CRUCIAL BATTLES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 10 January 1944, Page 5

CRUCIAL BATTLES

DECISIVE ROUND ON EASTERN FRONT GERMANS MAY ABANDON WHOLE COUNTRIES London, Jan. 8. ‘‘The German armies must now be prepared not merely to fight a steady retreat, but must withdraw from and abandon whole countries,” a Wilhelmstrassc spokesman told neutral correspondents. It is now a question which countries tl'-i German forces should give up to carry out essential plans for Germany’s defence. “We have to remember that we must keep at least 100 divisions ready for the Allied invasion in the west. The next few days will show whether it is worth while to abandon our positions in the Dnieper altogether to shorten the front. There is no doubt in Berlin that the present battles in Russia are the decisive round and the European war will unquestionably be decided on th e eastern front, not by bombing, nor In Italy, nor by invasion from the west, says the German news agency. The Soviet attacks have now assumed the character of a general offensive which German military circles view, as an all-out effort to smash the German eastern front. Reports reaching Berlin in the last 24 hours indicate no slackening in the fury of the Soviet offensive, particularly in the Dnieper bend. The German News Agency’s commentator, von Hammer, says that the German lines in the Dnieper bend were withdrawn in the face of Russian offensive battles of unparalleled ferocity, which are still going on. BEGINNING OF EN*> The fall of Kirovograd, kingpin of General von Mannstein’s Dnieper bend line, 40 miles south-east of Smyela, marks the beginning of the end in the Dnieper bend, says Reuter’s military correspondent. The Red Army’s wide advance carries the Russians well forward against the flank of the German forces remaining on the Krivoi Rog and Nikopol sectors. It is clear that a complete withdrawal cannot be long delayed if the Germans there are to avoid encirclement. Observers in Moscow believe that the Red Army is strong enough to maintain the vigour of the present campaign and begin new ones when the time is opportune. FEAR OF INVASION The Stockholm correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says dispatches from Swedish correspondents in Berlin give prominence to a German High Command spokesman’s most recent declaration that the Russians’ general offensive is constantly increasing in force on a widening front. The spokesman emphasised that the Germans were hampered in meeting the Russian offensive because the invasion threatened from Britain was pinning down in the west many divisions which otherwise would be flung in to check the Russians. “Invasion from the west may follow the opening of this Russian offensive,” the spokesman said. “We are therefore able to use reserves in the east only to the extent that the situation in the wqst permits.”