Garnisonkirche St. Martin

The Garnisonkirche St. Martin stands in Dresden's Albertstadt, the district laid out as a military town for the Saxon Army. Built between 1893 and 1900, the church shows neo-Romanesque elements within a historicist design by William Lossow and Hermann Viehweger. It counts among the last sacred buildings of historicism in the city. You find it ringed by park and forest, a serene setting for a building raised for soldiers.

One roof holds two churches: the Catholic congregation has the eastern nave, the Protestant one the transept. Between the two sections rises the ninety-metre tower, a prominent landmark in Dresden. Six bells hung there at the opening, though the world wars saw some of them replaced.

After the Second World War the garrison role ended, and the two halves went separate ways. The Catholic part became the parish church of St. Franziskus Xaverius, whose own church the bombing of Dresden had destroyed. The St. Pauli community used the Protestant part until the mid-1960s. In the post-war years the surrounding Albertstadt became a storage and archive site. Institutions such as the Saxon State Library used parts of the building. In 1998 the church passed to a private investor, though the usage rights stayed unchanged. Since that year the Catholic section has also served military chaplaincy, and soldiers have their place here again.