MANIFEST LIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 July 1941, Page 5

MANIFEST LIES

AND BOASTFUL HUMBUG SOVIET ON NAZI CLAIMS. ENEMY LOSSES IN SEVEN DAYS. MOSCOW, June 30. The Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs, M. Lozovsky, giving his first Press conference in Moscow, declared: “Hitler’s statements contained one big lie and 99 lies of various sizes, cooked in Goebbels’s kitchen.” A Moscow communique today states that the Germans in the first seven days of the fighting lost 2500 tanks and 1500 planes, and 30.000 men were taken prisoner. The Soviet forces lost 850 planes, 900 tanks and 15,000 men. Referring to the German claims during the first two days of the fighting, the communique describes them as “manifest lies and boastful humbug.” It states:

“The Germans concentrated 170 divisions on the Soviet frontier, of which at least one-third were tank and motorised divisions. The Germans, taking advantage of the fact that our troops had not been brought up to the frontier, attacked without a declaration of war our frontier guards, who had neither tanks nor artillery. Only on the third, and, in some places, on the fourth day, did our regular troops contact the Germans, who, therefore, succeeded in occupying Bialystok, Grodno, Brestlitovsk, Vilna and Kaunas. ATTEMPT THAT FAILED. “The Germans attempted to thwart within a few days the deployment of cur troops, aiming to occupy Kiev and Smolensk within a week, but our troops were able to deploy and thwart the lightning blow against Kiev and Smolensk.

“The result of eight days of fighting permits the following conclusions: The lightning German victory has failed:' co-operation of the German forces has been disrupted: the offensive spirit of the German army has been undermined, while the Red Army continues to defend the Soviet land and deal the enemy severe blows, exhausting him." M. Lozovsky, replying to a question, ■ said that the official Russian statement .shortly before the invasion saying that ‘Germany was observing her undertakings under the Russian-German pact was an attempt to compel Germany to declare her intentions. The statement was not published in Germany, thereby proving that Germany did not intend to observe the pact, and the So'viet had thus ascertained Germany’s real attitude.

“Pravda" announced that more than 30 000 women are working behind the Soviet lines. Thousands of women have been allowed to go to the front as medical officers, but the women’s chief contribution is to replace men in industry. NAZIS UNEASY DOUBTS AS TO MILITARY CLAIMS. LONDON. June 30. The Berlin correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that though they have told the free world little that has not already been reported from Moscow as far as the actual progress of the invaders is concerned, Hitler’s series of communiques has succeeded in its object of convincing the German people that Russia is facing a military catastrophe. The German people were kept at their radio sets all day, communiques being released at intervals of 20 or 30 minutes, interspersed with martial music and boastful hymns of hate. Another report from the German frontier, however, says it is doubtful whether the much-advertised and longprotracted special announcement will satisfy the German public. This report says that the great build-up by the Nazis of their announcement had led the Germans to expect a proclamation of decisive victory. A correspondent claims that the Nazi Party officials are perturbed about the German public’s increasing apathy toward announcements of military successes. It is commented in London that all the German announcement had done is to fill in some details of the picture which has already been painted by the Russian communiques.