GERMANS’ PLIGHT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25458, 12 February 1944, Page 5

GERMANS’ PLIGHT

REVEALING MESSAGES “ FIGHT TO LAST MAN ” (Rec, 11 p.m.) - LONDON, Feb, 11. The Moscow correspondent of the British United Press says that messages exchanged between the German High Command and General Stemmerman, commanding the entrapped forces in the Kanev pocket, and also between General Stemmerman and his battery commander, perfectly sum up the situation. The High Command told General Stammerman: “Fight to the last man and wait for tank relief from outside.” The message to the battery commander was: “ Sending reinforcements. Use available men and ammunition. Use ammunition only against targets you can see.”

These messages, more than anything else, reveal the German Army’s plight.

Three Russian columns are nearing Luga, the only big German base remaining on the Leningrad-Volkhov front. Bitter fighting is raging in both areas as powerful German forces retreat on bases behind strong rearguard screens and suicide squads of tommygunners.

According to the Vichy radio the Germans have admitted a withdrawal to Luga on a 20-mile front. Moscow radio reports that a new German weapon was captured at Sokolniki—a 10-barrelled self-propelled trench mortar fitted with an anti-air-craft machine gun. It weight seven and a-half tons, and was manufactured in the latter part of last year. To-night’s Soviet communique says the Russians in the Luga sector continued the offensive and occupied a number of inhabited places and the railway station of Tolmachevo. nine miles north of Luga on the LeningradPskov railway. West and south-wesi of Novgorod they captured several inhabited places.

It is pointed out in London that one aspect of the deterioration of the German position in Russia in the past year is the disappearance of at least 600,000 troops of Germany . and her allies from that theatre of war. In the autumn of 1942, when the German armies were at the peak of their advance, they were assisted by approximately 400,000 Rumanians, 200,000 Italians, 150,000 Hungarians, 20,000 Slovaks, and 20,000 Spaniards. In rather more than a year all the Italians have baen liquidated or withdrawn, and the Rumanians have been reduced by the Don and Caucasian battles to about 150,000. Of the Hungarians perhaps 15,000 survived defeat on the Don, and this remnant was recently defeated when the Russians pushed through to Rovno. No trace remains of the ■ Slovaks, but perhaps 5000 Spaniards still remain. The total of satellite troops still taking part is thus reduced to about 170,000.

West of Nikopol and south-east of Krivoi Rog the pursuit of the German remnants who managsd to escape the disaster at Nikopol continues. Hope for the German divisions trapped in the Middle Dnieper is steadily diminishing. It is also pointed out that in the north it seems decreasingly likely that the Germans east of Luga will be caught in the trap set for them. The shrinking pocket there has probably been reduced to an arc at a distance of a dozen or so miles round Luga from the north-west to the east and south. Owing to the exceptionally mild winter. Lake Peipus has probably not frozen hard enough to bear the weight of opposing armies, and the Germans, therefore, have an excellent natural position along the somewhat precipitous river Narva. Reuter’s Agency points out that the encirclement of the remainder of the 25 German divisions routed on the Baltic front has been brought a stage nearer through the Red Army’s capture of Tolmachevo, which is reported in to-day’s Russian communique. The Red Army has only nine miles to go in order to close further its gigantic trap.