CZECH CLEAN-UP

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 May 1945, Page 5

CZECH CLEAN-UP

PRAGUE’S MANY DEAD

GERMANS IN FLIGHT

LONDON, May 10. In Czechoslovakia a fairly wide corridor still separates the American 3rd Army and the Red Army. Prague is reported to be quiet this morning after yesterday’s raid by German aircraft. American aircraft are making operational patrols over Czechoslovakia.

“Prague is a city of chaos,” says an Associated Press correspondent in a dispatch lodged yesterday. “The Russians paraded through the shattered streets, wildly acclaimed by thousands of exultant men and women who divided their energies between pelting jeeps and cars with flowers and removing barricades. There are so many dead and wounded in the city that they have not yet been counted. Czech; patriots say that their three days’ battle against the Germans cost them the lives of at least 5000 of their countrymen. The city erupted in a mad outburst of relief and joy when the first reconnaissance elements of the Red Army raced in from the north west after an overnight dash of 35 miles. " . n “The broken German army is fleeing from the Russians westward in a 56 miles’ long column from Prague to the American lines. Among the Germans are members of the S.S. whom the Czechs accuse of slaughtering thousands of unarmed Czech men and bovs and of herding women and children before tanks to protect them from the patriots’ fire. There are hundreds of Germans in the fields, sleeping off their last drunken debauch. The sullen columns on the roads include many women. The former Sudeten German leader (Konrad Henlein) and the former Reich Protector (Frank) are among the prisoners.” . The Prague radio reports there is still firing in Prague, but the K Russian commander has ordered the immediate clearance from the city of all resistance. The Russians are massing m Czechoslovakia, says Reuter’s correspondent, to bring to their senses the Germans in the central part of the country, who offered some rearguard resistance as they fled. Special mopping up parties are clearing the woods, mountains and by-ways from the Baltic to the Alps, rounding up thousands of Germans.

t The Prague radio stated that Dr Benes has arrived in Prague.

BRUTALITIES TO THE END

(Rec. 1.5 p.m.) LONDON, May.lo. After seven years under Hitler’s cruellest Gauleiters, Heydrich the Hangman, and Frank, all Prague donned holiday garb and rushed outdoors, to-day, says the “Daily Telegraph’s” Prague correspondent, in a despatch dated May 8. The red, blue and white banner of Czechoslovakia rose ‘over the city, ending the fourday street battles that cost more than 5000 civilian lives on the final day of war. The enemy discreetly left by the western route, where they surrendered to the Americans, while Russian vanguards simultaneously burst into the city from the east. Patriots told how S.S. troops killed 60 civilians in a furious half-day battle last Saturday around the Prague radio station. When a professor of literature at Prague University led the underground rising the Germans forced women and children to walk in front of their tanks. One German grenadier walked down the oavement, his machine-gun h azing,"with two Czech children tied to his belt, so that the Czechs could no. return his fire. The Germans slaughtered all residents in the streets in which firing occurred, and when they finally retreated under the surrender armistice drunken b.b. troops fired indiscriminately into the crowd.

RUSSIAN CLAIM.

(Rec. 11.15 a.m.) LONDON, May 10. The Germans lost 7,800,000 killed or captured on the Eastern Front in three years, states the Moscow radio. The German war potential was so exhausted that the Allies in c £ ea ?" ing a Second Front in the west did not meet the resistance their plans had foreseen. The powerful Bri-tish-Soviet-American coalition was not born suddenly, but was prepared by the struggle of Soviet, diplomacy and far sighted politicians and honest , patriots against the short sighted criminal policy of isolationism and appeasement. The Soviet Union in the’ war years established or re-established diplomatic relations with. 27 countries who recognised Russia as the main force which eliminated Hitlerism. AMERICAN CAPTURES.

(Rec. 11.15) LONDON, May 10 German troops in Czechoslovakia are still determinedly trying to infiltrate through the American lines and surrender to the Western powers instead of to the Russians, states an American correspondent broadcasting from General Bradley’s command post: He adds that the Fourth Army Group yesterday took in some 30,000 prisoners, and 100.000 are still coming trirough the lines to surrender. Large numbers of German civilians who lived in Czechoslovakia are also coming. These fear not so much the Russians as the Czech people. Fighter aircraft yesterday flew 240 sorties over war prisoners’ camps not yet reached by the Allies. The Prague radio stated German planes to-day again bombed the big concentration camp at Terezin, wheie thousands of Jews, mostly old people are still confined. The camp was first bombed yesterday.

ARRESTED POLES

(Rec. 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, May 10. General Bor, who led Warsaws rising, said he and not the Polish Government in London gave the signal for the revolt. . In an interview neap the Austrian border he said he gave the signal because he thought the Red Army s approach made the time propitious. He claimed the Russians were oniy 500 yards away, but they launched attacks only in battalion strength. The uprising failed because the patriots exhausted their food and ammunition. Six out of every ten men and women were casualties. The ex-Polish Prime Minister, M. Mikolajczyk. in a statement on the arrest of 16 Polish leaders by the Russians, said they were a political delegation, sincerely desiring to cooperate with Russia. Members of the Council of National Unity were anxious to reveal themselves immediately on the entry of Russian troops. Lack of freedom and the methods applied by the Lublin Committee prevented this step. They therefore made the request in London for the revelation of their identity to Britain, America and Russia. “They would not voluntarily have come into the open had thev felt the slightest possibility of their being accused of activities against the safety of the Russian Army. Meanwhile, other leaders of the democratic parties have been arrested, among them Dr. Kiernik, former Minister, and his companion, Tito, during his exile.”