DRESDEN ELBE VALLEY WORLD HERITAGE SITE, GERMANY Designated a World Heritage Site in 2004 Put onto List of World Heritage in Danger: 2006 Delisted from World Heritage: 2009

WHY IS THIS A WORLD HERITAGE SITE?

Dresden Elbe Valley is stretch of land developed in the 18th and 19th centuries, which extends around 20 kilometres from Übigau Palace in the north-west to Pillnitz stately home and the River Elbe island in the south-east.

It centres around the historic skyline of Dresden's old town. Dresden Elbe Valley is a synthesis of nature, architecture and cultivated landscapes - the banks of the Elbe are lined with Renaissance forts and late 19th century villas, while palaces and gardens blend seamlessly into the vine-clad landscape.

The bulk of the architectural heritage is found in Dresden's old town, including the Royal Palace, the Cathedral and the Church of Our Lady. Other highlights include Semper Opera House, a stunning 19th century theatre in a High Renaissance style, and Zwinger Palace, one of Europe's foremost late baroque buildings. Brühl Terrace meanwhile, is a magnificent baroque reworking of the mighty fortifications that once lined the banks of the Elbe in Dresden's old town. GERMANY

DRESDEN ELBE VALLEY WORLD HERITAGE SITE Flag of Germany

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NICHOLAS KULISH

Published: January 5, 2008

DRESDEN, Germany — The battle to prevent construction of a proposed bridge in this historic city has embroiled everything from a tiny endangered bat, to the country’s reigning literary lion, Günter Grass, to activists who are staging a round-the-clock occupation of a centuries-old beech tree.

In December, protesters tried to prevent workers from chopping down trees that had survived the World War II bombing raids. But ground has been cleared for another bridge across the Elbe.

Opponents of the project say that the four-lane, 2,100-foot-long span, called the Waldschlösschen Bridge, will mar the famous vistas of Dresden and the picturesque river that divides it, the Elbe. Supporters say it will ease traffic congestion and better link the two sides of the city. And, they add, the project was overwhelmingly approved in a citywide referendum three years ago.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, better known by its acronym, Unesco, agrees with the opponents. The body has warned local officials that Dresden could lose its place on Unesco’s World Heritage list, an extremely rare occurrence, if it builds the bridge, which is regularly described by opponents and even at times by supporters as “monstrous.”

A harsh January wind whipped through the makeshift encampments in the limbs of the beech tree, which is to be cut down to make way for the bridge. Below, wrapped around the trunk, was a large white sign that declared in German, “I want to live.”

But workers have already begun construction on the access roads. They are there with backhoes and trucks, clearing ground from the meadows on both banks of the Elbe. While large construction projects are often the subject of legal battles and protests, the matter is particularly sensitive in Dresden, a city of half a million and the capital of the state of Saxony.

Prior to World War II, Dresden was known as “Florence on the Elbe” for its exceptional baroque and rococo architecture. But in the aftermath of a devastating series of Allied bombing raids in 1945, the city began a long struggle to rebuild. For Dresdeners, the World Heritage status is thus a particular point of pride.

However, the official Unesco designation is Dresden Elbe Valley, which covers not just the city’s buildings but also its parklands and greenbelts along the river.

Leading a protest against the bridge here last month, Mr. Grass, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature for such works as “The Tin Drum,” said that the history of the city’s destruction meant that “one must be particularly angry and alert that this form of destruction is never repeated.”

Opponents have tried several ways to stop the bridge from going up. For months, construction was stalled after an administrative court ruled in August that steps needed to be taken to ensure that an endangered species, the lesser horseshoe bat, was protected. Experts estimate that only around 650 remain in Germany, some in the vicinity of the proposed bridge. But another court ruling in November allowed construction to proceed.

In December, protesters held a sit-in around several old oak trees that had survived the World War II bombing raids to prevent workers from chopping them down. Their action failed, leading a few days later to the more drastic pre-dawn seizure of the beech tree by the activists.

Local officials, however, sound exasperated when discussing the battle to build the bridge, pointing out that it was first proposed for that very location in 1896 and approved in a 2005 referendum with 67 percent of the vote.

“I’m for it,” Doreen Kaufhold, 20, a bookkeeper, said of the bridge as she waited for a streetcar in downtown Dresden. “It would be a relief for traffic.” In Saxony, although the population has dropped, car ownership per capita has risen even faster, to 546 per 1,000 residents last year from 423 per 1,000 in 1994. Ms. Kaufhold said she did not believe the bridge would ultimately cost the city its status as a World Heritage site.

Indeed officials are surprised that it has become an issue.

“The bridge was disclosed in the application,” said Gerhard Glaser, who was president of the monuments preservation office of Saxony from 1982 to 2002 and who worked on the proposal, which was ultimately granted in 2004. He said that two pictures and a three-and-a-half-page description of the bridge project had been sent to Unesco along with the application for status as a World Heritage Site.

Planners are hoping to sway Unesco with modifications that would make the bridge less obtrusive, allowing them to have their crossing and their heritage standing too.

“We hope that with these changes we can reach a point where Unesco finds it acceptable and we can maintain the World Heritage status,” said Michael Sagurna, a senior official in the Saxony state government. “We’re fairly sure that with these changes the dispute won’t be quite so heated as before.”

3D Architect visualisations of the Waldschlösschen Bridge