Germany not to deny its wartime crimes: president

German President Joachim Gauck said Friday that his country has reached reconciliation with its former enemies as it no longer denies the crimes it has committed, media here reported.

"We know who started that murderous war," Gauck said at a ceremony in the eastern city of Dresden commemorating the 70th anniversary of the city's bombing. "That is why we will never forget the victims of German warfare, even as we remember here and now the German victims."

"We are no longer prepared to deny or defend transgressions and crimes committed in our country's name," he said.

On Feb. 13, 1945, Dresden, once known as Florence on the Elbe, was bombed to ruins by the Allied air force. Up to 25,000 people were estimated to be killed in the raid.

"A country, which ... (committed) an atrocity like genocide, could not expect to emerge unpunished and undamaged from a war, which it itself unleashed," Gauck said.

"We remember all those who lost their lives at the time as victims of the war and violence, not only in Dresden, but also elsewhere," said Gauck, addressing guests including representatives from Britain, Poland, Russia and other countries in Dresden's Church of Our Lady, a symbolic building which was destroyed by the bombing and reconstructed after the war with donations from around the world.

The president said the reconstruction of the church reflected reconciliation as it received support from the war time enemies. Ten years ago, when the church was reopened, delegates from Coventry, a city in central England, presented a cross made of three large carpentry nails found in the beams of the city's cathedral after its destruction by German bombs.

"Once the ruins of the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) served to remind us of the horrors of war. Today the rebuilt church is a symbol of peace and reconciliation," Gauck said. Endi