BRAVE WORDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 June 1943, Page 4

BRAVE WORDS

USED BY COMMENTATORS IN GERMANY ON SUBJECT OF DEFENCE PREPARATIONS. AND READINESS TO RESIST INVASION. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.50 a.m.) LONDON, June 7. The Germans are keeping up propaganda emphasising their preparations to resist an Allied invasion of the Continent.

The military commentator of the German News Agency said: ‘-German forces on land and sea and in the air are ready for offensive and also for defensive action, both as regards numerical strength, equipment and training.” The commentator stated that the German war potential, which had considerably increased in recent months and was still increasing, permitted large-scale offensive plans. German and Italian war material would be brought into action surprisingly quickly if Britain and America attempted to open a second front in Europe, if the Russians started a summer offensive, or if the enemy should combine both these possibilities.

“Germany,” the commentator added, “is continuously re-examining her armament, production in light of recent military events, resulting in the preparation of an adequate reply to the enemy's air terror. The decentralisation and transfer of German industry has been almost completed. The enemy in this respect cannot expect any success limiting the German war strategy’s freedom of decision. New and spacious workshops have been constructed in those parts of Europe under Axis control, based on the ex periences of the air war. These factories are showing an output excelling anything hoped for. The armies, air squadrons and naval units of Germany and her allies are ready.” “NORTHERN WALL.” Axis radio stations today quoted an article in the German Arm," newspaper “Die Wehrmacht,” discounting invasion dangers and mentioning for the first time the “Northern Wall,” created in Norway, in addition to the Atlantic and Mediterranean walls. The paper says: “Talk about the soft under-belly of the Axis is absurd. If the Allies should attempt a landing anywhere in Europe they would be confronted, not by comparatively weak expeditionary forces, but, despite the Eastern front, by a tremendous army, comprising millions. We have organised the entire continent in preparation for such a possibility. The Mediterranean coast fortifications are similar in quality to those of the West Wall and Atlantic Wall.

“Concerning the possibility of an invasion of Norway, the enemy has given us three valuable years in which our defences of the Northern Wall have taken shape. Enormous quantities of war material have been transported to Norway and hundreds of thousands of soldiers stand ready there.”

Messages from neutral sources report that the Germans, as an invasion precaution, have blown up a large area of The Hague. A strip three miles long and 300 yards deep has been dynamited through the city, which is two miles from the coast. Houses, offices and public buildings have been blown up, causing the evacuation of about 100,000 people. This fire belt for German guns runs parallel with the coast. Deep tank traps have been cut within it.