Senior officials and representatives of the German War Graves Commission commemorated the victims of the Allied bombing raids on the city of Dresden of February 13-14, 1945, who are buried in the city - mainly firefighters, soldiers and policemen.
In addition to Dresden Lord Mayor Dirk Hilbert, representatives of the state of Saxony, of which the city is the capital, remembered the dead in a traditional ceremony at Heide cemetery.
"With regard to the destruction of Dresden, we must not only look at 1945, but must broaden our perspective to the time between 1933 and 1945," Hilbert said in a short speech.
"In remembering, we must face up to the complexity of a simultaneously divisive and unifying history, an infinitely complex one, precisely because of the current political situation in our city, in our country and in Europe."
According to the police, the ceremony at the cemetery, where most of the dead of the air raids rest, went off without a hitch.
