The Zionskirche was damaged during what British/American attack during World War II?
Zionskirche, Dresden The Zionskirche is the name given to two Evangelical Lutheran church buildings in the Südvorstadt district of Dresden. The first, the "Alte Zionskirche" or "Old Zion's Church" was built by Schilling & Graebner from 1908 to 1912. This building was hit and badly damaged by fire during the bombing in February 1945. A temporary roof was later added and it is now preserved as a ruin, housing a lapidarium with 3000 sculptures. The parish, meanwhile, was housed in a barracks next to the ruins until the first stone of a new building (the "Neue Zionskirche") was laid on Bayreuther Straße on 5 June 1981, as a gift from the Church of Sweden. With its construction overseen by Eberhard Burger, the new building was inaugurated on 31 October 1982.
Channel Dash The Channel Dash or Unternehmen Zerberus (Operation Cerberus) was a German naval operation during World War II. A "Kriegsmarine" (German navy) squadron of both of the "Scharnhorst"-class battleship s, the heavy cruiser "Prinz Eugen" and escorts, ran a British blockade from Brest in Brittany, where they had been a fleet in being and a latent threat to British trans-Atlantic convoys. At Brest and La Pallice, the ships had been attacked by Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command and by RAF Coastal Command torpedo-bombers from March 1941, which inflicted periodic damage to the ships, reducing their seaworthiness. In late 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered "Oberkommando der Marine" ("OKM" Navy high-command), to plan an operation to return the ships to German bases, to counter a possible British invasion of Norway. The short route up the English Channel was preferred to a detour around the British Isles, to benefit from surprise and from air cover by the "Luftwaffe".