ALARM IN BERLIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25364, 23 October 1943, Page 5

ALARM IN BERLIN

SERIOUS VIEW TAKEN ENORMOUS RUSSIAN FORCES LONDON, Oct. 21. As the great Soviet drive into the Dnieper bend forges steadily ahead messages from Germany reflect the growing apprehension and alarm felt in Berlin. The Berlin correspondent of the Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet, after quoting German officials as stating that the Russian drive from Kremenchug is aimed at the Black Sea port of Nikolayev, added: “ Catastrophe threatens the whole German front in South Russia. The Russians are continually throwing infantry, tanks, and artillery into the breaches in the German line between Kremenchug and Dnepropetrovsk, and widening the gaps, while ever-greater swarms of Soviet bombers are hammering the retreating Germans. Berlin claims that never before have the Russians thrown in such enormous forces as at Kremenchug.” The Berlin correspondent of the German-controlled Scandinavian Telegraph Bureau says: “The situation on the Kremenchug-Dnepropetrovsk sector must, without exaggeration, be described as extremely serious. _ The Russian thrust from the north is becoming greater and greater. It seems that the German forces will very soon be compelled to retreat westward in order to avoid encirclement.” The German News Agency declared that a battle with the centre of gravity south-east of Kremenchug was still m full swing, and must be expected soon to reach a new climax. Moscow correspondents report that the Red Army has advanced halfway across the rear of the Dnieper bend, and that large German forces, estimated between 750,000 and 1,000,000 in the Dnieper bend are in danger of being trapped. In the four days since the break-through south of Kremenchug the Russians have advanced 60 miles. They still have another 60 to go to complete the encirclement of the Germans by reaching the southern arm of the Dnieper bend. .... Observers in London believe that the German Army will be dealt a decisive blow in the Dnieper bend, where, according to Mr Morley Richards, the Daily Express military writer, the Germans are in more deadly peril than at Stalingrad.