"HITLER'S LAST GREAT GAMBLE"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 39, 16 February 1944, Page 5

"HITLER'S LAST GREAT GAMBLE"

FACING TWO FRONTS

Chooses Soviet Invasion As Bluff To Allies N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent Rec. 11.30 a.m. LONDON, Feb. 15. "What is Germany's plan to-day to stall off her enemies?". The wellknown London commentator, J. L. Garvin, says: "On the eastern side the plan is to sell ground, for time and to sell it as slowly and as dearly as she can. On the western side the Germans mean to concentrate everything they have and know upon an attempt of supreme desperation not merely to frustrate defeat on the second front, but to bring it to disaster. "They hope to draw more reinforcements from the eastern front in the spring months, when even the Russians are usually immobilised by an ocean of mud. It will," he adds, "be a battle of wits, weapons and weights." The Observer sees Germany's plan rather differently and suggests that Hitler has decided to try to hold off the western Powers at all costs —even at the cost of defeat at the hands of Russia. "His aim is to force the western Powers to terms by the threat of letting the Russians conquer Germany while he holds on to France ana Italy. So far the cost to him of backing up bluff by military action has not been overheavy." Hitler's Great Gamble The Observer adds that Hitler's highest hope is still obviously that Britain and America could not face the prospect of the Red Army marching to the Rhine and would rather come to terms with Nazi Germany. The paper also points; out that a Russian invasion is viewed in Germany with' frank terror from which Hitler might well hope to extract a last effort of desperate resistance. But it is just here that his speculation may most easily turn against him. "By deliberately choosing the Russian rather than the British-Ameri-can invasion," the Observer states, "Hitler would for the first time set himself against the unanimous will of Germany, not just of the scattered and powerless political opposition but of virtually the whole nation. Here is a gaping weakness in Hitler's last great gamble. When his bluff is called, as it will be, it may speed his downfall as nothing else could.