REPORTED KILLED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 August 1941, Page 5

REPORTED KILLED

GERMAN COMMANDER IN UKRAINE — MURDER BY FELLOW-OFFICER ALLEGED. NAZIS AT DNEPROPETROVSK. IBv Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON. August 27. The Moscow radio states that General Rundstedt, commander-in-chief of Hitler’s armies on the Ukraine front, has been killed. A rumour from Ankara states that he was murdered by a fellow-officer. In this connection greater significance may attach to a claim in Moscow of considerable unrest in the German and Rumanian armies in the Ukraine. This morning’s Soviet communique again confines itself to a statement that heavy fighting continued along the entire front. A German report says that huge • clouds of smoke and steam rose from the deserted industrial works at Dnepropetrovsk as the Russian troops withdrew across the mile and a half wide Dnieper in barges and boats. The city, with a population of about 240,000, is one of the 11 largest in the Soviet Union. It is in the bend of the Dnieper, which has not been crossed here or elsewhere below Kiev. Beyond the river lies Kharkov, the main centre of Ukrainian heavy industry and mining. DEFENCE OF LENINGRAD. The fierce fighting on the Leningrad front continues, and reports from Moscow say that Russian machine-gun-ners are mowing down streams of Nazis in attacks which are being made from the direction of Staraya-Russa in the south. The Russians are dug in, and in spite of severe bombing and artillery fire, have "succeeded in repulsing the waves of attackers. The Germans here have resorted to their rare night offensive, strongly supported by tanks, but met with no better success. The capture of Luga does not increase the immediate threat to Leningrad from the south, since it is only a few miles nearer to Leningrad than Novgorod, which was captured five days ago. The Germa’n news agency stated that fierce fighting for Luga continued for seven days before the Germans broke through the strong defences of the town, which was fortified with pillboxes. The Germans had to render harmless 19,000 mines before they entered the towns. The Russians’ preparation to meet a direct assault against Leningrad has been further speeded up. University professors and civil servants are now undergoing instruction in handling rifles, grenades and machine-guns, and the city’s shop windows are boarded up while the people’s army, including detachments of girls wearing overalls and berets, are daily seen drilling in the streets and squares. The heavilycamouflaged anti-aircraft guns continue successfully to protect Leningrad from air attack. The German news agency admits that the Russians are putting up fierce resistance before Tallinn, the Estonian capital, but claims that German infantry and tank units have deeply ' penetrated the Russian lines. After claiming the fall of Dnepropetrovsk, the Berlin radio last night stated that the German and Rumanian forces are now mopping up the last Soviet bridgeheads across the southern Dnieper. German dive-bombers and Hungarian batteries, it was said, pounded the remaining bridgeheads on August 24 and 25, and all attempts to stem the attack were frustrated,

thousands of Russian dead being strewn along the riverbanks. Ankara reports that the Soviet forces have destroyed so many advance enemy tanks along the Eastern Front that the Germans have been forced to revert to the tactics of the last war. The tanks advance no more than 15 minutes ahead of the infantry, and retire behind the infantry each night.