The Queen is to visit the site of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp next month, Buckingham Palace has announced.

She will joined by the Duke of Edinburgh at the camp in northern Germany, where around 70,000 people died at the hands of the Nazis and which was liberated 70 years ago by British troops.

The Queen will lay a wreath at the memorial to Anne Frank, who perished at Bergen-Belsen. She will also meet survivors and liberators, as well representatives of Jewish and Christian communities.

The visit will be part of four-day state visit to Germany, beginning on June 23, which will include a meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel.

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.”

British troops entered Bergen-Belsen in April 1945 to find thousands of dead and dying from malnutrition and disease.

Last month, over 1,000 people from around the world, including 200 from Britain, attended a ceremony at the camp marking the 70th anniversary of its liberation.