EXALTATION OF MARTIAL VIRTUES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 35, 11 February 1943, Page 6

EXALTATION OF MARTIAL VIRTUES

"NEW NOTE IN REICH" Stalingrad's Dead Provide Heroic Halo N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent Rec. 2.30 p.m. LONDON. Feb. 10. "New note in Reich," is the heading of a leading article in The Times, which observes that Stalingrad's dead have been made an occasion not only for national mourning but also for national exhaltation of martial virtues and the self-sacrificial qualities of the race. The "heroic halo" serves other purposes than commemoration of the dead, the article states. It is being brazenly and blatantly used to obscure the failing of the living. "Not since the days of the Weimar Republic has the Hitler party faced such serious * questioning as in the last month. When .the German Press complains of 'heretical mouths' and talk of adopting violent means to shut them, it is not unreasonable to assume that some criticism of the regime has begun to make itself felt." The newspaper observes that the recent meeting of Nazi party leaders, followed by a visit to Hitler's headquarters, reflects the determination of party leaders to reinforce their hold on the public by every means and adds that what the Germans call the "law of hardness" is now in force and that Goebbels and the party machine are working the bogy of Bolshevism to fullest capacity. Bolshevist Bogy The Times refers to the "timely and admirable" broadcast by Sir Archibald Clark-Kerr, British Ambassador to Moscow, who drew attention to the use the Germans were making of the Bolshevist bogy and expressed confidence that it would fail utterly. The Times observes that confidence is well rooted and adds that the British people, regard the German move with indifference or contempt for their alliance with Russia is the bedrock of present action and future policy. "The bonds between the two peoples have stood many strains and they have been reforged." The Manchester Guardian Stockholm reports state that the German forces on the southern front have been badly shaken but in the main they are not disorganised and are still capable of resistance so long as they do not irrevocably lose confidence in their generals and supreme command. Sound Beating Essential "Not until they have taken the first sound beating by the Red Army, when the winter is past and they are no longer able to complain that the enemy is favoured by the natural elements, can their final defeat be considered in sight. But these southern armies are utterly incapable of recovering for any real summer offensive resembling that of 1942. The Germans in Russia are much less formidable as a military force than they were last summer, whereas the victorious Red Army faces the spring and summer more expertenced, more efficient, numerically larger and more confident." The opinion is held in London that the Red Army is now concentrating on cutting railways, firstly, the Smolensk-Kharkov trunk behind Kursk, secondly, encircling Kharkovand cutting its main line to Kiev, and, thirdly, pushing out of Kramatorsk and cutting the only mam railway through the Donetz territory into Rostov and Kiev. Without the uninterrupted use of these three railways the Germans cannot maintain their armies.