On Feb 12-13, 1945, the Allies fire bombed the city of Dresden, the "Florence on the Elbe." The city, without military importance, was packed with ethnic German refugees, fleeing Eastern Europe and the Russian armies. No one knows for sure, but several hundred thousand civilians died in the flames. The city was reduced to ruins. You can just make out the outlines of the Frauenkirche near the center. The Communist government allowed it to remain as a pile of ruins and "testimony to Fascism."