OLD WEAPONS

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVII, Issue 23112, 29 January 1945, Page 5

OLD WEAPONS

Appeal By Germans Arming Of Volkssturm By Telegraph—N.Z Press Assn —Copyright LONDON, Jan. 26. The Official German News Agency to-night made a nationwide appeal to all Germans possessing knives, daggers, or bayonets of the last war to hand them over to tire authorities. “Weapons of every kind are needed to arm our Volkssturm. This is urgent,” stated the appeal. A German war reporter on the Eastern Mont said: "oiiesia to-day is indeed grim, 'mere is mucn misery and mucn lortituae. Women, children, ana agea people piod to tne railway stations, awaiting their turn lor evacuation to sale areas. It is pitiiui to watch them. The weather is oitter, and the icy roads are making the going hard. Columns of soldiers from time to time pass streams oi reiugees going in tne opposite direction. Tne civilians move to tne side of the road until the troops pass.” A war reporter in the Konigsberg area stated: “The city seetnes with rumours, and the roar of battie sounds all day and all night. The strained faces of our soldiers betray their ordeal. We are now in the front line. There are Tommy-guns slung over the backs of chairs in every city office. Refugees have been cleared from tne streets, and men have been detailed to stand by their guns when the first Russian tanks break through.” A broadcaster, in a message from Bratislava, said that thousands ot German women and children were leaving for Central Germany. Forces Moved Back From West The military correspondent oi “The Times” states: “It is now realised that the Germans are m the process of moving some forces from tile Western to the Eastern Front, though they nave not yet been reported in action. It is reasonable to assume that tile Sixth Panzer Army as a Whole Will gradually be transferred. It will, alter the battering it has received from the air, 1 require much fresh equipment and transport. It is unlikely to be able to go into action for some weeks. “It is safe to say that, except for a handful of panzer and panzer grenadier divisions, the enemy will not denude the Western Froiit, because that would entail too serious a risk. What the enemy for some days past has douotless been doing is to divert the flow of the best reinforcements, including returned wounded, from the West to the East. This is an important factor, more so than the move of a dozen divisions. For a long time von Rundstedt’s divisions have been getting these men. Some 1500 of them would revitalise one division which has been maintained on reduced establishment. The enemy also has doubtless made considerable transfers from his air force, which is the readiest form that aid can take, but no movement of land forces on any sensational scale is probable.”