GREAT NAZI OFFENSIVE

Southland Times, Issue 24878, 19 October 1942, Page 5

GREAT NAZI OFFENSIVE

STALINGRAD FIGHTING FEROCIOUS AIR ATTACKS (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 17. The Germans, somersaulting from their previous declaration that artillery was sufficient for the final subjection of Stalingrad, are now trumpeting that an all-out infantry, tank and plane offensive is in full swing against the northern factory area. German planes are blasting a path for the tanks and infantry, and the enemy is throwing into the gap seemingly endless reinforcements under the most concentrated air attack Stalingrad has yet known. Nevertheless, Moscow radio, quoting the Stalingrad field radio, said the German attacks throughout the day were beaten off. Red Army men from the Urals, Siberia and Georgia, as well as Tartars, are now fighting at Stalingrad. Marshal Semion Timoshenko’s north and south relief armies are reported to be making some progress. The Russians in one sector in the north-west penetrated the main German fighting line, but the Germans reinforced their flanks and are counter-attacking at some points. A Russian Guards unit captured a strongly fortified key height on the Bryansk front, which the Germans had held for six months. GERMAN CLAIMS A German communique states that operations south-east of Novorossisk again resulted in the encirclement and destruction of the Russian forces. The Germans on the way to Tuapse captured new positions very important for the continuation of the attack. A tank division at Stalingrad rushed through to the Volga and captured the northern part of the industrial suburbs containing the Dzerzhinsky factory. German losses in the latest assault on Stalingrad are reported to be extremely heavy—so much so that speculation is made in London whether the latest operations were decided upon by the German General Staff or whether they have been imposed on the army by Hitler’s personal orders. Fighting in the Mozdok area is proving so costly that the Germans are unable to follow attack by attack, but have been forced to pause to regroup and bring up reinforcements before striking again. The significance attached to the present situation is indicated by the Russian Army newspaper Red Star, which says: “This is the decisive battle for Stalingrad. We must hold the city at any cost. There must be more stamina, stubbornness and skill in manoeuvre ’and we shall repel the new and fierce enemy attacks. The Germans are launching desperate' assaults in their effort to capture Stalingrad. The approach of winter is driving them on. The German High Command is replenishing its divisions incessantly and is hurling reinforcements into battle straight from the march.” RUSSIAN PRISONERS 111-Treatment By Germans (Rec. 6.30 p.m.) MOSCOW, October 17. Deaths of Russian war prisoners and peasants at the Roslavl prison camp from the middle of October to December 1941 totalled 8500, an average of more than 100 daily. During the remainder of the winter the daily average was 400 or 600. Frequently semiconscious prisoners were thrown on the 30 or 40 death-carts which were daily used to remove the dead from the camp. They were buried with the others. The prisoners were deprived of all “superfluous” clothes, including overcoats, sweaters and felt-boots, without which frost-bite was inevitable. The food consists of three-quarters of a pint of soup made from black flour mixed with water twice daily and a few ounces of bread once every four or five days. Tire prison barracks contain no beds and the earth floors are waterlogged and covered with ice in winter. There is no heating or sanitary equipment. When cold, hunger and dirt fail to achieve utter misery and degradation, the German guards resort to torture, beatings and shootings. The prisoners are frequently employed to drag sledges in place of horses. If they stumble they are either shot or bayonetted.

POSITION MORE CRITICAL SOVIET WITHDRAWALS (Rec. 6.30 p.m.) LONDON, October 17. Stalingrad’s position is more critical than since September and the Russian relieving army shoe's no signs of really breaking through. Marshal Timoshenko’s forces have withdrawn four times within 48 hours. The Germans at dawn on Wednesday started a systematic blitzing of the Russian lines in the factory area with groups of 30 to 40 planes, completing 1500 sorties by 5 p.m. on a mile-wide front. Huge German forces launched attack after attack against northern Stalingrad. The Germans, who forced the Russians from one of the workers’ settlements, tried to penetrate northwards and southwards from the new positions, but the Russians held these attacks. German planes and infantry combined in a ceaseless 72-hour assault against the workers’ settlement before the Russians fell back. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent describes the captured suburb as part of the industrial district stretching miles along the bank of the Volga. The Germans launched 25 successive attacks, sometimes using an entire division supported by 100 tanks. The final assault was made with two regiments of infantry plus 70 tanks. The Russians set 40 tanks ablaze before they withdrew. A front-line dispatch to the Moscow newspaper Izvestia says the Germans north-west of Stalingrad appear to be using forces at least equal to those in the previous • offensive, when four infantry and one tank divisions assaulted the city. FACTORY PENETRATED The German radio says German tanks and infantry penetrated into the “Red Barricade” factory and captured half the “Red October” factory. It adds that mopping up continues in Spartakova, the workers’ settlement, which was captured on Friday. The Daily Telegraph’s Stockholm correspondent says Hitler must take Stalingrad within three weeks or not at all. Sleet storms and icy winds are already sweeping the steppes between the Don and the Volga. Supplies are becoming more and more a problem for the German High Command. Berlin sources state that LieutenantGeneral von Kotze was killed on the Russian front. A German High Command communique states that German and Slovak troops in the west Caucasus despite fierce resistance gained considerable ground. The Rumanians, with strong air support, dislodged the Russians from several mountain positions and took many prisoners. The Berlin official news agency says German and Slovak troops captured the town of Shaumyan, 18 miles from Tuapse on the Maikop-Tuapse road and railway. The Moscow radio claims that 13 Rumanian divisions, totalling more than 200,000 men, were killed during the summer on the Russian front.