PICTURE OF COLOGNE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 83, 7 March 1945, Page 6

PICTURE OF COLOGNE

: 3.45 P.M. EDITION

CIVILIANS NOT UNFRIENDLY. ■ :STRICT ALLIED CONTROL. (NtZ. Pa-ess Association. -Copyright.) (Rec. 2.5 p.m.) LONDON, Mar. 6. 7 Giving a picture of Cologne tonight, Reuter’s cori'espondent inside the city says that about 150,Q'JO civilians remain in the city. Many seem to be men of military age and, in fact, General Hodges’s troops have found a' number of abandoned uniforms, which suggests that they are actually Wehrt macht or Volkssturm soldiers.

All civilians are confined to - their houses except for the purpose of getting food and water. The usual Allied proclamations are being posted throughout the city. Civilians must band in their cameras, radio sets and arms. Anybody found in the street alter dark is liable to "be shot. Most of the civilians seem to be friendly, even gmd that the Allied troops have arrived. Some are frightened and mutter ‘‘Not Nazi”. Many of the rail bridges over the main roads have been left in;act which, if blown up, would have blocked the roads with rubble and hampered the Americans’ progress. The Germans were expected to make some sort of a stand where the green belt bordering the Rihgstrasse separates the outer from the inner city, but there were no prepared positions and no resistance. American tanks went on to cross the huge marshalling yards north-west of the city. The Air Forces had hammered these yards and the surrounding houses are nothing but burnt-out and blackened shells. Amid such areas of desolation the correspondent was amazed to see the difference between the outer parts of the city, which are residential, and the utter shambles of the industrial area.

I It is officially estimated that 85 ■per cent, of Cologne was flattened by the 40,000 tons of bombs dropped by the R.A.F. and the Americans since the first raid in May, e 1940. Observers who have seen Stalingrad, sav the devastation of Cologne is

;even worse. The British United Press correspondent says that- air photographs show the Hohenzollern Bridge sinking into' the river after the recent bombings arid explosions. Late reports tonight place the armoured forces of the. American Third Army 20 miles from the' Rhine at an undisclosed point after an advance of 32 miles since yesterday morning. Earlier reports said the Third Army forces were 25 riffles north-east of Bitburg and 28 from the Rhine. The Associated Press correspondent with the Third Army stated that the Americans had captured, a corps commander and his staff, had taken about 1000 prisoners and had liberated a great humber of British and French prisoners whom the Germans had abandoned in their disordered retreat.