MILLION GERMANS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 256, 28 September 1942, Page 5

MILLION GERMANS

HUGE CONCENTRATION

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright.) (Rec. 10.30 a.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 27. The Germans have at least 1,000,000 men fighting in and near Stalingrad as well as several thousand tanks and aircraft, according to M. Alexandrov the Soviet propaganda chief. With this concentration the Germans planned to establish a front from Stalingrad to the Caspian Sea, along the Volga, after which they would launch a new offensive against Moscow and then against Britain. With the Black Sea ports of Tuapse, Sochi, and Poti still in Soviet hands, M. Alexandrov asserts that the Germans have failed to achieve their summer aims on the southern front^ Enumerating the conditions for ultimate victory over the German army, M. Alexandrov says: "The time is not far distant when our Allies -will bring into action their armies against the common enemy." The growing activity of guerrillas is also cited as a factor which will bring victory to the Bed Army. _ Later news from Stalingrad is that Soviet tanks are most active in a new phase in street battles in which they are often wresting the initiative from tho Germans. Soviet tanks are crashing into German ma-chine-gun nest's at first storey windows German tanks avoid direct combat, but crawl behind the infantry who attack the Soviet tanks with explosives. Russian sources do not substantiate the German claim! that they have advanced as far as | the Volga under the support of divebombers. , ~ „ Mr Wendell Willkie left Moscow for Kuibyshev this morning. A grand reception, at which he was entertained at the Kremlin last night, was attended by MM. Stalin and Molotov and other Soviet leaders, and also bv the British and American Ambassadors. Sir Robert ClarkKerr and M. Dekansov in the morning saw Mr Willkie off. He was accompanied by the American Ambassador.—Official AVirelcss. A German communique states that tho Germans in the Stalingrad town area took several pillboxes and attacks north of Stalingrad were repulsed. STALINGRAD AND VERDUN. A London cable says that M. Alexandrov made a comparison between Stalingrad and Verdun. "Whereas only 500,000 men were used against Verdun there were still 1,000,600 Germans concentrated against Stalingrad. Verdun was besieged only by infantry and artillery. Tho Germans to-day are throwing several thousand tanks and aircraft against Stalingrad as well as infantry. The Verdun position was eased because the Germans were forced to transfer troops to Russia. The Russians at Stalingrad are alone, and the Germans are ceaselessly throwing in troops from Westerr: Europe, where they are unopposed. The Russians, nevertheless, are defending Stalingrad stubbornly and bleeding* the German divisions white and preparing the ground for the Germans' ultimate undoing." ENORMOUS NAZI LOSSES. A New York message quotes Major Eliot, writing in the NewYork Herald-Tribune, as estimating that the total German force attacking Stalingrad totals 55 divisions, of which 45 arc infantry. He says that if the scientific tables used by the United States Army were applied to a force of this size attacking a similar objective, 23,206 dead weekly must be anticipated, which was startlingly close to the Russian official estimates of the German losses of 25,(i00 weekly. Furthermore, according to military theory, 169 000 wounded must be anticipated weekly, which meant that Hitler must replace at least 190,000 men in the Stalingrad sector alone every week while, if tho entjre Russian front were considered, the Germans must replace 250,000 weekly. In a normal year the total number of German military conscripts was between 600,•000 and 700,000; therefore the Nazi High Command was using up a year's supply of manpower every fortnight on the Russian iront at the present rate of fighting.