REFUSED TO FIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 57, 5 September 1944, Page 5

REFUSED TO FIGHT

RETREATING GERMANS

LONDON, September 4. A minor revolt is reported to have occurred when groups of German troops who were rushing for the safety Of the Siegfried Line were held up at the German frontier and ordered to return and form a defensive line against the advancing Americans, states a "Daily Telegraph" correspondent. This was a suicide mission, and the retreating Germans knew it. The German High Command • probably sent them back to gain time for more reinforcements to reach the Siegfried Line. Sufficient details are not yet available to indicate the strength of the revolt, but it is regarded as another instance of declining German morale. "It is now only a question of time before the Allies begin beating on the gates of Germany, and the bitterness with which pockets of Germans are fighting delaying actions suggests that the Germans are rushing up reinforcements hoping to make a stand on this defensive line," says the correspondent. "The; American First Army sweeping through Belgium, may, however, outflank the Siegfried Line from the north. . "The Germans appear to be in a state of complete chaos. We no longer find villages and towns destroyed as in Normandy. The Allied advance is so fast that it is overhauling the enemy before they are able to demolish anything of strategic importance."