Solemn ceremonies mark 80 years since Allied destruction of Dresden
A solemn gathering in a cemetery in the eastern German city of Dresden on Thursday marked the 80th anniversary of the destruction of much of the city by British and US bombers during World War II.
In a small ceremony in Dresden's North Cemetery, local officials, police officers and members of the German War Graves Commission held a moment of silent remembrance and laid wreaths at a memorial to the police and firefighters killed in the two-day bombing raid in February 1945.
Further wreath-laying ceremonies, prayers, church services and gatherings are planned until the evening.
The anniversary is also traditionally marked by a long human chain to protest against right-wing extremists, who often rally around the Dresden bombing.
The Saxon State Orchestra and the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra plan to play Requiems before a peace service.
Afterwards, the bells of all the churches in central Dresden will ring - exactly at the time of the first air raid, carried out by Britain's Royal Air Force, just three months before Nazi Germany surrendered to end World War II in Europe.
The Dresden bombing raids remains controversial, with continued debate among historians about whether the attack was justified as part of the Allied war against German dictator Adolf Hitler's murderous Nazi regime.
Estimates by historians have placed the death toll from the bombing raids at around 25,000.
Commemoration of Dresden's destruction remains fraught in Germany, as neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists have long portrayed the Dresden bombing as an Allied war crime and sought to use it to revitalize the enormous crimes of Nazi Germany.
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