CRITICAL SITUATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 4, 6 January 1944, Page 5

CRITICAL SITUATION

SOME FRANK STATEMENTS (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright.) Rec.noon. LONDON, January 5. Nazi officials are admitting frankly for the first time that Germany faces a critical situation. Gloomy reports, reaching neutral countries every day! from Germany suggest that the Nazis | can see defeat ahead. I The "Berliner Boersen Zeitung says. "Germany last year suffered political and military setbacks which would have brought collapse to any nation in the Allied camp. The New Year will bring still greater tests to be overcome, not merely for fortifications, but for fanatical zeal." . - German officers on the Russian front apparently fear that the terrible experiences their troops are suffering may turn the retreat into a rout, A panzer division officer, in an astonishingly frank broadcast to-Berlin, said: "Our comrades are becoming very disquieted. We shoot like madmen, but the Russians have so many guns; and are such brilliant marksmen that_we are unable to achieve anything. The communication line between our .retreating troops is constantly . interrupted by guerrillas." A German war correspondent on tne Russian front says: "It is almost impossible to live, let along fight, on .the Eastern Front. Our clothing is useless in the mud, rain, snow, and icy winds. Hot food never reaches our lines. We never get cigarettes. It s so terrible you cannot think. Many soldiers are ill, especially with gastric trouble. Life on the Eastern Front cannot be compared with anything. A German Foreign Office spokesman told Swedish correspondents in Berlin: "The German winter line m Russia has been split by deep penetration by the Russian army." The spokesman said the two fronts left in Russia were 360 and 480 miles long. He did not expect German counter-attacks to regain the lost positions, but claimed that the Russians would be. unable to roll, up the German flanks, because the two long fronts were still holding. j