NAZI ARMY BEATEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 January 1942, Page 3

NAZI ARMY BEATEN

OLD OFFENSIVE SPIRIT GONE DECLARATION BY SOVIET OFFICIAL. EXAMPLES OF RUSSIAN HEROISM. LONDON, January 21, “All that braggart Hitler has achieved is the complete moral and physical exhaustion of his army. The German Army, in its plans to capture Moscow, is beaten. Its old offensive spirit is gone and it will never be able to gather strength again. We shall win.” This declaration was made by M. Sherbakov, secretary of the Communist Party, in a speech to a meeting in Moscow to mark the eighteenth anniversary of Lenin’s death.

M. Sherbakov said the Germans from December 6 to January 15 lost 300,000 men killed. German equipment captured in the same period included 4800 guns, 3071 mortars, 8000 machine-guns, 15,000 automatic rifles, 2760 tanks, 300 armoured cars, 33,600 motor,-vehicles, 6000 motor-cycles, 2,000,000 shells, 200,000 mines, 30,000,000 rifle cartridges, many thousands of cycles and horses, and much other material. In the same period 1100 German planes were destroyed.

“There was an occasion near Moscow when 20 tanks attacked 29 Russian Guardsmen,” he added. “One Guard put up his hands to surrender. His comrades shot him and then fought the tanks. They destroyed 18, but were themselves all killed. “There was another- occasion when a Russian soldier attacking a machinegun threw himself on to the front of the gun so that his comrades could advance. How can anybody gain a victory over a nation with men like that? - J

“We must never forget that we are dealing with a treacherous, cruel enemy, but it is more and more apparent that the German army is worn out and is falling apart.”