The Gisborne Herald. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED “THE TIMES" GISBORNE, THURSDAY, FEB. 4, 1943. GERMANY MOURNS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21009, 4 February 1943, Page 2

The Gisborne Herald. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED “THE TIMES" GISBORNE, THURSDAY, FEB. 4, 1943. GERMANY MOURNS

There will not be a great deal of sympathy for Germany in her three days of mourning for the men of the Sixth Army who perished in the holocaust of Stalingrad. Even while hailing the greatest Russian victory ot the war. however, it is possible to pay a tribute to the men of an enemy army who. through no fault, and perhaps little desire, of their own j have been sacrificed on the altar of a megalomaniac’s ambitions. These men were, in the main, Hitler's tools. They carried out his orders and fought to the last, the majority of them paying with their lives for their misplaced faith in their Fuehrer and their loyalty to the traditions of the German Army. While not completely exonerating the people of Germany as a whole from the responsibility for the war, it is well to remember that the blame must rest primarily on the shoulders of their leaders. It is not too much to suggest that this is the thought that will be uppermost in the minds of the people of Germany during live three days in which they mourn the loss of the Stalingrad army. They cannot be unmindful of the fact that Hitter had first promised them complete victory in 1941. and then, only a few weeks ago, assured them that Stalingrad would be captured. They will inevitably weigh these pledges against the performances. In the grim battle of Stalingradjust. how grim it has been it is almost impossible even to imagine—33o,ooo Axis troops have been sacrificed in the course of a few weeks. For that sacrifice less than nothing has been achieved; there are no compensations. It was not the case, as with the Allies earlier in the war. that Germany was fighting for time to mobilise her resources or waging delaying actions while she prepared or strengthened her defences elsewhere. It lias been admitted by Goering that Germany can never hope to be stronger than she is to-day and it cannot be claimed that the resistance at Stalingrad has materially assisted the Germans in their plight in other parts of Russia or on other fronts. For the sake of prestige, and prestige alone, Hitler ordered the men at Stalingrad to die at their posts—ordered them to a sacrifice and carnage which is probably without parallel in the history of war. He deliberately and wantonly sacrificed a great army and this fact will be held against him even more in has own country than abroad —by the very people whom he has ordered into mourning for a tragedy of which he was himself the direct and immediate cause. Having mourned their dead, the people of Germany may well pause to consider the real reason lor their mourning.

To many in Germany, Stalingrad will stand not merely as a shattered monument overlooking the graves of their dead, but also as the graveyard of their shattered hopes and a token ol the things to come. They know, now, what has happened in Stalingrad; they have yet to learn of other disasters, perhaps little less appalling, that are confronting their armies on other fronts in Russia. The Soviet armies are now advancing in the Caucasus and converging on Rostov, it may yet bo that the Germans will be able either to make a stand— Rostov will not easily fall to the Rus-sians-Yor that they will be able to make a more or less orderly retreat; but the present indications are that the forces in the Caucasus are facing the same fate as that which overtook (heir comrades in Stalingrad. The knowledge of what has occurred at Stalingrad and their own evidence of Hitler’s incapacity as a military leader can hardly be calculated to inspire them to further needless sacrifice in pursuit of what must obviously be a forlorn hope. The German army, too, is in mourning, for Stalingrad in particular and the Russian campaign in general have given the lie to Hitler’s boast that his army would never be beaten. Already it has suffered one ui' the worst defeats in history and others are in prospect.

Nor is the tragedy of Stalingrad the only thing which gives the Axis peoples cause to mourn. Italy to-day mourns the loss of the last vestige ui her overseas empire. Her people, too, have concrete evidence of their misplaced faith in their bellicose and boastful leader. In both Germany and Italy the people are mourning the loss of those killed in the Allied air i aids—raids which arc increasing in number and weight all the time. The news to-day tells of Cologne’s latest ordeal. The city which has been bombed more than a hundred times and which felt the weight of the first 1000-bomber raid, has been blasted again in one of the most concentrated attacks of the war. In the midst of their mourning for Stalingrad, the people of Cologne have been given good reason to mourn for themselves. And what this time happened to Cologne might to-morrow happen to any other city in Germany or Italy. Even while they mourn the loss of an army or an empire the people of both countries live under the constant threat and in the constant fear that the morrow may cause someone 1o mourn for thorn. And in their hearts they must now know that all their sacrifices are in vain, that at the best they are ringed by Allied steel, and that the future holds nothing for them except further mourning.