Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1944 TRAPPING THE GERMANS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 8 February 1944, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1944 TRAPPING THE GERMANS

TO trap a German is difficult; to trap whole divisions of them by military manoeuvre is more difficult still. That was accomplished on a grand scale at Stalingrad, where Hitler promoted von Paulus to Field-Marshal but refused to let him exercise his military judgment and withdraw from the avenging jaws of the Russian pincers while there was still time. In the intervening year, at various stages of the 870-mile Red Army advance to its present line, there have been prospects of miniature Stalingrads, but good German generalship has managed to avoid them. Not so now in the big sweep of the Dnieper bend. The chance of a Russian band of steel being fastened round the Germans holding out there has been looming up for weeks; now it has become an actuality with little opportunity of relief or escape. In the upper arm of the Dnieper ten German divisions, some of them already sadly mauled, are.being squeezed within a progressively smaller space. They have made frenzied but unsuccessful attempts to break out and now their only means of communication with the German bases is by lumbering transport planes which the Red airmen shoot out of the sky Jike ducks. In the lower arm of the river round Nikopol, centre of the greatest manganese field in Europe, live German divisions are cut oil ■ vitii slender prospect of regaining contact with the enemy main body Both these forces and the precious supply of manganese which they were defending now seem lost to Hitler. Farther north a Russian spearhead has driven BU miles into Poland lo capture the fortress of Luck, furthest tX)int of the Red Army advance westward and only about 520 miles from Berlin. The Germans must see the danger of the Russians getting in rear of all their forces in the south. Still further north, in the Leningrad sector, small pockets of Germans are in danger of being cut off and destroyed.

With fortune swinging strongly against them all the way from the Crimea to Finland why do the Germans persist in holding on to positions which are doomed, losing many men and much material in the process, rather than withdraw while they can to a new line and fight from there? There was no need for the minor Stalingrad in the Dnieper bend if General von Mannateiri, who is one of the most capable of the Nazi commanders, had decided to pull out weeks ago. But perhaps Hitler’s ‘ intuition” is still a factor in the plans of the German High Command, as it certainly was at Stalingrad. Unless the answer to the question lies in the inherent obstinacy of the Germans to admit defeat the explanation may rest in their traditional distaste of waging war on German soil, and consequent eagerness to keep it away for as long as possible. This would account for their strenuous efforts to stretch the elasticity of their “elastic defence” to its utmost limits. If it will extend no further the order may be to stand and fight at every key point regardless of the tactical situation. This wears the aspect of resisting to the last ditch and yet the concentration of Russian strength, applied cleverly at intervals along the whole line, is adequate to force the enemy from their last-ditch defences or destroy them where they stand.