WORSE DEFEATS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25001, 18 September 1944, Page 5

WORSE DEFEATS

NAZIS LAMENT FATE PATH A VALE OF GRIEF GOEBBELS' GLOOMY VIEW (Reed. 5.35 p.m.) LONDON", Sept. 16 The German press and radio are preparing the Germans for worse defeats than those already suffered by the Nazi armies in Russia, Franco and Belgium. Allied penetrations into German territory are frankly admited. The Daily Mail's Stockholm correspondent says tho tone of" the whole battery of German press and radio commentators indicates that the Nazis oxpect catastrophic news within the next few weeks. Goebbele, in his newspaper Das Reich, gives one of the gloomiest of all reviews of the war situation. He says: "Our path now leads through a vale of grief It was not so much the valour of our troops that allowed us to penetrate deeply into enemy territory in the first threo years of the war; it was rather the luck of the draw, and it was only to be expected that that luck would not favour us for ever. "But we are not allowing ourselves to be mesmerised by the enemy's successes. Wo are firmly resolved to make use of any means for the defence of our country. Never even in our most secret thoughts will we contemplate cowardly capitulation." .The Berlin radio commentator Captain Hartmann said big areas of Germany may have to be abandoned to tho Allies "for strategic reasons." Ordeals of German people forced to evacuate Aachen and other, towns in the west of Germany are reported by the Cologne newspaper Kolnische Zeitung, says Iteuter's Stockholm correspondent. Tho paper states; — "Tho trek across the Rhine to new homes further east proceeds apace. Evacuation has openod new battlefields The civilian population must face the hard fact that modern war, with its artillery and air raids, creates new, deep battle zones. "The Rhine is now experiencing war with all its horrible consequences. D a y after day come new raids from fighters, which shoot up trains and every type of vehicle moving along the roads." Tho Exchange Telegraph correspondent in Zurich says the Cologne newspaper Westdeutscher Beobachter states: "The future looks horrible, but our strength lies in the fact that no one can leave the sinking ship. That is why wo are strongest in despair."