STATE OF CHAOS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 30 April 1945, Page 5

STATE OF CHAOS

CITY OF MUNICH WHOLE SOUTHERN REDOUBT DISINTEGRATING London, April 29. The whole of the southern German redoubt is disintegrating according to Reuter’s Zurich correspondent. Reliable Swiss citizens who were in Munich on Friday say the city was then in a state of chaos. The Wehrmacht in the early hours of Friday morning declared Munich an open city but the decision was reversed in a subsequent conflict between high officers and Nazi Party leaders. The correspondents added that all reports agree that discipline in the Munich area and Bavaria generally has sagged. Single German soldiers laden with suitcases are wandering about. Many of them have discarded their arms. Attempts to organise the “Werewolves” organisations is failing. The vast majority of Bavarians wish or.lv for 'h.’

end of the war. REVOLT REPORTED * Munich radio reported that a revolt in Munich requested Allied planes to ; bomb von Kesselring’s Headquarters at Pullach, six miles south of the city The radio station, calling itself the Bavarian Freedom Movement, proclaimed to French workers in Bavaria: “The hour of freedom has struck at last. Ca- I pitulation is imminent. Frenchmen, leave your work.” Later, the radio said the State Commissioner for Bavaria. Rittar von Epp, aged 76, had decided tof break off the fight which had become! senseless. He called for faith in new leadership and said the calamity which had befallen the German people should not be aggravated by fighting among the Germans. The Gauleiter of Munich and * Upper Bavaria, Giesler, broadcasting over south German radio declared the revolt which a handful of traitors stages last night on the Munich radio wave-length was finished, thanks to energetic action by the Wehrmacht.

FAILURE TO FORM NEW GOVERNMENT London, April 28. An effort to establish a new German Government under Walter Funk al Salzburg last Tuesday, failed, reports the Associated Press of Great Britain correspondent from the Swiss frontier. The situation in Salzburg is now chaotic with heavy fighting going on between the Wehrmacht and the S.S. German people in the areas of Wurttemburg, which adjoins Switzerland, are reported to be in revolt. Conditions are chaotic and the Gestapo fled, says the Exchange Telegraph Agency’s Zurich correspondent. The inhabitants in some villages have thrown up barricades against SS troops who might be sent to quell the revolt. Foreign workers in some places elected administrators to negotiate with the Allies, who are expected hourly.