PEACE ENVOYS SHOT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 1, 2 January 1945, Page 5

PEACE ENVOYS SHOT

Russian Officers Taking Terms To Enemy In Budapest GERMANS DENY REPORT Rec. 10 a.m. LONDON, Jan. 1. The German news agency says that the official Moscow report that two Russian peace envoys were murdered in Budapest was a lie from beginning to end, put out for the sole purpose of creating a pretext for the deliberate destruction of Budapest. Two officers of the Red Army acting as emissaries were shot dead by the Germans in Budapest, said a special announcement broadcast over the Moscow radio. The officers, who were carrying an ultimatum to surrender to the German Command in Budapest on Friday, both bore large white flags. One officer was shot dead when approaching the garrison in the western suburb of Pisztecz, and the other was shot in the back when leaving to return to the east bank of the Danube after he had conferred with the German Command and the ultimatum had been rejected. The interpreter with the second officer escaped to relate what occurred. The Moscow radio says that throughout Thursday night an.d on Friday morning powerful Russian loud-speakers in the front line continuously broadcast to the German Command the notification of the impending departure of the Russian emissaries to hand over the ultimatum. Red Army fire was stopped in sectors where the emissaries were to go. "The ultimatum was only intended to avoid bloodshed and save the peaceful population of the huge city and its historical treasures," the radio adds. "The Germans, through the criminal and premeditated murder of the emissaries, want to drag with them into the abyss thousands of Budapest's citizens." The Russian ultimatum expired at noon on Saturday.