German politicians put pressure on UK to scrap Bomber Command memorial

London, Sept.7 (ANI): Germany's call for Britain to scrap plans for a 3.5 million pound memorial to Bomber Command has angered war veterans and British citizens.

Bomber Command and WE bombers flattened Dresden in February 1945 over two days and nights. Some 25,000 people died during raids that some claim are controversial because the war was almost over and Dresden had no strategic value as a military target.

According to the Daily Express, German politicians, and the country's biggest-selling newspaper, Bild, are behind the campaign to have the memorial scrapped.

Planned for London's Green Park, it will pay tribute to the 55, 573 Allied aircrew, all volunteers with an average age of 19, who bravely took to the skies and died fighting the Nazis.

Bomber Command suffered the highest ratio of casualties during the war - 10 per cent of all UK fatalities.

But Dresden Liberal party councillor Holger Zastrow said: "This memorial injures the feelings of Dresdeners and is utterly tasteless."

And Bild ran a story yesterday with the English headline: "Please Say No".

Ken Oates, 85, from Poynton in Cheshire, who flew on 10 missions with Bomber Command before being wounded in action and blinded for life in 1945, said: "To hell with that. I was in a Lancaster. I got injured. We should be very proud of the RAF. They bombed us. We bombed them. It was tit-for-tat."

The Bomber Command Memorial needs to raise another two million pounds. (ANI)