Fuehrer fighting in capital beside women, radio says
LONDON, England (UP) – The German radio said today that Adolf Hitler was in the “main fighting line” in embattled Berlin.
If Berlin and Prague are lost, the German broadcast said, “all Europe is lost.”
It said:
Therefore, Hitler has remained in Berlin.
He will stay there despite all rumors. The main front line runs straight through Berlin and the newly-established “Frickcorps-Adolf Hitler” is fighting with women in its ranks.
The broadcast was carried by a Hamburg station, one of the few in Germany still broadcasting under Nazi control. It said Hitler was determined that neither Berlin nor Prague should fall to “Bolshevism.”
Allied circles doubted that Hitler was still in Berlin despite the propaganda broadcast, but recalled that neutral sources had reported the Fuehrer was contemplating death in battle at the head of a suicide battalion.
All other information indicated that Hitler was in Bavaria organizing a final stand in the Alpine redoubt around Berchtesgaden. One report was that he had set up headquarters at Salzburg, just north of Berchtesgaden.
Paul Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister and Gauleiter of Berlin, was reported to have fled Berlin shortly after broadcasting Saturday night that he would remain with the city’s defenders to the end.
Sensational rumors were sweeping Europe in the wake of the Red Army’s entry into Berlin. One report circulated in Stockholm that armistice negotiations were underway in the Nazi capital.
A captured order of the day signed by Hitler revealed that he had told his forces on the Western Front to abandon frontal attacks and resort to guerrilla warfare in an effort to prolong resistance as long as possible.
Panic was reported sweeping Berlin. Some details were seeping through to Stockholm. Swedish correspondents were filing uncensored dispatches for the first time since the start of the war. They explained they could not find censors.
Stockholm said German refugees were fleeing west in terror. Some regular army and even SS troops were among them. They complained because the Americans had not “rescued” them from the Soviets.
Radio Paris said German workers were fighting SS units in the streets of Berlin.
Hitler’s order of the day to troops on the Western Front was captured in the Elbe sector by the British Second Army, an Exchange Telegraph dispatch said.
The order was quoted as saying:
The situation on the Western Front is unfavorable to us because of the enemy’s superiority in manpower, material and ammunition.
Despite this or because of it, we have to keep our enemy at key pitch. Only attacks against the enemy flanks and rear, disrupting, or cutting his lines of communications, guarantee success…
We have to adopt the same method taught us by the Russians in the years 1942 to 1944… Our attacks must not be directed against enemy strongpoints, but against weak spots.
Hitler also reported in Harz forest cave
WITH U.S. NINTH ARMY, Germany (UP) – U.S. Army officers said today there were unverified reports that Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler were hiding in caves in the Harz forests. That area has been occupied by the Americans.
On the face of it, the reports credited to German civilians appeared unreliable since organized resistance in the Harz forests was declared ended Sunday.
Yet 8th Armored Division officers said reports from independent sources crosschecked in their details.
Dozens of Germans were reported as having said that high Nazi authorities had been hiding in the huge chain of caverns near Blankenburg. One chamber alone was reported to have a capacity of more than 1,000 persons.
A darkened and heavily-guarded train was said to have unloaded in the mountains between Blankenburg and Elbingerode, probably at Ruebeland, 14 to 18 days ago. That was before the Americans closed the ring around the Harz pocket.