Dresden "at war with itself" on the 70th anniversary of 1945 air raids.

During my last visit to Dresden more than two decades ago, the Frauenkirche still was a pile of stones. Somewhere near it was the Radeberger Keller, where I may have enjoyed beers in proximity to Vladimir Putin back in '89.

At this point today, I can't even recall the location of the beer hall, apart from it being in the basement of a DDR-issue modern building, many of which evidently have been replaced by reconstructed blocks. Time is playing with those memories, and it makes me resentful.

However, one clear recollection from 1991 is walking near the train station and being spat at by a skinhead. That's quite likely timeless.

Dresden at war with itself: should it remember or be allowed to forget?, by Kate Connolly (The Guardian)

Pegida’s anti-immigration rallies point to bigger questions about the German town’s relationship with its past – and its status as a victim of allied bombing

On the grounds of Dresden’s trade fair site, visitors emerge from the cellar of a former abattoir. Most of it was recently turned into a cloakroom but it partly retains its original look, of shiny white tiles and a stained concrete floor. A plaque identifies it as Schlachthof 5 [Slaughterhouse 5].

This is where Kurt Vonnegut, along with 159 fellow US soldiers, was held as a prisoner of war. It’s also where he experienced the 1945 firebombing of the city, protected from death by the thick walls of the meat vault in which he was held, the place that would inspire his 1969 cult anti-war satire, Slaughterhouse-Five.

“It’s probably one of the few places in the city where you’re reminded of the bombing, but only really if you know where to look,” says 39-year-old Danilo Hommel who takes tourists on daily tours of the city which, through the eyes of the writer, focus on the allied air raid that reduced the baroque city to something resembling a moonscape.

Hommel points also to a nearby “rubble mountain” in the western district of Ostragehege. The recreational spot was formed from the vast amount of smithereens – from crumbled buildings to crushed human bones – that resulted when 2,400 tons of explosive bombs and nearly 1,500 tons of incendiary devices were dropped from RAF and US air force planes in four raids on the city between 13 and 15 February 1945, in an attempt to bring the war to an end.

“Most Dresdeners are hardly aware that it consists of war rubble, and few would dare contemplate that it contains human remains,” Hommel says.

On Friday the city will mark the 70th anniversary of the bombings, which killed 25,000 civilians, many of whom if not blown up, were asphyxiated or burnt to death.