Artists Create a Reminder of the City in Ruins

Sixty years ago, after a ferocious Russian offensive, the centre of Berlin was in ruins. Now, the eerie landscape in the immediate aftermath of the second world war has been brought back to life in a vivid tableau.

A group of artists known as 180 Degrees Berlin have commemorated the 60th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe on Monday by creating a panorama of how it looked, just in front of the Brandenburg Gate, using a huge photographic print.

The scale of the devastation is immediately clear, with the gate, Berlin's most famous Prussian monument, badly damaged by shellfire.

The Academy of Arts next door is a heap of rubble. Hitler's Berlin bunker, which no longer exists, is a short walk away.

The life-size installation will form a backdrop to a series of events over the weekend celebrating the demise of the Third Reich and the end of the Nazi era.

Some 50,000 Berliners are expected to stage a candlelit procession through the city on Saturday night.

Large numbers of anti-fascist protesters are also expected to gather on Sunday in protest at a march by neo-Nazis in the centre of the German capital.