GERMANY IN RUINS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25204, 17 May 1945, Page 6

GERMANY IN RUINS

CITIES NOW RUBBLE PICTURE FROM THE AIR (Special Correspondent) LONDON. May 15 Imagine acres of roofless houses licked clean inside by fire and with only the walls standing; imagine bomb bursts that have pulped buildings to heaps of dun-brown rubble; factories' that are heaps of twisted, rusted girders; and whole areas pocked with bomb craters—imagine this and you have a glimpse of great German cities as they were seen from the air today.

This was a picture seen by Mr W. J Jordan, High Commissioner for New Zealand, Mr S. G. Holland, M.P., and Mr F. W. Doidge, M.P., when they flew at 1000 ft from Brussels to Germany and circled over Munehen-Gladbach, Dusseldorf, Ha mm, Essen and Hanover, en route to Celle,- in Northern Germany.

Cities of the dead they have been called, and that is what they are, ruins of new Pompeiis killed by a volcano of modern war. Surrounded by the neat, regimented countryside there was oddly enough—from the air—some semblance or orderliness about them, for streets lined with frees in their summer foliage were still clearly defined. Here can be seen a bent and twisted

train lying on its side as if left by a careless child, and there stands the shell o! a gasometer, a mere husk of its centre filled with a circular pool of dirty yellow water.

Each city has some stark brown scab

hssen, for instance, the heart of the aircrews' "happy valley" and the prime target of the Battle of the Ruhr, is dominated by acres of broad flat roofs of Krupps armament factories, rusty, brown, dishevelled, some mere husks of twisted girders with brown earthen floors sprouting fresh grass. No chimney smokes. I'cw people and fewer cars move along the dark veins of roads. At Hanirn are the famous marshalling yards, a great black gloomy oval striped with rusty rails, with acres of surrounding land a measle rash of bomb pocks. Hanover is an array of dun-brown gutted shells of houses standing like so many rusty colanders. Here and there on the flight the New Zealanders did see occasional factories still undamaged and a few chimney stacks breathing yellow smoke. But generally speaking the heart of German industry is one great ash heap.