There is a lot of war and conflict in the world today. We see the ruins they cause. There are rumors of wars to come. In the face of such damage and in fear of such danger, the possibility of reconciliation looks remote. So perhaps now is a good time to remind ourselves of a redemption story that took two countries from ruins to reconciliation, a story told in a tale of two cities.
On February 13, I attended the 80th Anniversary of the Bombing of Dresden in Saxony by the RAF and the American Air Force. The devastation of the city once known as “Venice on the Elbe” on the night of February 13, 1945, was massive in scale and terrifying in ferocity. At least 20,000 people died in one night, probably many more. The old city, full of magnificent buildings—grand churches, cathedral, palace, opera house, galleries, museums—was almost completely destroyed. In cruel calendrical irony, February 14, the day after the worst of the bombing, when the city was reduced to rubble and ash, was Ash Wednesday. It would be a hard Lent and a long fast.
Some years before, on the night of February 14, 1940, Coventry, a city in the middle of England, was also reduced to ruin. In comparison, the effects of the bombing were not as severe. They felt no less devastating, of course, to the 500 families who lost loved ones in one terrible night, and to the owners and occupiers of the buildings that were damaged or destroyed—about a sixth of the city’s properties—and to those who treasured Coventry’s beautiful medieval Cathedral, by then only broken walls, piles of stones, and smoldering wood.
There are remarkable stories to tell about the immediate aftermath of the bombing of Coventry and the ministry of reconciliation that it set in motion—a work of God evident most obviously in the way the Cathedral clergy, followed by the city authorities, reached out to Dresden, among other bombed German cities. During my time as Coventry’s bishop, I visited Dresden on many occasions, often to take part in the commemorations of the city’s bombing, as well as welcoming Dresdeners to Coventry, again often at the times when our city was remembering the worst of the German bombing during the war. Having moved on from Coventry to Windsor, though, I should leave those who remain in that City of Peace and Reconciliation to tell those stories and sustain its important legacy.
I was privileged and grateful to attend the 80th Commemoration, not now as Bishop of Coventry but as Chaplain to His Royal Highness The Duke of Kent, who, as the Royal Patron of the British-Patron Trust, was attending the Commemoration as The King’s representative.
To prepare to accompany The Duke to Dresden, I read the speeches delivered by Queen Elizabeth II, on her five State Visits, among her 15 official visits to Germany, together with her speeches during the four State Visits of German Presidents to the United Kingdom. I also read the speeches given by King Charles on his 2023 visit, along with a number of speeches The King delivered on some of his very many—around 50 in total—visits to Germany as The Prince of Wales.
They tell a powerful story that is both personal and political. Clearly careful diplomatic attention was given to the more political parts of the speeches. Through them one can read the different stages of British foreign policy to Germany, Europe, and indeed the world. But the speeches, especially early on, have a strongly personal element to them as well. The Queen’s hand can be felt in them.
The close ties between the British Royal Family and German Royal Families are woven into the speeches, with Queen Elizabeth II referring not only to her own but also to Prince Philip’s direct descent from the marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The tearing of that family’s fabric served as a symbol of the damage the wars—and the years between them—wrought on the relationship between the U.K. and Germany and the urgent need for repair.
Queen Elizabeth II’s State Visit in 1965, accompanied by Prince Philip, played a vital part in the repair of relationships between the U.K. and Germany, the Queen at that time being not only Head of State but also mother of a family severed from some of its roots by both World Wars. It was a journey of reconciliation on many levels. The 1965 Royal Tour was of importance as an expression of British foreign policy, of course, but it was also of immense personal significance to the Late Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, as was powerfully underlined in The King’s Speech to the Bundestag in 2023: “That my parents’ 11-day tour of Germany should prove to be a pivotal moment in the reconciliation between our nations was … a matter of great personal significance to them both.”
Dresden—and Coventry—appear at various points in Queen Elizabeth II’s speeches; and I remember photos of the two cities forming the backdrop to King Charles’s first speech in the Bundestag as Prince of Wales during his 2020 visit to share in Germany’s memory of the death and destruction that its people suffered in the war.
Speaking at the State Banquet in Bonn during her 1992 Visit, the Queen spoke of President Richard von Weizsäcker’s participation in a Service of Reconciliation in Coventry Cathedral in 1990 to mark 50 years since the bombing of Coventry. Her Majesty added that she was glad “to have an opportunity to attend a Service of Reconciliation in Dresden.” Both, she said, were demonstrations that “British-German friendship is a living reality.”
During her last State Visit in 2015, Queen Elizabeth described The Duke of Kent’s visit to Dresden earlier that year to mark the 70th Anniversary of its bombing as proof of “the complete reconciliation between our countries.”
So it was a great honor to be with The Duke ten years later for the 80th Commemoration. His Royal Highness spoke movingly of—in his words, spoken in German—“the grief we feel in our hearts at the terrible destruction and loss of life 80 years ago.” As he spoke, I was very conscious that the war cost his own father his life, when the Duke was only 5 years old, and deprived The King of a great-uncle. I was greatly moved as well to meet a survivor of the bombing, a child at the time, whose heart was full of goodness and who greeted me like a long-lost friend.
With his Royal Highness, I joined hands with the people of Dresden as bells marked the moment the bombs began to fall. I felt the cold of a freezing evening biting into my face, but I became aware that my left hand was being warmed by the right hand of a Dresden man. I could feel the reality of reconciliation flowing through my body. I gave thanks that we were not like the German man and the British man reaching out to each other in Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, which we were to hear later in the evening. “I am the enemy you killed, my friend,” said one to the other as they stirred from the sleep of death for their post-partum moment of reconciliation. “Let us sleep now,” they sing together over and over again, as the requiem fades.
“Let us live now,” I say, that we may tell the world that there is a way from ruin to reconciliation, for the God of Jacob, Joseph, and Jesus can turn to good even the evils that human beings inflict upon each other.
The Rt. Rev. Dr. Christopher Cocksworth is Dean of Windsor, having been previously Bishop of Coventry and Principal of Ridley Hall Cambridge after serving in parochial and chaplaincy ministry. He is also a member of the Foundation and Board of Directors of TLC.