Protesters Disrupt 50th Anniversary Memorial in Dresden

Ten young leftists disrupted a Sunday prayer service 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!”

Chancellor Helmut Kohl and other dignitaries seated in the cathedral watched in disbelief as the protesters tried to unfurl a banner and tossed leaflets saying that commemorating the Dresden firebombing insults Jews murdered at Auschwitz. Church ushers ejected them after a scuffle.

The disturbance aptly illustrated the moral complexities of paying homage to an estimated 35,000 Germans who died in the air raids that leveled this city Feb. 13-14, 1945.

Church and government observances portray Dresdeners not as victims of the Allies but of a war begun by their own country.

The anniversary is being observed in lavish style.

Britain’s Duke of Kent, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, is scheduled to arrive 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 will read and lecture.

But not everyone is happy.

Outside the Dresden Cathedral, a group of Roman Catholics protested that too much attention is being paid to German civilians killed half a 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 N. Yeltsin, to leave Chechnya alone.

The demonstrators received icy stares from about 100 Dresdeners waiting to greet Kohl, which was not surprising. Many don’t like it when they think someone is trivializing the firebombing.

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.

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.