NAZI FANATICISM

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 180, 1 August 1944, Page 5

NAZI FANATICISM

SUICIDE RESISTANCE Desperate Bid To Hold Allies From Florence Rec. 1 p.m. LONDON, July 31. "German fanaticiem is reaching new heights in their last desperate bid to hold the Allies from Florence," says the Daily Mail correspondent outside the city. "Callous Hitler-worshipping youths are figuring in foolhardy 'death or glory' exploits, amounting to spectacular forms of suicide. They have been coming out of slit trenches to tackle our tanks and armoured cars at plointblank range with grenades and bazookas. We have never found them so eager to die. Others have walked forward in the face of withering fire 'more like robots than like men.'"

According to a New Zealand sergeant, the Germans are rushing more and more guns to the front and making Italian civilians dig defence works, trenches and artillery emplacements. A counter-attack invariably follows every Eighth Army attack, but our men are generally holding their gains and inflicting heavy German losses on both flanks of the enemy line. South of Florence they are now protected by high ground and cannot be turned. They will have to be broken by a frontal attack. The Germans have, therefore, concentrated three divisions along a 15-mile front.