Germany: Dresden was divided yesterday after a candle-lit memorial service to mark the night 60 years ago when fire engulfed the city was overshadowed by a huge neo-Nazi rally.
Church bells rang throughout the city at 9.45 p.m. marking the start of the bombing that would kill 35,000 people and leave one of Europe's most beautiful cities in ashes.
Tens of thousands of people braved icy rain last night to gather on the old market square where, six decades previously, the charred bodies of the bombing victims were cremated in huge funeral pyres. Yesterday afternoon about 6,000 neo-Nazis passed the same way, taking part in a "funeral march".
The battle of wills between ordinary people and the extremists came yesterday morning at the mass grave for victims of the bombing.
"How many died? Who knows the number," reads the inscription on the memorial where German representatives laid wreaths, along with the ambassadors of Britain, France and the United States. They left quickly after the brief ceremony, and soon leading neo-Nazis pressed forward, laying flowers "against forgetting" at the memorial.
The neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) has capitalised on democratic politicians' unease with the date, fashioning itself as the champion of Dresden's dead. The party has gained huge media attention by calling for Germany's civilian war dead to be mourned without reference to the wider context of the second World War.
The NPD faithful gathered for a rally behind the famous Semperoper and in front of the Saxon state parliament, where the NPD has 12 seats.
Thousands of black-clad young people held black balloons; onstage, men held wooden crosses listing cities such as Baghdad, Hiroshima, Dresden. On the podium hung a sign: "We are everywhere."
"We are in the heads of the people. We know that many people think the way we do," said Mr Udo Voigt, the NPD leader, to The Irish Times.
"It's just about activating that." Guest of honour at the rally was former SS man Franz Schönhuber.
"The 13th of February 2005 will go down as the start of a new German understanding of history," he wheezed at the crowd.
"And you all can be proud that you were here."
There were older faces in the crowd too, mostly Germans expelled as children in 1945 from former the German territories of East Prussia and Silesia. Many expelled associations are a front for NPD activities.
"I'm so happy. For the first time in 60 years we can remember all victims," said one woman who declined to give her name but who was expelled from present day Poland at the age of five. "It's all the same to me who's organising the remembering. Remembering is never good or bad, it's always healthy." As the "funeral march" crossed the River Elbe, left-wing demonstrators blasted the NPD with a recording of the famous closing speech from the anti-war classic, The Great Dictator.
"Let us stand together. Let us fight against hate and intolerance," said the disembodied voice of Charlie Chaplin, drifting over the heads of the NPD leaders.
The ordinary people gathered at street corners, their faces hanging in shock and disgust.
"Look at their faces, the dull faces, the bovine eyes," said Ms Edeltraud Krause, gesturing to the young men shuffling by.
"They have no education and if you asked them anything about Nazism and the consequences, they wouldn't have a clue. It shows just how much education work we need to do."
"I'm not so sure about what to make of it, I came here to have a look," said 14-year-old Ilja, his wide eyes drifting back to the fluttering flags and flickering torches.
The party marched into Dresden's reconstructed old town to the sound of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries from NPD speakers and cries of "Nazis out!" from left-wing demonstrators.
"Naturally you should be able to mourn the dead, but the circumstances cannot be forgotten," said Mr Georg Milbradt, the Saxon Minister-President.
"The NPD demonstration just shows that the battle for people's heads is not yet won. The NPD is no real danger. We just have to learn how to react to their provocations with a certain intelligence and ease. We don't always have to have a Pavlovian reaction of moral outrage."