Dresden in the Thirty Years War

Electoral Saxony participated in the hostilities from 1620 onwards, fighting at various stages alongside both the Imperial and Swedish armies. Famine, plague and economic demise represented a serious setback for urban development, despite the fact that Dresden itself was never captured.

In the decades which followed, the city nevertheless rapidly revived its former glory, in no small way due to the continued promotion of cultural and economic development by the royal court.

The first manufactories were set up in the Friedrichstadt district, which was founded in 1670. The Grosser Garten park was laid out as a festive garden for the courtly society, the first Baroque architecture sprang up and the musical life of the city reached a first zenith with the works of Heinrich Schütz, who was engaged as music director in Dresden in 1614 and died here in 1672.