the
+church remained standing, burning. For almost two weeks it continued to
+stand, until the fire-degraded stone gave way and the building finally
+collapsed.
+
+![Die Frauenkirche in
+1973](/images/post-images/frauenkirche/frauenkirche_1973.JPG)(
+([source](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Frauenkirche_Mai_1973.JPG))
+
+THe rubble of the building sat in Altstadt, largely undisturbed throughout the
+DDR and it wasn't until after the reunification that reconstruction finally
+began again in 1993. Ten years later, the rebuild had progressed far enough to
+raise the new tower bells into place. I was fortunate enough to be at the
+ceremony blessing the bells before they were hoisted up. The next year, the
+reconstruction completed, almost 60 years after the Allied fire-bombing.
+
+
+If you look closely in the picture below, you can see black stones in the
+facade, which were from the original structure and still bare the charring
+caused by the fire which burned at over 1200+ degrees (Celsius).
+
+![Die Frauenkirche heute](/images/post-images/frauenkirche/frauenkirche.jpg)
+([source](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Frauenkirche_Blaue_Stunde.jpg))
+
+Fortunately the damage to Notre Dame is not nearly as severe, and I expect it
+will take the French far less time to rebuild. It's a sad event, but not the
+end for such a historic landmark.