FLEEING FROM RUSSIANS

Evening Star, Issue 25469, 27 April 1945, Page 5

FLEEING FROM RUSSIANS

PANIC AMONG GERMAN CIVILIANS PLEAD WITH AMERICANS TO BE TAKEN PRISONER (Rec. 11.5 a.m.) LONDON, April 26. When an American officer rang up the burgomaster of Oschatz and asked him the position there, the burgomas ter replied that there were 5,000 German troops in -the town, which was under artillery fire from the Russians, says Reuter's correspondent with the Americans on the Mulde River. An American major told a correspondent: "There is nothing of any consequence between us and the Russians. The Germans are concerned only with getting into American hands before the Rus- , sians catch them." *

Any delay in a link-up is not the result of German opposition between the Mulde and Kibe Rivers, adds the correspondent. Crowds of surrendering Germans and liberated Allied prisoners are swarming into the American lines Thousands of German civilians with white flags wept and pleaded with the Americans to be taken prisoner before the Russians overtook them Another patrol of IS Americans took prisoner 2.01)0 German soldiers

Reuter's correspondent w.ith the Third Army says' civilians who walked from as far away as Dresden and Potsdam are crowding the east bank of the Mulde trying to reach the American lines, but they are not allowed to cross. One lieutenant on patrol almost to the Kibe encountered about GOO German women walking eight abreast. American Third Army troops overran a war prisoners' camp near the Danube They liberated 100 ulticors and 6,000 Russians. Poles. French, and Serbs, but the guards rushed 1.800 British, Canadian, and American officers south of the Danube as General Pattons' men were sweeping towards the camp.