ANGUISH SPREADS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 177, 29 July 1941, Page 7

ANGUISH SPREADS

THROUGH GERMANY

Reported Reactions To Long Casualty Lists Roc. 1 p.m. LONDON, July 2b. Pages of death noilces in German newspapers reaching Turkey confirm reports that Germany is paying a terrible price on the Russian front, Mr. 0. E. It. (ledyc, In a message to the "Daily Express" , from Istanbul, says casualty lists are not published in Germany, but Hitler has found himself obliged to provide an outlet for the popular anguish by allowing relatives and friends of prominent party members to publish at their own expense notices of deaths in action. Every day whole pages now record the deaths of important Nazi party members. Those mourned include Hans Dietel, commandant of the crack Gestapo college for the training of "super-men," Rudi Kranz, Germany's ski champion. Rudolf Araann, son of the Nazi Press chief, and Otto Schramm, one of Hitler's cronies since the birth of the Nazi party. The Moscow radio has announced that a strike occurred in the naval shipyards at Hamburg as a protest bv the workers against the non-pub-lication of casualty lists from the Russian front. The workers' demand for casualty lists was at first granted, but patent inaccuracies in the lists so incensed them that the strike was continued.

The Moscow Foreign Office, affirming that the Finnish Government is detaining on various pretexts Soviet consular and commercial representatives, besides engineers and other officials who were in Finland before the war, has asked the Swedish Government to intervene and make representations to the Finnish Government in the matter.

General Liebemann, In an article in the "Berliner Boersenzeitung," says: "The Russian resistance has made it necessary to throw in the entire German Army, the majority of which consists of non-motorised infantry with horse-drawn wagons and batteries."

The deputy-chief of the Soviet Ministry of Information, M. Lozovsky, said: "The Russo-German front has become a gigantic, continuous Verdun. We cannot yet give detaiis of the vast battle of Smolensk, but we will do so immediately the Germans are finally beaten there. It is a battle which will be studied for many years. The German Air Force will not last long if its present losses continue. German plans to seize aerodromes near Moscow have been frustrated, and the Germans have been obliged to operate against the capital from a distance because of the continuous Soviet bombing of their advanced aerodromes. Some thought we exaggerated when we said the loss of certain territories earlier was not decisive, but the Soviet, with many industrial centres, can afford to lose a small proportion of its territory."

M. Lozovsky .said oil and petrol supplies were now a very serious problem for the Germans owing to the activity of the Russian guerillas. Many tanks and aircraft were idle because of a lack of fuel. Some had been destroyed by the guerillas. Asked about the Ploesti oilfields, M. Lozovsky said: "There is nothing left but the name."

The Germans have made no further progress along the whole front, according to a Russian com* munique. Fignting continued yesterday in the Neva!, Smolensk and Jitomir sectors.

A German broadcaster, who has just returned from the front, said the fighting on the River Dnieper was as bad as that on the Sdmme. The Russians had concentrated an enormous mass of men on the other side, and now the whole of the elite of their army was assembled in this sector.