Coventry Cathedral and the Dresden Frauenkirche, both destroyed in the Second World War, are often mentioned in the same breath, treated as architectural, commemorative, and religious equivalents. Nothing could be further from the truth. While the ruins of Coventry Cathedral were transformed into a site of—and memorial to—postwar reconciliation, the Frauenkirche was neither a revered shrine nor an unintentional monument, but simply a gutted structure suspended in limbo for some forty years. It was only in the course of the 1980s, and especially in the aftermath of German reunification, that the Frauenkirche ruins became invested with specific meaning. Support from Britain and, above all, Coventry, was crucial in this process. Methodologically, the article fuses memory studies with church/architectural history and comparative/transnational research.

考文垂大教堂和德累斯顿圣母教堂都在第二次世界大战中被摧毁，经常被放在一起被提及，被视为建筑、纪念和宗教等价物。事实并非如此。虽然考文垂大教堂的废墟被改造成战后和解的场所和纪念馆，但圣母教堂既不是受人尊敬的圣地，也不是无意的纪念碑，而只是一个被毁坏的建筑，在悬而未决的情况下悬浮了大约 40 年。直到 1980 年代，尤其是德国统一后，圣母教堂遗址才被赋予了特定的意义。在这个过程中，来自英国，尤其是考文垂的支持至关重要。在方法论上，本文将记忆研究与教堂/建筑历史和比较/跨国研究融合在一起。