STATE OF CHAOS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 November 1943, Page 3

STATE OF CHAOS

CONTINUES IN BERLIN TWO DAYS AFTER LATEST BIG R.A.F. RAID PEOPLE SHOT TO PREVENT SPREAD OF HYSTERIA (By Telegraph—. Press Association—Copyright} LONDON, Novdmber 25. Fires are still burning in Berlin today, according to travellers who reached Malmo, Sweden, tonight. One of the biggest blazes is the famous Hotel Bristol, which sustained a direct hit by a load of incendiaries. Reports trickling through from neutral sources give further graphic details of what happened in Berlin during and after the raids on Monday and Tuesday nights. The Stockholm “Svenska Morgenbladets” Berlin correspondent says that air-raid wardens shot several panic-stricken occupants of one shelter at Spdndau. This was done in order to prevent the spread of hysteria. Berlin is still in a state of chaos today, though two days have elapsed since the last large-scale R.A.F. raid. Communications to neutral countries are by no means restored and many radio transmitters are still not working. Railway and road traffic is disorganised. The German news agency says that the River Spee is again a traffic lane and many boats which before the outbreak of the war plied on pleasure trips have returned to serve as a means of communication. MORE DETAILS OF DAMAGE Describing the damage, a neutral eyewitness said that the Potsdamerplatz was levelled to the ground, and the Zeughaus, which is an army museum in which the 1918 armistice railway coach was exhibited, was practically destroyed. Stockholm messages say that staffs in Berlin are feverishly packing up their files and furniture to get away to safer areas. The Germans admit today that at least one Ministry building, that of the Ministry of Arms, has been damaged. The German overseas news agency reports that the director told his clerk: “It does not matter if our files have been burnt. On the contrary, this must be an incentive to use less red tape in future.”

Other reports describe sappers blowing up Berlin houses in order to localise the fires. The “Afton Tidningen” reported that there was a food shortage on Wednesday, and the Scandinavian Telegraph Bureau stated that Herr Hitler’s deputy, Herr Bormann, told the gauleiters at reception areas to prepare for thousands of air-raid evacuees. The foreign Press chief, Dr Paul Schmidt, suffered concussion by a falling beam. GOERING SURPRISED At the Berlin Press Club on Tuesday night, Field-Marshal Goering appealed to Essen miners not to decide that the war was lost. He said: “Things will be easier when Germany wages the British type of aerial warfare. Every German knows that this is coming soon and every Englishman fears the hour of retribution.” He added that the raids came as a surprise to him, as he always wanted to humanise warfare. Eyewitnesses returning to Sweden today stated that R.A.F. bombs destroyed so many houses in one Berlin suburb that at least 85 per cent of it will have to be evacuated. Almost every building up one side of the Wilhelmstrasse has been destroyed or damaged. The S.S. barracks and the Sportspalast received direct hits. Four people with their clothes blazing threw themselves from a fourthfloor window of a building in the Kurfustendamm. Last night’s raid on Berlin, was the seventeenth attack on the city since the middle of August by Mosquito bombers, and Berlin’s ninety-second since the outbreak of the war and the twentyninth this year.

43,000 KILLED’ AND 38,000 SERIOUSLY INJURED IN THREE RAIDS ON GERMAN CAPITAL (Received This Day, 9.25 a.m.) LONDON, November 26. German officials estimate the casualties in the three raids on Berlin this week, including an attack by Mosquito bombers, were 43,000 dead and 38,000 seriously injured, reports the Exchange Telegraph Agency’s Stockholm correspondent. A semi-official statement says that one-fourth of Berlin has been destroyed, including over half the centre of the city. Fire-fighting and the clearing away of debris are still going on. The Associated Press Stockholm correspondent states that while only fragmentary and heavily censored reports are coming over the crippled communication lines from neutral correspondents in'Berlin, two Swedish officials just arrived in Sweden after touring the ruined city declare that the heart of Berlin has been virtually wiped out. CASUALTIES IN TOULON The Berlin radio announced that casualties in the Toulon raid had risen to 400 killed, 600 injured and 3000 rendered homeless.