BERLIN’S PLIGHT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25426, 6 January 1944, Page 3

BERLIN’S PLIGHT

ARMY KEEPING ORDER PEOPLE BECOMING RESTLESS (N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent) (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 4. The Battle of Berlin is one of the main features of the news here. One estimate is that 15 more raids will wipe out the city, which has now received over 14,000 tons of high explosives and incendiaries in nine major assaults from November 18. These attacks cost the R.A.F. 273 aircraft, so that during the seven weeks’ period over 51 tons of bombs have been dropped for each aircraft lost. Another estimate is that the complete destruction of Berlin may shorten the war by 12 months. It is pointed out that four “ different ” Berlins are being destroyed—the industrial, transport, and political centres and also the focal point of the German people’s psychological confidence. Germany is more centralised than any other country in the world, and Berlin is the undisputed centre of all forms of administration.

One commentator says: “The tight knot which Berlin constituted in wirepulling and tight-rope dancing, the strangling hold of the Nazi administration on the people of Germany and beyond on the conquered territories, is being cut by the R.A.F. sword. It is loose at the ends already.” The Stockholm correspondent of the Daily Telegraph states that threequarters of Hitler’s Chancellery, which was designed by himself, were demolished by a direct hit from a “ blockbuster,” and that raging fires have made it a mere shell. “This is described as a major disaster. Three divisions of the German Army have been brought in to keep order, supervise the food position, and aid rescue and demolition work. Whole blocks, and even streets, are deserts of desolation. The food is sufficient, but unrelieved in its monotony. Recreation is non-existent, and influenza and septic throats are prevalent everywhere. While Berlin residents were at first surprisingly calm and cheerful under the bombing, back-slapping has now finished and the older people are getting apathetic and the younger sullen* and restless. To-day there is distinct evidence of resentment against the Nazi Party because it failed to make good its promises that the bombed-out people of Berlin would be provided with new wardrobes and houses to replace those lost.” In an attempt to counter the bombing effects, Dr Goebbels is apparently directing that the news should emphasise that conditions are worse at the front than in Berlin, with the result that the latest German news is without a word of comfort or hope. For instance, a German war reporter, broadcasting from the Kirovograd sector on the Russian front, said: “In the morning we are frozen stiff. At noon we are buried in mud. In the evening the mud begins to freeze upon us. To wash, shave, or change clothes have become unattainable luxuries. Our men are suffering untold agonies.*’