Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 13, 1995 TAG: 9502140069
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: DRESDEN, GERMANY LENGTH: Medium
Ten young leftists disrupted a Sunday prayer service attended by Chancellor Helmut Kohl and other dignitaries marking the 50th anniversary of Dresden's destruction by British and U.S. bombers, rushing the altar and shouting ``Germans were the criminals, not the victims.''
The disturbance illustrated the moral complexities of paying homage to an estimated 35,000 Germans who died in the air raids of Feb. 13-14, 1945.
The anniversary is being observed in lavish style. The German government, snubbed at some Allied commemorations, has never marked a World War II event on such a grand scale.
Church and government observances portray Dresdeners as victims of a war begun by their own country.
Britain's Duke of Kent, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, arrives today for a wreath-laying ceremony at Dresden's main cemetery, where firebombing victims lie. American and British diplomats and military brass will also be on hand. Orchestras will play classical requiems. Historians, poets and novelists plan readings and lectures.
But not everyone is happy.
Outside the Dresden Cathedral, a group of Catholics protested that too much attention was being paid to German civilians killed a half-century ago - and too little to people dying in Chechnya today.
Unlike the leftists who caused the stir inside the cathedral, these were mainly middle-aged Catholics quietly carrying posters demanding that Kohl tell his friend, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, to leave Chechnya alone.
Dresden was leveled by two formations of British Lancasters during the night of Feb. 13 and by American B-17 bombers in a Feb. 14 daylight raid. The attack has been likened to Hiroshima because of the carnage and civilian casualties.
The British raids unleashed a firestorm that swallowed most of Dresden's famed architectural splendors, including the 18th-century Church Of Our Lady, the 16th-century Dresden Palace and the Semper Opera.
Bodies charred beyond recognition lay in city streets and floated in fountains, where people had sought vainly to escape the flames. More corpses dangled from treetops.
The world has argued for five decades whether it was immoral to firebomb Dresden, a city with little military significance.
Many Germans see the firebombing as a war crime perpetrated by Sir Arthur Harris, wartime head of Britain's Bomber Command. The United States is usually spared criticism because the B-17s caused far less damage.
by CNB