COLLAPSE OF KHARKOV: END OF THE TODT LINE

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23882, 26 February 1943, Page 4

COLLAPSE OF KHARKOV: END OF THE TODT LINE

ADVANCE IN RUSSIA

SYDNEY, Feb. 18. Although the fall of Kharkov was virtually inevitable once the Orel-Ros-tov line crumbled at so many points, this in nowise diminishes the importance of the military victory or the strategical consequences Aowing from it. The local defences of Kh arl were so strong that, even the isolation of the city, it might have been expected that the Germans would be P able to hold out for more of the collapse provides the best commentary on the decline of German fighting spirit, especially since the defenders included such crack regiments as Adolf Hitler s Own and the Grossdeutschland battalions. The retention of such corps d elite showed that the enemy command intended a protracted resistance. That would have been the natural course of events. The local Kharkov area should have b(«n a self-con-tained "bin,” capable of holding out lor a considerable period and thus tying down many divisions of Russian shock-troops. Kharkov itself was the centre of all German operations in south Russia, and Hitler boasted last May that it was “impregnable. It was the very centre of Todt's Wall, which was supposed to be the Siegfried Line of eastern Europe. Dr. Todt was Hitler’s greatest military engineer, and his worth has been proven by the inadequacy of Professor Speer’s efforts since his death. Todt personally directed the refortiflcation of Kharkov and the erection of the Ostwall, and he described it as “the Westwall (the Siegfried Line) brought up to date. Kharkov’s Defences Last spring “Soviet War News” paid tribute to Todt’s efforts as a constructional engineer. The Russian paper wrote that "the Nazi defence zones are many miles in depth and are built in the form of a mesh, with each zone of resistance containing many strongpoints which combine to defend particular sectors.” Not an inch of territory round Kharkov was supposed to lack the protection of interlocking fire from artillery posts. Indeed, the German military journals devised a new term, meaning “concentrated areafire,” to describe the hail of steel that would meet assailants of the Kharkov system at any point. The modern city itself was the nucleus of the system. When rebuilding Kharkov to play its part as a fitting capital of the new Ukraine, the Soviet administrators always paid regard to military necessities; and the buildings erected for a city of 833,000 inhabitants took the form of so many square concrete fortresses, the resistant capacity of which was, proven during the first fight for Kharkov 16 months ago. Around the town the focal villages and farms were merged into the depth-defences, and fire-power was concentrated from the low hills against all the lines of communication. If defence can be measured in terms of abstract military science, Kharkov should have been impregnable after the Germans had worked on it for six months. An Earlier Failure • Early last May Timoshenko began the spring fighting by making a drive towards Kharkov from the south and the north-east, and by the 21st of the month the Russians were astride the main fortifications and deep into the “mesh” at certain points. But they were unable to maintain their momentum and the course of events seemed to prbve Hitler’s boast about the intrinsic strength of the Kharkov fortifications. Once the Germans advanced in their summer campaign, they built up the Kharkov-Rostov line and still further strengthened Kharkov as the radial point of their activities and tbe “mother-base” for everything from Ore] to Stalingrad and the Caucasian outposts. Since the strength of Kharkov and the Ostwall has been unceasingly publicised within Germany, it may be imagined how great will be the effect

[By the Military Correspondent of the "Sydney Morning Herald."]

on the Nazi populace when thevW that, following the crumbling tv? Wall, the pivot of Kharkov itself sWi' fall after five days’ street-ftS They must realise that somethin* vitally wrong with their their soldiers, or both. Kharkov J seem to them an unmistakable svSS of strategical collapse. If Kh could be defended it should not hj? surrendered so quickly; while if it 5 incapable of putting up a i ong Jj l ance, then the Todt Wall becom» S myth of propaganda. Under T humiliating conditions the anew! General Dietmar will find it diffi ■ to explain his new theory that “S in Russia is a German weapon

A 250-Mile Front Apart from the wider questions, a strategical breakdown, tfe {m ; Kharkov opens up immedia&iW bilities for the Russians, if gus? marks the end of the Todt Wall S it also predicates still greater S to come. The Russians are nowJ vancing along a 250-miles front »,!1 the west of Byelgorod to the envS of Stalin, and they are surgm/ml the relatively weakly-held terriL?' the more exposed portions v Dnieper. While they have a wide -T compact battering-ram. the Germ=» since the loss of Kharkov crumbling of the Donets defences, iJf! no coherent front-line and no bi,, upon which to erect a of defence. It is true that the him!! between the Desna and the DrieS above Kiev may afford an o b2 and equally true that the networks tributaries and marshes belotf Dneoiv petrovsk may help the Germansas a whole the bulge of the Dnieper* definitely a weakness, and the u miles between Kiev and Zaperc* offer many admirable objectives to S Russian spearheads. With the only 50 miles from the Dnieper in (k Lozovaya area, the position may i likened to a race for the river rathe 1 than an attack on prepared positior of the Don or Ddnets type. Threat To Crimea

The recent Soviet gains also dealt shattering blow to the Germed systa of communications. The loss of Kha kov threatens the junction of Poltav the converging point for Kiev and tfi middle reaches of the Dnieper; 'Mm farther south, the Germans escaS through the closing bottle#eck fromS Donets bend now have to rely upon single tortuous line to Zaporozhe. 1 addition, the Germans have only on railway from the Crimea, and ft would be cut by any Soviet advance! Zaporozhe. The severance of thi single line of escape might isolate tl large German armies in the Crimea b fore the Russian columns from Rosk

reach the Perekop isthmus. Russia!; landings near Perekop or between tl»| isthmus and the Dnieper mouth coil close the trap entirely, providing tIS the Russian Black Sea Fleet has ail tient landing equipment. I To complete the strategical disiil tegration, the Soviet forces are cloaqi in upon the Orel pocket, and anl further progress here would undoubll edly affect the Smolensk position ail bring the vital junction of Gomel ink! the military picture once more. ; Sinet Germany’s main defence-line through out southern Russia has been shattered under conditions which not even Go eral Dietmar can 'claim is a “with drawal according to plan,” the queistio arises where the Germans can possibl hope to make a stand. Their last hop is the Desna-Dnieper-Melitopol.line,o which they may plan to stand until it thaw brings them a respite; ' But ,tt thaw this year is expected to be ligik than usual and is still more than Si weeks away, and the Russians'clwj that their new mobility will 'bbvialf the usual “bogging-down” of/'Api Certainly it is only from the thavsi the lengthening supply-linessjj£« Russians that the enemy can expect* lief, and it will be a contest-betwta such factors and the mounting didfr' tegration of the Nazi armies.'; ' i