NAZI EXCUSES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 172, 23 July 1941, Page 7

NAZI EXCUSES

FAILURES IN RUSSIA Revealing Admissions Of Difficulties United Press Association.—Copyright. Rec. 11 a.m. LONDON, July 22. The German propaganda machine, while still promising victories, is now emphasising the difficulties of the Eastern offensive and excusing the failure to achieve a break-through. The Berlin radio declared that the conditions on the Russian front were entirely different to those on the Western Front, and it will take much longer to achieve a decisive result than after breaking the Weygand Line. The enemy is numerically superior, not only in manpower, but also in equipment, the announcer stated. A German officer, Colonel Bade, in a broadcast, said: "I cannot tell you all the difficulties confronting Germany and the army, because the enemy is listening in. Our heavy vehicles are frequently hopelessly stuck in loose earth and immobilised in impenetrable dust. "Because of the rapid advance of our motorised forces and the depth of our front, our rear communications particularly are threatened. Dispersed Soviet forces often sabotage our communications." The "Frankfurter Zeitung" says: "Some of our victories were too hasty. The garrisons of fortresses believed to have been conquered, suddenly resumed resistance from underground fortifications which our soldiers had not noticed. Fresh battles must repeatedly be fought in territory already considered ours. Germany will fight against Russia to the end. We confess the hardships of these battles which exceed anything in history." Evidence of growing dissatisfaction in Germany is reaching London from many sources. The "Daily Telegraph" Stockholm correspondent says that from every corner of the enslaved Contintnt come the ifirst mutterings of the thunderstorm which, it is believed here, will sweep awav Nazidom before the world is much older. From Germany there is no more talk of peace before Christmas with flag-waving crowds marching down Unter den Linden. Instead reports describe villages shocked by mounting casualties, further decreases in rations already cut !o a minimum, the arrival of Gestapo reinforcements, and mcreasing arrests on the grounds of political indiscretion.