7. Kurt Vonnegut was in Dresden when
it was bombed in 1945, and wrote a
famous anti-war novel,
Slaughterhouse Five, in 1969.
In December 1944, Vonnegut was captured by the German
army and became a prisoner of war. In Slaughterhouse Five,
he describes how he narrowly escaped death a few months
later in the firebombing of Dresden. "Yes, by your people
[the English], may I say," he insists. "You guys burnt the
place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More
people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame,
than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.”
16. Meissen porcelain or Meissen china is
the first European hard-paste porcelain
that was developed from 1708 by
Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus.
After his death that October, Johann
Friedrich Böttger, continued his work and
brought porcelain to the market, and he
has often been credited with the
invention. The production of porcelain at
Meissen, near Dresden, started in 1710
and attracted artists and artisans to
establish one of the most famous
porcelain manufacturers, still in business
today as Staatliche Porzellan-Manufaktur
Meissen.
18. Meissen Porcelan
Its signature logo, the crossed
swords, was introduced in 1720 to
protect its production; the mark of
the crossed swords is one of the
oldest trademarks in existence.
