Queen honours forgotten war hero

The Queen laid at wreath at the war graves cemetery

The Queen visited the grave of a forgotten British World War I hero on the second day of her trip to Germany.

She laid a wreath at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery in Stahnsdorf, near Potsdam, where Major Charles Yate was buried.

He was one of 1,175 Allied soldiers who died as prisoners of war between 1914 and 1919 and were buried at Stahnsdorf.

The Queen, 78, also spoke to locals who defied the former East German Communist regime by tending the site.

Victoria Cross

Major Yate, of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, won the Victoria Cross in August 1914 at the Battle of Le Cateau when the British fought a delaying action to check the German pursuit after Mons.

He was picked up from the battlefield by the Germans but died as a prisoner of war a month later.

The soldier was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously, and his body was laid to rest at Stahnsdorf in the 1920s.

The Queen meets former Manchester City goalkeeper Bert Trautmann OBE

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh placed a wreath at a monument in the cemetery which bore the inscription "Their Name Liveth For Evermore."

Remembrance Day 'protest'

The Queen addressed the people of Stahnsdorf who for years under the communist regime of the German Democratic Republic defied the authorities to tend the graves and attend Remembrance Day commemorations each November.

She spoke of the transformation of Germany's eastern states after the country reunified 14 years ago.

"I would like to pay tribute to all you have achieved," she said.

"Multi-party democracy and the rule of law are firmly established again, and so, too, is the free market economy."

My father was a prisoner of war in Jersey during the Second World War and came back alive...I was very impressed with the way he was treated by the British Gunther Duwe Pensioner

Gunther Duwe, 78, a retired chemical engineer from Teltow, said: "My father was a prisoner of war in Jersey during the Second World War and came back alive.

"I was very impressed with the way he was treated by the British so, every year, I came here in November to the British Remembrance Day service.

"The authorities did not like it and it became more and more political - it was quite a secret really."

Climate change

The second day of the three-day visit began when the Queen opened a major conference at the British embassy in Berlin which will make recommendations on climate change to Prime Minister Tony Blair.

She later visited the Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam, the venue of the famous 1945 conference where Churchill, Stalin and Truman discussed the post-war division of Germany.

The Queen later hosted a gala concert at Berlin Philharmonic Hall, the proceeds of which will be donated to the restoration of Dresden's Frauenkirche, which was destroyed in the wartime bombing.

The postwar reconciliation between Britain and Germany has been a key issue during the queen's state visit.