Waving black flags and banners, thousands of neo-Nazis marched through the heart of Dresden yesterday on the 60th anniversary of the city's destruction by British and American bombers.Some of the people quoted in the article:In the largest neo-Nazi demonstration in Germany's postwar history, about 5,000 people took part in a "funeral march" to mourn the civilians killed by the allied attack.
The protest upstaged the official commemoration of the anniversary, during which the British ambassador laid a wreath at a cemetery where victims were buried. Meanwhile, thousands of local citizens gathered in the old square for a candlelight vigil.
Large numbers of riot police were drafted into Dresden as several hundred anti-fascists hurled abuse at the far-right marchers and shouted: "Nazis out!"
The neo-Nazis marched to the music of Wagner and Bach, blaring from loudspeakers. As they crossed the Elbe towards the old city, they encountered several hundred anti-fascists. The organisers merely turned up the volume and played the Ride of the Valkyries.
"This is a terrible day for Dresden - I'm furious," said Ursula Hamann, 77, who lives in the city and survived the 1945 attack. "It's sad to see something like this happening in Germany again."
Edeltraud Krause said: "Look at them. You just have to look at their stupid faces. They do not represent us."
"My husband and I are NPD voters," said Anni Lutzner, who attended yesterday's NPD-organised rally in Dresden. "We believe that the German state favours foreigners and the Jews."
She added: "There's no point in banning us - we'll simply find a new name."
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Addressing the rally, the NPD's leader in the Saxon parliament, Holger Apfel, launched an attack on what he called the "gangster politics of the British and Americans".
He said: "They have left a trail of blood from the past to the present, via Dresden, Korea, Vietnam, Baghdad and - tomorrow possibly - Tehran. Terror and war have a name. And that name is the United States of America."
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"I have no sympathy with the neo-Nazis. We don't want to go through those terrible times again," said Gena Mothes, 85, who survived the raid. "The problem is that people don't learn anything from the past. There are always new wars going on.
