Nanning in Südchina erobert –
Neue US-Verluste bei Luzon
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Führer HQ (November 28, 1944)
Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
Wie schon seit Tagen wiesen unsere Truppen auch gestern heftige feindliche Angriffe im Maas-Brückenkopf bei Venlo ab und bekämpften mit Panzern Bereitstellungen der Engländer mit zusammengefasstem Artilleriefeuer – Vom Gebiet nordöstlich Bolchen bis in den Kaum von Finstlngen führten die Nordamerikaner erfolglose örtliche Angriffe gegen unsere Nachtruppen und vergebliche Aufklärungsvorstöße gegen unsere teilweise begradigte und auf vorbereitete Stellungen gestützte Front. Eigene Panzertruppen vereitelten nördlich Saarburg starke feindliche Durchbruchsversuche. Sie vernichteten in erbitterter Abwehr 43 nordamerikanische Panzerfahrzeuge und damit wesentliche Teile des dort angreifenden Feindes.
Die Lage im Elsass ist durch konzentrische Angriffsbewegungen des Feindes aus dem Einbruchsraum von Straßburg nach Süden und durch schwere Kämpfe um die Vogesenpässe und im Raum von Mülhausen gekennzeichnet. Harter Widerstand und wendige Abwehr brachten die feindlichen Angriffe zum Stehen. 33 Panzer des Gegners wurden abgeschossen.
London, Antwerpen und Lüttich lagen erneut unter schwerem Feuer.
In Mittelitalien kam es nur zu örtlichen Kämpfen. Bei Gallicano warfen italienische Truppen den Feind aus einer Einbruchsstelle. Am Lamone-Abschnitt südwestlich Faenza scheiterten feindliche Vorstöße.
In Südungarn hält der starke Druck der Bolschewisten aus dem Raum von Mohács in westlicher und nördlicher Richtung an. Eine größere Anzahl von feindlichen Panzern wurde in den schweren Abwehrkämpfen vernichtet.
An der Ostfront verlief der Tag ohne größere Kampfhandlungen.
Im Südwestteil des Mátragebirges drückten unsere Truppen feindliche Verbände, die dort in die Wälder eingedrungen waren, zurück.
Ein örtlich beschränkter Angriff unserer Grenadiere im ostpreußischen Grenzgebiet fügte den Sowjets hohe blutige Verluste zu.
In Kurland führten die Bolschewisten nach dem Zusammenbruch ihrer Großangriffe nur schwächere Vorstöße, die erfolglos blieben.
Der Seekrieg vor der norwegischen Küste ist in der letzten Zeit sehr stark aufgelebt. Im Verlaufe des 27. November wehrten deutsche Geleite vor Westnorwegen mehrere Angriffe feindlicher Bomben- und Torpedoflugzeuge ab und brachten sechs von ihnen zum Absturz.
Am gestrigen Tage richteten sich die Angriffe der anglo-amerikanischen Bomber und Jäger auf das Gebiet beiderseits des Rheins. Schwere Schäden entstanden vor allem in Wohnvierteln der Städte Offenburg und Köln. In der Nacht unternahmen britische Flugzeuge einen Terrorangriff auf Freiburg im Breisgau, der hohe Personenverluste und umfangreiche Gebäudeschäden zur Folge hatte. Ein weiterer Nachtangriff richtete sich gegen Düsseldorf-Neuss. Uber dem Reichsgebiet herrschte außerdem Störflugtätigkeit. 19 feindliche Flugzeuge wurden abgeschossen.
In den harten Abwehrkämpfen in Kurland hat sich das 1. Bataillon des württembergisch-badischen Grenadierregiments Nr. 335 unter Führung des mit dem Ritterkreuz zum Eisernen Kreuz ausgezeichneten Hauptmanns Alm durch besondere Tapferkeit ausgezeichnet.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (November 28, 1944)
FROM
(A) SHAEF MAIN
ORIGINATOR
PRD, Communique Section
DATE-TIME OF ORIGIN
281100A November
TO FOR ACTION
(1) AGWAR
(2) NAVY DEPARTMENT
TO (W) FOR INFORMATION (INFO)
(3) TAC HQ 12 ARMY GP
(4) MAIN 12 ARMY GP
(5) SHAEF AIR STAFF
(6) ANCXF
(7) EXFOR MAIN
(8) EXFOR REAR
(9) DEFENSOR, OTTAWA
(10) CANADIAN C/S, OTTAWA
(11) WAR OFFICE
(12) ADMIRALTY
(13) AIR MINISTRY
(14) UNITED KINGDOM BASE
(15) SACSEA
(16) CMHQ (Pass to RCAF & RCN)
(17) COM ZONE
(18) SHAEF REAR
(19) NEWS DIV. MINIFORM, LONDON
(REF NO.)
NONE
(CLASSIFICATION)
IN THE CLEAR
Communiqué No. 234
Allied forces made slow progress yesterday in the Jülich–Hürtgen sector. House-to-house fighting continues in Koslar, and farther south, we have advanced to the vicinity of Altdorf. Northeast of Weisweiler, we have captured Frenz. Our units have reached the outskirts of Langerwehe, and we have driven the enemy from the high ground near the village. House-to-house fighting is in progress in Hürtgen.
Fighter-bombers supporting our troops in this sector attacked enemy artillery, flak positions and troops near Düren, and troop concentrations in the Jülich area and damaged a railway bridge crossing the Roer River south of Jülich. Other fighter-bombers went for transportation targets near Köln and disabled locomotives, railway cars and horse-drawn vehicles. Heavy bombers, escorted by fighters, attacked a railway yard in the Kalk district of Köln.
We have made gains up to several miles in the area east of Metz. Our units have reached Teterchen, approximately 20 miles northeast of Metz, and we have entered Saint-Avold and a number of small towns in this area.
North of Sarrebourg, we have taken Honskirch and Wolfskirchen and have reached Durstel and Gungwiller. Considerable enemy armor has been encountered in some parts of this sector.
Fighter-bombers attacked troop concentrations in the area north of Saarebourg and in the vicinity of Strasbourg they struck at tanks and road vehicles.
West of Strasbourg, our units cleared Mutzig and continued their drive eastward through Molsheim on the Alsace Plain.
A rail bridge over the Rhine River at Breisach, a pontoon bridge in the same area, and the rail center of Freiburg were bombed by fighter-bombers.
Two of our aircraft are missing from yesterday’s operations.
In the Vosges Mountains, additional gains were made against scattered resistance.
Our advance northeast of Belfort continued and several villages were freed.
An enemy salient south of the Rhône–Rhine Canal was virtually wiped out. The town of Dannemarie and several nearby villages were taken after a stiff fight in which many enemy tanks were destroyed and 1,000 prisoners were taken.
Last night, heavy bombers were over Germany in great strength with Freiburg and Neuss, railway centers and advanced supply bases for the enemy’s western front, as the main objectives. Berlin was attacked by a force of light bombers.
COORDINATED WITH: G-2, G-3 to C/S
THIS MESSAGE MAY BE SENT IN CLEAR BY ANY MEANS
/s/
Precedence
“OP” - AGWAR
“P” - Others
ORIGINATING DIVISION
PRD, Communique Section
NAME AND RANK TYPED. TEL. NO.
D. R. JORDAN, Lt Col FA2409
AUTHENTICATING SIGNATURE
/s/The Pittsburgh Press (November 28, 1944)
YANKS 21 MILES FROM COLOGNE
Third Army races for Saarbrücken
‘Great’ tank battle near German border reported by Berlin
By J. Edward Murray, United Press staff writer
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In collapsing Reich –
Mere robots cower under Nazi terror
Germans goaded into choosing death
By Nat A. Barrows
This is the second of a series portraying conditions in a country near collapse – Germany.
Stockholm, Sweden –
Across the Rhine, inside Germany, awaits a nation of suicidal fanatics.
Goaded by the most insidiously cunning propaganda campaign any country has ever known, these home front Germans are prepared to make every sacrifice before accepting defeat.
Himmler, Goebbels, Ley, Bormann and all the rest of the mad Nazi gang have administered their stimulants cleverly… so cleverly that the average citizen’s fear of Nazi terrorism against pro-Allied sympathizers or partisans overshadows everything. The Nazis have tried to inculcate into every home front brain their ghastly version of the consequences following German defeat.
Would rather die
From all the evidence I have been able to appraise as provided by deserters, war prisoners, impartial travelers and other eyewitnesses, they have succeeded only too well.
Today, most Germans think that they would rather die fighting with clubs than submit to what Goebbels tells them will be a fate worse than death.
They have swallowed such Nazi terror talk as Gauleiter Koch fed the East Prussian Volkssturm, or People’s Army, recently:
German men may be buried under the ruins of their towns, and their villages, but this soil, this Heimat of ours, cannot be evacuated… Every village will now become a stronghold, every town a fortress… We’ll stand to the last round against our subhuman enemies… Don’t believe in the enemy a single second before you see him, and when you see him, just shoot him down.
In such an atmosphere, civilians drag themselves along and prepare for greater sacrifices.
Scarcity, more scarcity
Scarcity, and more scarcity, conditions every home front German. A year ago, the Germans thought they had touched rock-bottom in privations and restrictions, but as they look back now, out from their daze of claustrophobia, they realize that they were having incredible luxuries then.
Life could hardly be more regimented; no man can call his soul his own – or anything else. Everything must be sacrificed in the interests of what Dr. Robert Ley, Labor Front leader, calls the “Holy German national war.”
Food gets scarcer and black market prices soar astronomically, despite brutal punishment or death for both buyers and operators.
No one can travel more than 12 miles without written permission. No one can change the use or ownership of motor vehicles without written permission. No one can utter the slightest anti-Nazi criticism or hint about defeat without risking execution.
As never before, Himmler’s Gestapo and SS spies are trying to catch listeners to the BBC, ABSIE (American Broadcasting Station in Europe) and other Allied radio stations. Nazi terror psychology tactics spread the rumor of a new device enabling the Gestapo to identify such listeners in a few seconds. The usual penalty awaits those arrested for tuning in non-German stations – death.
Himmler’s fears that a semblance of truth would penetrate inside Germany have been reduced, however, by the number of radios destroyed by bombings.
Millions uprooted
The impact of saturation bombings touches every phase of life inside Germany, to say nothing of the millions who have been uprooted and obliged to take improvised shelter in barracks and half-repaired houses, or to lodge with strangers.
It is going to be a bitterly cold winter for the Germans. If present predictions of the coldest winter in a century are anywhere near correct, the growing shortage of all kinds of fuel portends a taste of some of the misery the Germans have inflicted upon so many innocent millions in other winters.
“We cope with difficulties never experienced before,” accurately says Dr. Ley.
He doesn’t have to tell that to the people of the Heimat, compressed behind the 400-mile West Front, behind a vast trench system to the east, behind unfinished defenses to the south. Every move they make tells them the gnawing, bitter truth of what total war really means.
Sugar ration reduced
The sugar ration has just been reduced again; sugar is needed for industry. Women can select new hats from only seven standardized types; cloth is needed for uniforms.
The Hitler Youth, those fanatical, frenzied teenage Nazis, now beyond all hope of redemption, must practice fencing with canes instead of rapiers; all swords have been thrown in the maw of the steel mills.
“Ausverkauft” greets weary housewives at store after store – sold out. Shortages and sacrifices… shortages and sacrifices. And the more sacrifices they make, the more they are called upon to make.
Philosophy summed up
Dr. Ley, writing in Der Angriff a few days ago, summed up the National Socialist philosophy of sacrifice thus:
The Germans are willing to make all further sacrifices and not to omit anything to mobilize their last resources.
If there is justice and a Lord in Heaven, then this sacrifice, which is the greatest any nation ever made, will be placed on the scales of justice. Victory is linked with sacrifices, hence, victory must be ours, because Germany has made the greatest sacrifices.
Just what the average, mature German beyond, say, 30 years of age, thinks of such rubbish – is not on the record. Himmler’s brutish, unmerciful reign of terror and Goebbels’ unending propaganda hypodermics have reduced the average German to a mere robot, overstrained, undernourished, unable to think clearly for himself.
Each new Allied advance only intensifies the cleverly directed fanaticism boiling inside Germany today.
Dorsey’s trial is uproar as gangster is mentioned
Defense attorneys demand mistrial but judge overrules their motion
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Doris Duke’s divorce upheld; Cromwell accused of fraud
Nevada judge says husband had ‘ulterior purpose of extorting money’ from heiress
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Pilot who killed Rommel revealed
Santa Ana, California (UP) –
It was indicated today by films synchronized with his guns and from his account of the action that Lt. Harold O. Miller, 20-year-old Santa Rosa pilot, was the airman who killed Nazi Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.
The German radio announced that Rommel met his death when his staff car was strafed by a plane July 24. Only one car was strafed on that day, and the films in Lt. Miller’s gun camera recorded it.
Lt. Miller is resting at convalescent center here, July 24, when flying about 20 miles behind the lines in France, he noticed a German staff car moving toward the front.
With his four .50-caliber machine guns whanging away, he swept closer. A tire blew out and the car swerved. He kept pouring bullets in. Flames spurted from the gasoline tank and with a mighty lurch, the sedan whirled into a field and rolled over and over, flames leaping from it.
Lucille Ball and actor call off their divorce
Hollywood, California (UP) –
Film star Lucille Ball and Cuban actor Desi Arnaz, who interrupted a cocktail date to get married and were then divorced after an overnight separation, today announced a reconciliation – after a day’s deliberation.
Arnaz, who is now a staff sergeant stationed at Brimingham Hospital, Van Nuys, California, was moving back into the couple’s nearby ranch home, “Desilu,” they said.
When she filed suit for divorce last Sept. 7, Miss Ball said Arnaz’s “extravagances” led to the final crackup of their four-year marriage.
Lupe finds man and promises to marry him
Hollywood, California (UP) –
Mexican film star Lupe Vélez said today she had finally found a man – French actor Harold Raymond – who “tells me where to go” when she tries to control him, and that she had promised to marry him.
She said they had been going together for a year and that he popped the question Thanksgiving Day.
She declared:
I am very happy. Harold knows how to handle me. I’ve always been used to controlling men, but I try it with Harold; he tells me where to go.
The peppery actress was formerly married to swimmer Johnny Weissmuller against whom she filed three divorce suits before going through with one.
Sensational radar device ‘sees’ for U.S. bombers
‘Mickey’ makes precision bombing possible around the clock; had been guarded zealously
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