The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh arrive in Germany today as part of a four-day state visit which includes a trip to Bergen Belsen concentration camp.

It is her first visit to a former concentration camp site.

The royals will travel to the camp on Friday where the Queen will lay a wreath at the memorial to Anne Frank , who was one of the 70,000 people who died there.

She will also meet Holocaust survivors and former members of the British armed forces who liberated the camp 70 years ago.

They will include survivors Rudi Oppenheimer and Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, and former soldiers Bernard Levy and Eric Brown.

Also in attendance will be representatives of different faiths, including Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.

Mr Oppenheimer said: “I feel very privileged that I have been invited to meet the Queen at Bergen-Belsen.
“It is a great honour that she will be paying her respects at a place where our families died.

“It is also a great thing that the liberators are being honoured; we remain grateful to the British Army for liberating the camp in April 1945.”

The Queen and the Duke will also attend a state banquet, and hold a private meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The German Luftwaffe will escort the Queen's plane to Berlin Tegel airport where there will be a 21-gun salute.

Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust Karen Pollock welcomed the royal visit as "a fitting tribute to the memory of the thousands of victims and survivors of the camp".

She added: "This significant anniversary year is likely to be the last that we will mark with any great number of survivors and liberators still with us and I am sure that this visit will mean a great deal to them, as it does to us all.”

The royals will be welcomed by President Gauck at his official residence, Bellevue Palace, on Wednesday.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will also spend time in Berlin and Frankfurt.