THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Tuesday, November 10, 1942. FRONTS AGAINST HITLER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25069, 10 November 1942, Page 2

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Tuesday, November 10, 1942. FRONTS AGAINST HITLER

Coming on the eve of the Allied operations against North-west Africa, and with the Afrika Korps in full retreat in Egypt and desperately in need of reinforcements, M. Stalin’s Red Anniversary speech could not have been more timely. There was, perhaps, a slightly querulous note in it, as he referred to the German successes in Russia in the present year, ascribing them to the absence of a second front in Europe. But there was nothing equivocal about his reaffirmation of the alliance with the great democracies and of his continued confidence in their capacity, in conjunction, to destroy the Nazi tyranny in Europe and throughout the world. As it happened, the conditions which Russia has long sought for the dissipation of Germany’s strength of arms and production were in the stage of fulfilment even as he spoke. The first need of the gallant Russian peoples, as M. Stalin represented it in this statement, is for diversion on a major scale of the Nazi forces that have been concentrated in the Soviet. In Africa, both in the east and the west, diversionary movements have developed that must place a severe strain upon German resources both military and industrial. Herr Hitler’s speech, reported this morning, in which he claims to be “ fighting far from home ” in order to protect the Reich from suffering, aptly underlines the demand on transportation and supply facilities that must be created by the opening up of a two-sided Allied front in North Africa. It is not, at this stage, the second front in Europe, to which the Allies are pledged. It has no need to be, as M. Stalin will appreciate- when he takes count of the force and vigour of the blows that are now being aimed at Nazi security by land, on the sea, and in the air. The static war of the passing year in the west, which left Hitler’s Europe in comparatively secure entrenchment, ringed with steel, is changing its character to his undoing. And just as M. Stalin declares his determination to destroy the Hitlerite power, so are his Allies now moving purposefully, not with the aim merely of diverting his armies from Russia and of occupied Europe, but of destroying them. Throughout the 17 months during which Russia has, at the cost of sacrifices beyond estimate, confronted and engaged the greatest concentrations of Nazi strength, her allies have been persistently at work on the production front and* in the training ground preparing the vast mechanism of offensive war that is now being brought into operation against the enemy. Yet coincidentally with the tremendous effort which they have been making, they have met the Russians’ most urgent requirements in, war materials, and have, while maintaining a _ front against Hitler in Africa, contributed to the Soviet’s need with destructive raids upon German industry, including that portion of it that is located in the subject States. The basis for co-operation which has been laid in this period of extreme Russian travail is secure. In the next, offensive phase of the war the solidarity of the alliance among the United Nations will be proven in battle on many fronts, all of them parts of one front against Hitlerism and aimed, not as the Fuhrer glibly assumes, at securing his capitulation,' but at accomplishing his destruction.