NAZI STRATEGY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 235, 5 October 1942, Page 3

NAZI STRATEGY

COMPLETE REVERSE

Settling' • Down To Defensive

Role In War Special Correspondent United Press Association—Copyright Rec. noon. LONDON, Oct. 4. The speeches by Hitler and Ribbentrop have been carefully analysed in London, where the general consensus of opinion is that the Germans are completely reversing their grand strategy and are now settling down to a strategical defensive. I hey are also preparing against a long siege. J- L. Garvin, in the Sunday Express. says: "The backbone of Hit- ' ? '''a" now is the colossal project of building an eastern wall across Russia. Germany was saved from disaster last year by a new svstem of defensive fortifications, bastioned at intervals bv bristling field citadels, which were converted into centres of devastating fire-power by which the invaders held nearly all last year's conquests.

"By extending the same formidable systems to the lower Volga, they count on holding their further gains this year and frustrating the offensive capacity of the Soviet armies by penning them up behind a lengthened and strengthened 'Ostwall.' It seems certain that Hitler expects to carry out not only this part of his war plan but a further part before tsritain and America can intervene with adequate military effect anywhere on the European Continent when it would be the turn of the western Powers themselves to feel the other wedge."

6 looks for a hold on the fortified frontiers in the East with reduced forces, while the remainder executes a classic German manoeuvre, swinging over westw a ix!.

Mr. Garvin adds that the Reich's main industrial effort., with 6,000,000 foieign workers, will be concentrated in ' ncreas ' n g the U-boat and Luftwaffe strength. It will be pursued with fury for there is desperation behind it. Kacc Against Time Lost , l / [ ??T-s? bse , rver is of the opinion that Hitler has lost his race against time, that Germany's actual fighting power is no longer superior to her opponents, while Hitler is no longer able to concentrate it upon one of them. "With the offensive power of Russia unbroken, with the Western Front liable to burst into being at any moment, with the commitments in Africa and with the large spanner thrown in the works by the continuous British air offensive, he has forced upon him the dissipation of his forces, leaving no free reserves for sufficient attempt at a knock-out blow against any one of his major opponents."

The paper adds that there is reason for measured satisfaction that the period of immediate peril for the United Nations in the West has definitely ended, but, also, that the the worse is ahead.

Allied Keys To Enter Europe

The Observer considers that Hitler thinks it is time for him to present his two trump cards: (1) Relief in the East; (2) By full exploitation of the human and material potential of conquered Europe.

His second attempt to convert all Europe and all Europeans into raw material for Germany's war effort is only now in its initial stage. It will be made by a scientific terror consisting of the breaking up of European nations by the physical destruction of the recalcitrant, the systematic starvation of the useless, and mass deportation of the' useful remainder on a hitherto unimagined scale. Its agents will be Himmler and his henchmen. Its instrument has been created in the armed Storm Troops.

The Economist comes to the same conclusions. "Hitler's strategy is a plan to put Russia out of business, and by military strength and economic organisation to make a German Europe self-contained and impregnable."'

The Economist considers that the problem for the Allies is to make use of three keys to break into embattled Europe. (1) By throwing a vast Allied Wehrmacht against the Western Front.; (2) a cumulative programme of bombing from British airfields; (3) measures to hold the Middle East, clear North Africa, and throw the enemy across the Mediterranean. These projects are inter-related strategically and economically. It adds "The war will be won by convoys."