#and well Dresden has always been the capital of Saxony.

[ukulelegodparent]

One thing about Dresden is that pedestrians will stop at a red light. In Leipzig you se a red light and you go 'fuck if I care, there's no cars coming' and cross the road. I have seen large groups of people crossing at a red light at the main train station. But not in Dresden. Here they all wait nicely.

[ukulelegodparent]

Is Dresden not very nice? (Never been, know absolutely nothing about the place)

Oh no, it's very pretty I just happen to live in Leipzig which. Dresden is the capital of Saxony and therefore all the important politics stuff happens there and also historically always has happened there BC this has always been the capital of Saxony/the main residence of the rulers of Saxony. A lot of nobility used to live here a lot of important state business happened here and it has the fancy buildings to prove it. Leipzig on the other hand has basically always been the most well off city in the state of Saxony and since 1910 also the largest. But it has always been a proper city. Just like eg Hamburg or Frankfurt. In fact there were really only ever two very important inland trade cities in Germany (Cologne doesn't count. BC it had sea access over the Rhine): Leipzig and Frankfurt. Frankfurt became the most important finance center in Europe in the 17th century BC while other places had large banks and trading companies, the contracts were almost all payed in one place and that was the Frankfurt Easter Fair. This is why the European Central Bank and also the Dax are situated here. Both were also important centers for printing ever since around this time (although Leipzig moreso than Frankfurt until the end of WWII) which is why the German national library is in both these cities (it used to be only Leipzig. But you know. When there's two Germanies you need two national libraries and uniting them was deemed unnecessary and too much of a hassle). So Leipzig was one of the great trade centers of the HRE and in some cases even Europe or even the world (eg between 1900 and 1930 this was one of the largest trade hubs for fur in the world). This is a considerable feat on its own considering it is pretty far inland. Also an important city for music and art in general (this is also somewhat true for Dresden. Saxony as a whole has always been a state that has put a lot of money into art. Many of what are considered the most important German artists worked here). And where Dresden really has that regal veneer of a city that cares a lot about tradition that comes with being a residence of basically kings. Leipzig has always been modern. Always striving for progress. Very few buildings in the city centre are older than 1900. Not BC of bombings and socialism (although that too) but because even before WWII the people just tore down old buildings to build new ones without a care in the world.

Now Leipzig was never really a free city. It always belonged to Saxony. But it was an obnoxiously wealthy city. With a large group of very rich merchant families. And with that came a certain sense of entitlement. And also a desire to. Let's say stick it to the nobility. And that was something they could do BC the nobility owed them a lot of money. Once a few merchant families built a stock exchange and promptly a ball was held in there under the exemption of non-nobles. As a response there were a good number of balls held in the city under the exemption of nobility. Something that would have been unthinkable in most cities at the time (this is around 1800). Another time the prince elector of Saxony wanted to build a palace in Leipzig. And you might think 'well that's the guy in charge so what are you gonna do about it?' except the good people of Leipzig really were not looking forward to that prospect and put in some very strong resistance to it. It also certainly helped that the prince elector owed them a lot of money at the time. To this day there is no palace in Leipzig. The place where this one in particular was supposed to be built is now a park. Around the 19th century there also comes the added point of Leipzig just being very big. Social and political movements where being started here because there was a lot of industry here and it turned into less of a trade city and more of a working class city. Although you of course still had the trade fairs several times a year. It was a very worldly city especially with the development of the Mustermesse, the idea of only showing a sample at trade fairs and then letting buyers order it, aka how most trade fairs work today. Many years later the peaceful revolution would start here. And even today Leipzig is politically drastically different from the rest of Saxony and even Germany as a whole. It is very left wing. So left wing it single handedly got the left party into the saxonian state parliament this year and (along with Berlin-Kreuzberg) into the German federal parliament during the last election. So when there is a certain antagonism towards you know. The place that makes the laws that affect you despite basically your entire city being like on the polar opposite end of the political spectrum from the people who make the laws.

The short version is that whilst politically just by virtue of being a capital Dresden has always stood above Leipzig, culturally, economically and when it comes to political movements however Leipzig is just a lot more important. So it kinda sucks to have to bow down to this state of idiots represented by Dresden (although Dresden is also still pretty left wing compared to the rest of Saxony. And it also just has very wonderful and amazing and talented people. But it is also at the end of the world. Leipzig exists within the central German metropolitan area which also includes Halle, Dessau and Merseburg and if you wanted to you could also count in Jena and Weimar. Halle, Dessau and Weimar specifically have some very well known art programs. The Burg and the two Bauhaus unis respectively). This dynamic also just makes it so they are both more or less comparable when it comes to how important they are. You see, nobody in these cities talks shit about Chemnitz. BC that would be punching down. And you do need someone to be talking shit about.

Also this dynamic isn't entirely unique to these two either. Halle and Magdeburg in Saxony-Anhalt and Frankfurt am Main and Wiesbaden in Hesse and Cologne and Düsseldorf in NRW are all examples of the largest and most culturally relevant city of a state not being the capital. Like what did Wiesbaden ever do for the world? Nothing. But some dude used to live there so now that's where the capital is. I mean hell, the Capital of West Germany used to be fucking Bonn. You know what is in Bonn? A whole lot of ministries BC a lot of them never fully moved. And that's it. The logic behind making it the capital was 'this place sucks and does not matter at all so if we ever do have a reunification happening we will 100% without a doubt make the capital Berlin again BC literally what is this place.'

But yeah Leipzig and its citizens have a long history of having beef with Dresden and its citizens.

Again. Visit Dresden. It's dopdead gorgeous. But it is very touristy. Something that cannot be said about Leipzig whatsoever. And I do feel like that is quite a feat for a city of its size. Especially considering the popular consensus is that it is quite pretty. It is just incredibly tourist-resistant. Which is nice. And you get oh so used to it. And then you go to Dresden and are suddenly overwhelmed by both how pretty it is and how many fucking tourists there are. Like. Leipzig is pretty. But we just do not have palaces or grand state buildings. Our palaces are dedicated to trade. You walk through them you see the architecture and the shops that are in there now and you leave again. There is just not that much of note to see. Except for a few museums if you're a music or history nerd. But I do think many tourists to go for the large and elaborate buildings and the glamour of royalty past. And we cannot offer that. And for good reasons. Also Dresden has in more recent times had some significant bridge troubles between loosing their unesco cultural heritage distinction over building an extremely ugly bridge and then earlier this year one of its main bridges collapsed out of nowhere in the middle of the night (and luckily nobody was on it at the time). That is the bridge on the 'cringe :(' post. Also rulers of Saxony have historically done some outrageously stupid shit. These people did a great job at funding the arts. If only they had never ever bothered with politics ever except for the one guy who was alright at it. And due to these people having lived in Dresden the evidence for that is all over the city (eg the cringe catholic church that was built solely BC August the Strong wanted to be king of Poland for which he needed to be catholic and so he did that as. And I cannot stress this enough. The ruler of like. THE Lutheran state. This guy's predecessor was literally the guy who went to Martin Luther before the Reichstag in Worms and was like 'hey buddy, remember Jan Hus? Yeah I'm gonna make sure that doesn't happen to you.' This guy's family is basically the reason Lutheran Protestantism didn't die in its infancy. And so when his populace was like 'hey man, I sure hope this doesn't mean you're expecting US to revert to Catholicism too, right? BC we really would have a problem with that' he replied 'nah just do whatever'. Literally changing faith for basically cuius regio eius religio (which wasn't really necessarily a metric used at this point except for when it was) only to be like 'fuck cuius regio eius religio. I don't care about that shit!'. He also went into massive debt for this endeavour and to brought him basically no advantages outside of bragging rights. It also to my understanding also wasn't the best thing that ever happened to Poland rulership-wise but then again the bar for the worst thing in that department is subterranean so you know. At least he did better than that. I walk past that church every other day this month. And it you can see the cringe bridge from it too. And I walk past the Fürstenzug too so I can see all these silly silly people and I love seeing the silly in history.

I hope this answers your question. And also like 100 questions you never even had.