Neo-Nazis planning massive march in Germany to protest London memorial to Dresden bombers

BERLIN - Hundreds of neo-Nazis are organising the biggest march in Germany later this month against the construction of a British memorial meant for RAF’s Bomber crews who died during the Second World War.

Fascists who march through the city in eastern Germany each year claim its firebombing in 1945 was a war crime, and are therefore objecting to plans to build the memorial in London, the Daily Mail reports.

Neo-Nazis are scheduled to march on February 19, 66 years after devastating Allied air raids that killed over 25,000 civilians.

The Dresden raids remain a controversial topic till date. At that time, the allies had claimed that massive numbers of German troops were passing through the city on their way to the eastern front, but in reality, they were refugees, wounded women, children and the elderly, the paper said.

Ever since the reunification of Germany in 1990, Germans have used the anniversary of the bombing raids as an excuse to march through Dresden.

The National Democratic Party, Germany’s biggest far-right party, is using the march to condemn London’s plans of building the 3.5million pounds memorial to the men of Bomber Command, while lobbying for a memorial to victims in the centre of Dresden.

“The planned establishment of the bomber monument in London is for many Dresdeners and other Germans deeply wounding, in particular for the contemporary witnesses and survivors of the night of the bombings. Therefore we march against it,” an NPD spokesman said.

Many ordinary people opposed to the neo-Nazis are also against the memorial, as are some mainstream politicians in Dresden.

Holger Zastrow, a Liberal party councillor in the city, said: “This memorial injures the feelings of Dresdeners and is utterly tasteless.” (ANI)