Dresden, Germany  - Leftists battled Saturday with riot police escorting a march by far-right protesters in Dresden, Germany.

Much of the German city was destroyed and thousands of Germans burned to death by Allied firebomb raids late February 13 and early February 14, 1945. German neo-Nazis claim the Allies committed a war crime. Left-right clashes are common on the anniversary.

An estimated 6,000 far-right activists, some from outside Germany, marched through Dresden. They were cordoned off by police to prevent any brawling.

Eyewitnesses said several hundred leftists tried to attack the neo-Nazi participants, hurling bottles at the police lines and damaging parked cars. Several people were injured in the violence.

Separately, pacifist Germans took part in processions to both denounce the neo-Nazi threat and remember the city's dead.

Many mainstream Germans say that the huge loss of life must be remembered as a warning that war does not pay. A rally called by major political parties to condemn right-wing exploitation of the issue attracted more than 10,000 people.

German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee, a Social Democrat, told the crowd, "We must say no to those anti-democrats." Other speakers charged the rightists were trying to divert attention from the Holocaust by playing up Dresden's torment.

Historians say the mass air raids by the US and British air forces on Dresden led to 25,000 deaths, mainly civilians.

A monument to the deaths was inaugurated Saturday on a city square, the Altmarkt. The inscription says, "The horrors of war that Germany sent out into the world came back to strike in our city."

On Friday, the bell of the Frauenkirche, or Church of Our Lady, tolled in memory of the dead. The church collapsed two days after the raids. US and British donors helped pay to rebuild the church in a gesture of reconciliation. It reopened in 2006. (dpa)