Beauty Amidst the Ruins

Before the war, Chaplain McDonald had admired the cultural sophistication and artistic and scientific achievements of Germany. Following the Allied offensive into Germany in March 1945, McDonald and his driver, George Kosnich, took note of the architectural beauty of the churches of Trier despite the surrounding devastation.

The Paulinus Kirche was also undamaged and open, its lush 18th Century flowerings exciting a wonder in Kosnich which would have disturbed his puritanical Presbyterian Sunday School teachers. I was thrilled too, for it was the ultimate in Baroque until I was later to see the even more rococo churches of Bavaria. Such churches are dreamed worlds of heaven

–Fred McDonald