A Holocaust-themed production of Wagner opera was cancelled last week after its traumatic scenes caused a number of guests to seek medical help.

The Dusseldorf opera’s version of Tannhauser included scenes of rape, suicide and a family having their heads shaved before they were shot. Some guests were so distressed that they were treated for shock.

A German director has described the decision to cancel his Holocaust-themed opera production as "censorship".

Director Burkhard C Kosminski's modern production of Richard Wagner’s Tannhauser, which held its opening night at the Rheinoper in Düsseldorf, was cancelled last week after its traumatic scenes caused a number of guests to seek medical help.

Last week was a historical one in Dresden. The Jüdische Gemeinde zu Dresden, the Jewish congregation in the city, finally got its rabbi back — more than 70 years after Rabbi Albert Wolf had to flee Dresden and Germany.

And as if to underscore that this is a moment of renewal, the new rabbi, Alexander Nachama, is just 29 years old.

A 93-year-old alleged SS member was arrested in Germany last night.

Hans Lipshis, who was taken into custody from his care home near Stuttgart, was accused of taking part in murder and genocide at Auschwitz.

I first came to Dresden in 1985 as part of a family “restitution” visit to my father’s birthplace of West Berlin. It was before the re-unification, the “change” as they call it there, and we crossed the Berlin Wall into the German Democratic Republic at Friedrichstrasse.

Germany’s top Jewish leader is furious at the government for failing to go the extra mile to ban the country’s biggest neo-Nazi party.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government will not submit a petition to the Supreme Court supporting proceedings to ban the extreme-right National Democratic Party of Germany, it was announced this week.

Two hundred and twenty seven banks, countless skyscrapers and Europe’s third biggest airport. And it is the birthplace of Goethe, Anne Frank and Yiddishe sex therapist Ruth Westheimer. It is also the first German city to have a Jewish mayor.