Tony Blair to apologise for Dresden bombing

Downing Street has confirmed that Tony Blair will this week issue a formal apology for the 1945 raids on the peace-loving city of Dresden which killed 35,000 people. On 13 February 1945, allied bombers rained death upon the cowering population as the Red Army marched inexorably upon Dresden from the east. Ever since, historians have questioned the legitimacy of the attack and have debated what factors may have influenced the decision to proceed with the raid — even thought it was clear to everyone except Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun and the Fuhrer's pet dog "Lebensraum" that the war was lost.

Some of the possible factors put foward by historians include:

• Germany's 1939 invasion of Czechoslovakia.
• Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland.
• Germany's 1940 invasion of Denmark.
• Germany's 1940 invasion of Norway.
• Germany's 1940 invasion of the Netherlands.
• Germany's 1940 invasion of Luxembourg.
• Germany's 1940 invasion of Belgium.
• Germany's 1940 invasion of France.
• Germany's 1940 air attacks on Britain.
• Germany's 1940 occupation of Romania.
• Germany's 1941 invasion of Greece.
• Germany's 1941 invasion of Yugoslavia.
• Germany's 1941 invasion of Soviet Union.
• Germany's 1943 occupation of former ally Italy.
• Soviet Union's 1945 liberation of Auschwitz, which revealed that a certain amount of unpleasantness had been going on in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Speaking from the heart of Coventry — which accidently burnt down during a 1940 Luftwaffe operation to drop "Hey, why can't we all just learn to get along?" propaganda leaflets in 1940 — one historian told The Rockall Times: "It's up to the individual to decide the legitimacy of the operation against Dresden. For my part, I welcome the spirit of reconciliation which has provoked Mr Blair to apologise unreservedly for any inconvenience we may have caused the Germans by fighting against them during the war."

These sentiments were welcomed by members of Germany's National Democratic Party (NPD) who attended Saturday's commemorative ceremonies in Dresden to express their outrage at Allied war crimes. "For too long we have been demonised as a panzer-loving Aryan nation," thundered one young man wearing a swastika lapel pin in honour of the dead. "We are the victims here," he added before clashing with anti-Nazi demostrators and then retiring to the nearest beer hall to entertain his mates with a couple of hours of putsch-provoking rhetoric.

Previously

• Neville Chamberlain joins growing anti-war chorus
• Germans plot world's longest noun
• Adolf Hitler very bad: Official