NAZIS FACING DISASTER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIV, Issue 37, 12 January 1944, Page 4

NAZIS FACING DISASTER.

The German armies in Southern Russia are facing a very grave situation as the Red Army drives west and' south-west and threatens to cut oft' the enemy in the Dnieper Bend. West of Kiev the Russians are well

beyond the old Polish border, which, runs from the Latvian boundary in a line almost due south until it reaches the northern boundary,of Rumania. The ltumanian - Russian boundary turns sharply east to follow the Dniester River, which flows into the Black Sea south of Odessa. The Red Army's plans are unfolding, and it is clear that the drive into Poland aims at the severance of the German armies in the south from those in the north, while south-west of Kiev the Russians are smashing their way towards Northern Rumania, the intention being to turn the line of the Bug at Vinnitsa and, beyond that, the line of the Dniester, thus increasing the danger to the Germans, whose communications to the west are becoming more vulnerable and inadequate to meet their requirements. Hitler is reported to have ordered that the Russians must be prevented at all costs from breaking into the Balkans. The enemy is faced with the alternative of clinging to his positions in the Dnieper Bend, with the danger of a disaster even greater than that at Stalingrad, or withdrawing to the Dniester' and then into Rumania, which would have farreaching effects upon Germany's satellites, bringing punie among the Balkan States associated with the Nazis. While the great Russian drive against the centre points west towards Germany, the Soviet armies in the north are steadily overcoming German resistance north and west of Nevel, endangering 'the Germans in the Leningrad area, where another disaster may overtake the enemy if he fails to withdraw in time. A Wilhelmstrasse spokesman may have had both the Balkans and the Baltic States in mind when he told neutral correspondents that "the German armies must now be prepared not merely to fiffht a steady retreat, but to witlulraw from and _ abandon whole countries. It is now a question of which countries the German forces should crive up to carry out essential plans for Germany's defence."