Auferstehungskirche (Dresden): An Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Plauen
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Electorate of Saxony, German, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page22 sections
History
The Auferstehungskirche (Dresden) is an Evangelical-Lutheran church in Plauen, a southwestern district of Dresden, Germany. Its first church or chapel probably dates from around 1300, although a thirteenth-century predecessor has been suggested without being proven or located. The present building stands on the site of these earlier churches and preserves evidence of successive medieval, early modern, nineteenth-century, and twentieth-century transformations.
Medieval foundation and rebuilding
Documents from 1296 and 1299 mention a parish priest of relatively modest rank, indicating that an established ecclesiastical institution already existed in Plauen. In 1329, patronage passed from Seußlitz Monastery to the Dresden council. A churchyard probably surrounded the early building, which occupied an elevated spur of the Hahneberg above the lower part of historic Plauen.
The church was probably almost completely destroyed during the Hussite Wars in 1429. These fifteenth-century conflicts were associated with the religious reform movement founded by Jan Hus in Bohemia. The Dresden council restored the building in 1466 and 1467, and Bishop Dietrich III of Schönberg of Meissen consecrated it on 17 March 1467 to the Archangel Michael and the other holy angels.
After the rebuilding, the church possessed two altars and the right to grant indulgences, a formal remission of temporal penalties associated with sin in the medieval Western Church. Processional stations probably extended toward Hoher Stein, a pilgrimage site. Although the original form of the consecration document is no longer preserved, surviving fifteenth-century objects support the evidence for the rebuilding. The tower retained the form and height established in this period until 1893.
Reformation and early modern enlargement
The introduction of the Reformation in Saxony in 1539 changed the church’s institutional position. The Reformation was the sixteenth-century movement that challenged established Roman Catholic doctrine and institutions in western and central Europe. Auferstehungskirche initially lost its independence and, together with six other villages, was attached to St Bartholomew’s Hospital in Dresden until 1563. During this period, the Plauen pastor also held the parish office at the hospital church.
The congregation became independent again and borrowed money for construction in 1610. The precise work is unknown, but the church may have been enlarged to almost twice its former floor area. An image from 1627 shows a roof turret that may have belonged to this phase. The church’s first organ probably came from Dresden’s Kreuzkirche around 1500, but it was destroyed during the plundering of Plauen in August 1813. A replacement, probably built by Friedrich Traugott Kayser, was consecrated in 1816.
From March 1700 to December 1701, the church underwent another enlargement. This fourth building had a floor area of 321.60 square metres, with 303 seats on the ground floor and 150 more in the galleries. The tower remained unchanged, while the roof turret was removed. The period is also represented by the church’s 1720 crucifix and by the 1735 altar that remains in the building.
Nineteenth-century growth and reconstruction
The church’s poor condition and Plauen’s growing population prompted a comprehensive renovation in 1878. The interior was rearranged to create more seating, and a new sacristy measuring 48.50 square metres was built on the south side. The church was rededicated on the fourth Sunday of Advent that year.
Traugott Bienert, owner of the Plauen court mill, paid for a gas connection in 1881. This improved lighting and allowed evening services. In 1890 the congregation established a second pastorate. A new clock installed in 1892 by the Bernhard Zachariä tower-clock factory exposed serious damage in the wooden superstructure of the tower. Repairs in 1893 raised the tower and provided a new peal of bells.
Bienert had already donated 8,000 marks in 1877 for a new organ. Carl Eduard Jehmlich’s two-manual instrument, with twenty stops, entered service during Advent 1878 and was completed in February 1879. The congregation soon again faced a shortage of space and the problem of rising damp in the centuries-old walls. These pressures led to a far more extensive reconstruction between 1900 and 1902.
The church of 1900–1902
William Lossow and Hermann Viehweger retained the lower part of the medieval tower and the dimensions of the former nave, while adding a transept and a chancel to the east. The work was so extensive that it effectively created a new church. Its exterior used a form of German Renaissance, while later descriptions also identify Neorenaissance and Neogothic elements. The interior was shaped by Art Nouveau woodwork and stone sculpture. The tower was raised to 49 metres, and the congregation took possession of the building on 9 March 1902.
During the installation of the heating system, crypts beneath the church were exposed, with some coffins stacked three high. Electric lighting replaced the gas lamps originally planned during the final phase of construction. The work cost 300,000 marks, with approximately one-tenth covered by congregational donations. The old schoolhouse in front of the church was demolished in late 1902 or early 1903. In 1907, funds from the Heger-Bienert Foundation enabled a stairway from Zwickauer Strasse, designed by municipal building officer Hans Erlwein. A community house considered during this work was completed in 1912. A construction-document capsule placed in the church was rediscovered in 2017 and contained a completion certificate, congregational papers, and pictures.
The church’s name was also settled during this period. Pastor Bernhard Liebe apparently wished to revive the dedication to Saint Michael, recalling the consecration of 1467. The church council rejected this proposal because some members regarded its Catholic origin as problematic. The building was therefore consecrated simply as the “Church of Plauen” on 9 March 1902. After Plauen was incorporated into Dresden, it received the name Auferstehungskirche on 3 March 1903.
War damage, post-war use, and conservation
Before 1945, the church received maintenance rather than major rebuilding. The interior plaster was renewed in the 1920s, and the tower roof was retiled in 1939 and 1940. Dresden’s air raids in February and April 1945 left the building largely intact, but blast waves and bomb fragments severely damaged or destroyed many windows, especially those in the chancel and the large transept and nave openings.
Repairs began quickly, though some were provisional, and the church remained usable. From the middle of 1945 it became one of the substitute venues of the Dresden Kreuzchor, the historic Lutheran boys’ choir associated with the Kreuzkirche, after that church had been destroyed. The Auferstehungskirche also became the church of the Dresden-Land church district and received the superintendency formerly associated with the Frauenkirche. A superintendency is a district-level ecclesiastical area overseen by a superintendent. Parts of the destroyed Zionskirche congregation joined it between 1945 and 1956.
The interior renovation of 1952 and 1953 substantially changed the appearance created in 1900–1902. Three of the five chancel windows were blocked, plain glass was installed in the remaining chancel windows and the large nave windows, and the chancel stucco was removed. White paint covered the walls, coloured surfaces, and ornamental decoration. Until 1990, the church received only urgently necessary repairs.
Structural and artistic rehabilitation began in 1990 with support from church and heritage-preservation funds. The distinctive wooden ceiling was fumigated against pests in 1991. The tower was repaired and the roof renewed in 1996 and 1997, while the three blocked chancel windows were reopened in 1994. Between 1996 and 1999, the interior was brought artistically closer to its earlier appearance, including through illusionistic painting, which creates the visual impression of another material or architectural form.
Wolfgang Korn designed new chancel windows around the themes of the destroyed originals: the birth, baptism, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ, together with Pentecost. They were installed between 2000 and 2003 and received renewed conservation in 2022 after early damage appeared. In 2020 and 2021, surviving stored fragments were incorporated into the large nave windows, partially restoring their 1902 floral Art Nouveau pattern. A new heating system with a gas-condensing boiler was installed in 2023.
Congregational development
Plauen alone had more than 12,000 inhabitants in 1902, almost all of them Evangelical, and the congregation established a third pastorate that year. From 1976 to 1999, the church housed the Dresden-West superintendency. From 1999, the number of parish pastors was gradually reduced to one. The congregation reported 2,810 members in April 2017.
The Auferstehungskirchengemeinde later joined the Annen-Matthäus, Zion, and Paul-Gerhardt congregations of Dresden-Coschütz-Gittersee in the Evangelical Lutheran Jakobikirchgemeinde. The union agreement was signed on 30 July 2025 and took effect on 1 January 2026. Its name also commemorates the only former church building in the united area that no longer survives.
Remains
Setting and architectural form
The church occupies an elevated position on a spur of the Hahneberg. This height protected it from flooding by the Weisseritz, which flows through lower Plauen. Before urban expansion around 1900, the church was widely visible; today, its tower is the part that rises above the surrounding buildings.
The present church has a cruciform plan. Its transept and eastern chancel were added to the earlier village church, while the newer parts follow the older building’s relatively plain exterior. A roof turret rises above the crossing. The chancel is flanked by two sacristies and stairways leading to the galleries. Several small turrets on the additions were removed because water repeatedly penetrated their roofs.
Exterior decoration is restrained. Evangelist symbols form the keystones above the principal entrances, angel heads decorate the side entrances and door surrounds, and a Lamb of God appears above the sacristy entrance. Stone sculptures of evil spirits, including a gargoyle, are attached to the north and south sides.
Entrances and interior decoration
Vestibule and bridal hall
Two principal entrances on the western north and south sides lead into a vestibule. Three sets of double doors open from it into the church interior. The opposite side contains the stairway to the organ gallery and the Brauthalle, or bridal hall. This room was designed as a waiting space for couples before weddings and originally held Johannes Raphael Wehle’s mural The Wedding at Cana. It also served Bible study, confirmation teaching, and other congregational activities. Moisture generated by large gatherings severely damaged the mural, which was removed around 1930.
Wooden ceiling and symbolic programme
The interior is covered by an imposing wooden ceiling installed within an iron roof structure. Its form gives the impression of a large dome. A ceiling cross made from 98 electric bulbs was switched off in the late 1970s because its electrical equipment had become unsafe and was not reinstated.
The interior decoration follows a theological programme. The route toward the chancel passes floral column capitals, including a cross resting on roses. The large windows and choir stalls express themes of salvation and paradise, while a serpent biting an apple and evil spirits on the finials of the ceiling columns represent temptation. These images are paired with symbols of resistance and strengthening biblical quotations. The programme was damaged by the destruction of the major windows in the Second World War and the removal of the chancel stucco in 1953. Angel figures, wooden and stone sculptures, and Art Nouveau plant motifs, especially in the windows, remain.
Historic furnishings
Baroque altar
The church retains the 1735 altar from the earlier village church, including its 1859 altarpiece. Johann Christian Feige designed the altar, which was consecrated on Ascension Day 1735. Its late-Baroque composition consists of a wooden-clad stone altar table, a large wooden panel between two columns with gilded capitals, two urns at the top, and an Eye of God within a gilded halo.
The wooden elements use illusionistic painting to imitate marble. Two stone steps lead to the stone platform. Metal railings mentioned in 1853 were replaced in 1902 by a wooden rail painted to resemble the altar’s marble. The central field originally contained a medallion of Christ. In 1859, the five parish villages of Plauen, Dölzschen, Naußlitz, Cunnersdorf, and Coschütz financed Alfred Diethe’s painting Blessing Christ. During the 1902 rebuilding, the column arrangement was slightly altered, the altar was repainted, and it was moved into the enlarged church. Its earlier painted finish was restored in 1953, and damage to Diethe’s painting was repaired after 1990.
Baptismal font and pulpit
The 1617 baptismal font was donated by Peter Junghans, tenant of the court mill, and was probably made by the Meissen sculptor Balthasar Barthel. Its formerly plain foot was replaced with a richly decorated one in 1902. Congregational members also gave a pewter baptismal dish, which remains in use, and a copper cover crowned by a dove representing the Holy Spirit. The cover was surrendered for wartime melting in 1942.
The pulpit installed in 1878 replaced an earlier pulpit described as a work of 1610. It had an octagonal form, a foot, five painted sides, and a sounding board decorated by Karl Gottlob Schönherr. In 1902, Lossow and Viehweger designed its replacement, an oak pulpit with an octagonal form, a marble foot, and an elaborate sounding board topped by a cross visually related to the cross of Dresden’s Frauenkirche. The Dresden coat of arms appears on the pulpit and lectern because the city financed them. The 1878 pulpit was given to the Evangelical congregation of Deutsch Gabel, where it remains.
Other surviving objects
A late-Gothic portal on the west side of the tower is now blocked. A fifteenth-century sacrament house is built into the northwest entrance area. A sacrament house is an architectural container for reserving the consecrated Eucharistic elements. The southern transept displays two vault bosses bearing Electoral Saxon and Dresden coats of arms, together with a decorative stone carrying a Lamb of God. Vault bosses are carved or decorated pieces placed where ribs meet in a vaulted ceiling.
A Baroque crucifix more than three metres high dominates the north side of the chancel. It is partly gilded and stands on a base bearing a skull and two symbolic bones made of silver. Angel heads decorate the ends of the cross arms. Georg(e) Ranitzsch of Naußlitz and his wife donated it on 21 March 1720. After damage in a burglary in 1975, it was fully restored in 2018.
Several epitaphs are built into the entrance and stairway areas. A tomb monument to altar donor Gottlob Gäbler, made by Johann Christian Feige the Elder, stands in the northeast entrance. A larger-than-life painting of pastor Christoph Schmidt hangs in the stairway to the organ gallery. Paintings of Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon hang on the west wall, and two seventeenth-century octagonal mortuary shields are displayed on the south and north sides of the nave. A mortuary shield is a commemorative heraldic plaque associated with a deceased person’s funeral or memorial observance.
Organ and bells
Organs
The 1902 organ case was designed by Lossow and Viehweger as part of the unified interior scheme. It combines Art Nouveau with elements from several historical periods and carries numerous angel heads. Carved work below the facade pipes depicts biblical symbols, including a fish and a vine.
The Jehmlich organ was replaced during the 1900–1902 rebuilding. Nineteen of its twenty stops were reused in the new instrument, which had 46 stops, cone chests, a detached console, and pneumatic action and registration. Pneumatic action operates keys and stops through air pressure in narrow tubes. The Bienert family paid its cost of 14,375 marks. Its tin facade pipes were removed for wartime purposes in 1917. Three Baroque stops were added and other stops altered in 1934, while its pitch was raised from 435 to 440 hertz in 1946.
Technical and tonal alterations followed in 1958 and 1959. After an unsuccessful attempt to correct irregular action in 1972, the congregation began planning a replacement in 1977 under the initiative of cantor and later church-music director Gerald Stier. Because the wooden barrel vault produced little reverberation, the organ case was moved 1.25 metres forward and enlarged to improve sound projection. The planned instrument grew from 28 to 44 stops and included a richer swell organ and a Rückpositiv, a separate organ division positioned near the organist in the gallery balustrade.
VEB Eule-Orgelbau Bautzen built the new organ from 1984, retaining usable material from the former instrument to control costs. It was consecrated on 22 December 1985 and received technical work, tonal revision, and cleaning from its builders in 2000. The 44-stop instrument has a Rückpositiv and a swell organ. Karlheinz Georgi designed the Rückpositiv, while Peter and Sven Taubert and Joachim Hugk restored the case.
Bells
At least three bells existed by the time of the second church building. Two were transferred in 1894 to Plauen Town Hall for striking the hours and have been kept in the Dresden City Museum since 1993. They are among the oldest surviving bells in Dresden. The smallest, probably the oldest, was melted down in 1904.
In 1893, Traugott Bienert donated four new bells cast by C. Albert Bierling of Dresden. A new steel frame and yokes were installed with them. The three largest bells were requisitioned for military purposes in 1917. Replacement bells were cast in Apolda in 1922 and 1929, and a cemetery bell was cast by Toska Pietzel of Dresden in 1935. The 1922 and 1929 bells and the cemetery bell were requisitioned for metal collections in 1942.
After the war, the congregation received the steel bells of the destroyed Zionskirche, which had survived the air raids of 13 to 15 February 1945. They remain the church’s peal and recall the Auferstehungskirche’s role as the home of the Zionskirche congregation from 1945 to 1956. The bell that remained at Auferstehungskirche in 1942 has hung in the Outer Plauen Cemetery bell tower since 1946.
Cemetery and community house
Inner Plauen Cemetery
The Inner Plauen Cemetery preserves the burial ground west of the church and isolated old gravestones north of it. A churchyard probably surrounded the first building, was enlarged in 1674 after Cunnersdorf joined the parish, and expanded again in 1848 through successive land purchases. It reached its present area of 0.33 hectares by 1871. During the rebuilding of 1900–1902, only the burial ground west of the church remained from the old churchyard.
The cemetery is enclosed according to Hans Erlwein’s 1903 design and is protected as a historic ensemble. It contains two war graves commemorating the dead of the First and Second World Wars. Among those buried there are former Plauen pastors, engineer Werner Albring, industrialist Gottlieb Traugott Bienert, painters Emil Lohse and Theodor Thieme, composer Fritz Reuter, conductor Rolf Reuter, merchant and musician Marc André Souchay, and geologist, botanist, and South American explorer Theodor Wolf.
Community house
The community house was built in response to Plauen’s late nineteenth-century population growth, which increased the number of children and confirmation pupils and encouraged the formation of congregational associations requiring meeting space. A competition in 1910 attracted 29 designs, and Max Wrba’s proposal was selected. Construction began in September 1911, and the building was inaugurated on 9 October 1912.
Its facade toward Reckestrasse has an oriel decorated with four relief figures by Oskar Döll: Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, Heinrich the Pious, and Frederick the Wise. The upper floor contains apartments, while the mezzanine has administrative offices. The ground floor includes a large hall with stage and gallery for about 400 people, a smaller hall for about 100, a church-council meeting room, and group rooms for up to 20 people. Two retractable partitions once divided the large hall into three rooms; their worn operating mechanism was removed without replacement in the 1980s.
