DANGER TO GERMANS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 47, 25 February 1942, Page 5

DANGER TO GERMANS

Threat Of Big Soviet Offensive

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.)

A Stockholm report says that though it is distinctly more active than in December and January, the Russian battlefront is still dominated by winter, says a correspondent of "The Times." The increased activity is partly due to changed German tactics, which Berlin describes as active defence after a period of passive defence.

There is no evidence to support a German claim to have taken nearly 57,000 prisoners since the New Year, but whether this is true or false, the Russians are more aggressive today than in January. This is most evident on the Leningrad front, where the garrison and relieving forces southwest of Schlusselburg are now within hearing distance of leach other's artillery. The Russian hammering continues unabatedly, and the fact that a passage has not yet been battered through the investing forces demonstrates the toughness of the German resistance in fulfilling the High Command's orders that Leningrad should not be relieved.

The Russians are increasingly using guerrillas and regular mobile raiding detachments to cause disorder in the enemy's rear, as part of the preparations for taking the offensive with a large force. These tactics are particularly evident on the approaches to Smolensk and inside White Russia, where some guerrillas are operating over a radius of a hundred miles, and also in the Ukraine, where raiders, chiefly well-equipped cavalry, in the next few weeks should yield to the Russians more tangible fruit as their careful preparations mature and some, or all, of the German posts fall.

According to the Stockholm newspaper "Dagens Nyheter," the Russians have recaptured the important village of Panino, 14 miles north of Rjev, and also fifteen other villages in this area. The Germans lost 2200 men in three days' fighting on the Leningrad front, where the Red Army recaptured thirteen villages.

The "Daily Express" says that General Model has succeeded General Guderian as Hitler's No. 1 mechanised warfare expert. General Model is an exponent of the "advance at all costs" methods of offensive. His advancement since the outbreak of the war has been rapid.

(Rec. 9 a.m.) LONDON, February 24 The Germans are throwing in the largest number of parachute troops since Crete in an attempt to halt the Russian efforts to relieve Leningrad, said the Berlin military spokesman. • (■■'

Admitting the danger bf-the situation on the Leningrad front, the Berlin radio appealed to the Germans to hold out at all costs till the- spring. "Russia," it was said, "has launched the biggest counter-offensive, of the war. Hundreds of thousands of newly arrived and well-equipped troops from Siberia are attacking the German positions near Leningrad, in the Valdai Hills, near Smolensk, in the Donets, and in the Crimea. The Germans at Leningrad have been forced to take-up better positions farther to the west of the city. Smolensk, Dnepropetrovsk, and Sevastopol are the theatres of the biggest and bloodiest battles in the history of mankind. The Germans cannot afford to yield another inch."