Allied Armour May Outflank Siegfried Line

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 211, 6 September 1944, Page 5

Allied Armour May Outflank Siegfried Line

GERMANS WILL DEFEND EVERY FOOT OF HOMELAND Received Tuesday, 7 p.m. LONDON, Sept. 5. The Canadians advancing into the Pas de Calais from the Somme reached Hesdin where they are encountering opposition from the Germans who are seemingly attempting to form a protective screen covering Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk. The National Broadcasting Corporation’s correspondent, in a broadcast from France, said the British troops which took Antwerp drove on to Holland. The British United Press’s correspondent says the British have liberated Waterloo. Allied armour in Belgium may outflank the Siegfried Line north of Aachen, says Morley Richards, the Daily Express’s military writer. “The Siegfried Line never really covered Belgium and Holland.” The German News Agency commentator (Captain Sertorius) to-day said: “A new German defence line in the west is under construction. The enemy Is going all out, but so far he has not been confronted by a continuous German line of resistance. German beadquarters regard the battles in France and Belgium as just battles in the forefield fought by a small number of German reserves. They aim at facilitating the transport of the German armies from France back to the new line.” The Deputy Reich Press Chief, Suendermann, in an article in Angriff on Allied intentions, said: “The German State is to be wiped out and the German people distributed like slaves throughout the world —in Siberian mines, in the burning hells of Africa, in Australia and the Alaskan deserts. There is no German who will not be personally hit by this threat. If the Russians and Americans set foot on German soil every village, hillock, cornfield and farmhouse will he a nest of resistance. ’ ’

HITLER WILL APPEAL FOR NEGOTIATED PEACE

Hitler will make a public appeal to the Allies for a negotiated peace in a few days, says a message from Lisbon. Hitler will seek peace to avoid the uso of a German secret weapon more terrible than anything the world has kncwli, adds the message. The Ankara radio says there is a rumour that Hitler and other important war criminals propose to take refuge in Madrid and their attempted escape may take place at any moment now. German officers in St. Germain celebrated their retreat from the* town by smashing Hitler’s portrait, says Alan Moorehead, the Daily Express’s correspondent in Northern France. The portrait was hung at one end of the long mess hall while a picture of Goering hung at the other end. When they had finished their farewell banquet the officers hurled their glasses at the pictures. They then picked up empty bottles and threw them and when there were no more glasses on their tables they threw their red pocket editions of “Mein Kampf” at Hitler’s picture. Judging by the pile of broken glass the Allies found beneath each smashed picture ths officers had been drinking freely. The officers’ quarters were near an immeuse underground structure built by von Rundstedt as his headquarters in France. French labour gangs poured hundreds of tons of cement into ihe fortifications which took 18 months to build. The building is outwardly nothing but a huge lump of rounded concrete but inside is a three-storeyed building carved out of the rocky hillside.

Dozens of passages lined with sliding steel doors run into the interior of the | rock. The telephone exchange is immense and private lines spread out from here all over France and Germany. The Brussels radio resumed broadcasting under Allied control. The announcement read in Flemish and French stated: “The Supreme Command of the Allied Armies and the Belgian Govemmnt have agreed that broadcasting in liberated Belgium should be entrusted to the Belgian national radio which in future will be broadcasting all Allied announcements, news bulletins, military and civilian appeals and proclamations. The Belgian national radio will also be operating the transmitter in Antwerp Ghent, Courtrai, Liege and Namur.”