GERMANY: Queen Elizabeth's state visit to Berlin next week is descending into a diplomatic farce after somebody mentioned the war.
Diplomats in Berlin and London have dismissed as nonsense reports of a possible apology by the queen for the fire-bombing of Dresden, but are working frantically behind the scenes on a damage-limitation exercise.
"Will the queen apologise?" was the front-page headline yesterday of Bild newspaper, read by 12 million Germans.
"Such delicate gestures of reconciliation are probably too complicated for (British) newspapers like Daily Mail and Daily Express to understand," wrote the Berliner Zeitung daily.
A spokeswoman for the German Foreign Office said the article, following up British newspaper reports, was "not worth commenting on".
The British embassy did not return calls.
The story is, in fact, a media hall of mirrors, a textbook case of a cannibalistic feeding frenzy.
The British ambassador to Berlin, Sir Peter Torrey, has marked the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hamburg and other German cities with speeches seen as another step in British recognition of Germans' right to mourn their war dead.
"It was a bleak and terrifying moment in the modern history of Brunswick," said the ambassador.
"How can we explain to our children the madness that was unleashed in those days?" he asked in the northern German city of Brunswick, where hundreds died 60 years ago after an RAF bombing.
Days later, the Daily Express splashed with a story that Germans are demanding the queen apologise for Dresden during her visit.
The queen will host a concert in Berlin to raise money for Dresden's cathedral which lay in rubble for 50 years and is now a focus of German and British reconciliation.
A British diplomatic source was quoted as saying that it would be difficult for the queen not to say anything.
The story also contained a quote of dubious origin from an unnamed German diplomatic source, saying: "We hope for something concrete, a statement that the bombing was wrong."
The Daily Mail got into a state. A columnist wrote that Germans "should never be allowed to forget their evil past".
"Krautrage" said a headline in the Daily Star tabloid.
The story as it now stands - Germans report a British report that Germans demand apology - is a classic Fleet Street special that has prompted a bitter, if entertaining, war of words between the British press attaché in Berlin and several British journalists.
Berliners were more amused than anything by the affair.
"It's complete nonsense, particularly after all these years," said Jens Zickelick, a painter.
"You'd swear the Germans never dropped any bombs back then. Sounds like it was all made up to me."