“CEASE HOSTILITIES”

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 11 January 1944, Page 5

“CEASE HOSTILITIES”

APPEAL TO GERMAN ARMIES A Free German broadcast over the Moscow radio to the German Army, stated: “Cease hostilities. Come over to the national committee of Free Germany in Moscow. There may be 60 divisions still struggling in the Dnieper bend. How many will struggle their way across the great Ukrainian steppes to the Rumanian frontier? These divisions are meeting the fate of Napoleon's grand army. The Russian armies are moving to force a trap. German armoured divisions and infantry are being cut to pieces by the Soviet armies.” CRISIS APPROACHING Ip a cable to the 8.8. C. from Moscow, Paul Winterton says: “As the Germans are being compressed into an even smaller space south and south-east of the great Ukraine bulge, so their position is rapidly moving from acute difficulty to deadly danger. Staggered by the weight of the Russian armour, rocked by the intolerable concussion of masses of giant guns, and battered from the skies by the superior Red Air Force, the German armies of the south are steadily approaching a crisis. “The fall of Kirovograd leaves the entire German force in the Dnieper bend in an indescribably complicated position. West of Zaporozhe and around Nikopol the Russians are watching the Germans as a cat watches a mouse. At the first sign of any attempt to disengage the Red Army will bring a crushing weight to bear from three sides.” DNIEPER BEND ATTACKED FROM THREE SIDES The Russians are attacking in the Dnieper bend from three sides, but the most serious threat to the hard-pressed enemy comes from the north and west. The great Warsaw-Odessa supply railway is being menaced at Sarny, inside the east Polish frontier, from only a few miles away, and also by armies driving down the western Ukraine toward Zhmerinka. Last night mobile columns were reported to be 27 miles east of that junction. Another column to the east has advanced rapidly to within 30 miles north-west of Uman, while still other large forces have swung round and are attacking to the north and north-east toward Kanev, on the Dnieper, and Smyela junction, threatening to trap the Germans there.