ACCORDING TO CORRESPONDENT WITH GERMAN FORCES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 August 1941, Page 6

ACCORDING TO CORRESPONDENT WITH GERMAN FORCES

Front Moved Few Kilometres Towards Moscow RESULTS OF SCORCHED EARTH POLICY GRIM OUTLOOK FOR THE COMING WINTER (By Telegraph. —Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received This Dav, at Noon.) LONDON, August 11. “Smolensk is now among’ the towns wiped out by the war,” says Mr Alvin Stainkopf, a special Associated Press of America correspondent with the German forces, in a despatch sjmt from Smolensk by way of Berlin. “The front has moved a few kilometres in the direction of Moscow and I can hear the rumble of guns. I walked over the ashes of Smolensk and watched the ceaseless stream of German lorries roll past burnt out factories and homes. A German officer, when asked how much of Smolensk had been destroyed, estimated about 90 per cent. He insisted in his next breath that most of the damage was due to the Russians carrying out the ‘scorched earth’ orders. “ ‘And where are the Smolensk civilians?’ I asked. “The officer replied: ‘There were 160,000 here last month, and now there are about 20,000 who live among the ruins.’ “Over the whole scene a swarm of German soldiers is working. Gangs are cleaning up at a terrific rate. Hcndreds of miles of travel in this zone, much of which was in a German military transport plane, revealed that Stalin’s appeal for ‘scorched earth’ has been only partly successful. Minsk and Vitebsk appeared to be desolated almost to the same extent as Smolensk, but in between there are hundreds of straw-thatched villages, mostly untouched. Here and there lay the blackened ruins of villages. Between these rural communities stretched rye and wheat fields, now gleaming golden in the sun. These fields were not destroyed because the grain was too green to burn when the Russians withdrew from Smolensk. Much of the grain has now been harvested. Some of the people seemed to be working in the fields. There may be grain enough to feed most of the rural population, but what the thousands of towndwellers will do when the bitter Russian winter descends upon their roofless and wallless homes none can tell.”