STALINGRAD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25135, 28 January 1943, Page 5

STALINGRAD

SOVIET VICTORY GERMAN ARMY SMASHED THREAT TO KURSK AND KHARKOV (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 27. The Russians announced the wiping out of another German regiment at Stalingrad and the surrender of a regiment which had been surrounded. This news follows the overnight announcement that the German forces at Stalingrad had virtually been liquidated and that those remaining were not expected to hold out until the end of the week.

Moscow correspondents state that along almost every sector of the wideflung front, from Voronezh to the south, the Germans appear to be unable to stop the Russian advance, and the threats to Hitler's main bases at Kharkov, Kursk, and Rostov have grown more acute as the Red Army advances, mopping up isolated groups of the enemy and continually loosening the German defences. Driving on Kursk

The Red Armies, profiting by the clearance in the Voronezh area, are forging to the west along the railway to Kursk, and are .approaching the junction "town of Kastornoie, where the Germans are believed to be threatened with encirclement by the Russians driving up from the south-east. Soviet reinforcements moving up through the smoke-filled streets of burning Voronezh are passing long files of German prisoners. The Russians have reached a point 65 miles to the east of Kharkov, while the troops which reconquered the regions of the lower Don, the Sal, and the Kuban steppes are rapidly closing in on Kropotkin and Tikhoretsk. They are within 35 miles of both places, increasing the peril of encirclement, and threatening the Germans on the shores of the Sea of Azov.

The newspaper Red Star, disclosing the heavy losses suffered by the Rumanians and Hungarians, says that out of 13 divisions the Hungarians have lost nine, representing half of the Hungarian army. The Rumanians in the last two months have lost 18 out of 22 divisions, leaving only five or six inside Rumania.

General Denisov, drawing attention to the Luftwaffe’s troubles, says it is suffering from a shortage of men trained for winter fighting. The German planes are not built to withstand the Russian winter. Many planes have been unable to take off, and have been captured by the Russians. The numerically superior Red Air Force is continually attacking the fleeing German troops and hammering the retreating transport. Strategic Gain

For several critical weeks six months ago the Voronezh sector was given first place in the Soviet communiques. Although the German armies sweeping down between the Don and the Donetz were rolling up the whole southern front, this almost stationary sector was thus recognised as a vital place where the enemy must not be allowed to pass. Voronezh was the hinge. The Germans never took the whole city. The hinge held, and the door, although flung open, was never thrown down, and four months later the Russians began to swing it back, and now the Germans have lost their grasp on the hinge itself. Voronezh wrecked the Germans’ last hope of defeating Russia before America could mobilise. The German argument that the bridgehead has been abandoned to shorten their line is proved wrong by the obvious advantage to the Russians of having regained the principal railway running south from Moscow along its whole length to the Donetz industrial basin. Moreover, shortening the line will not increase the German reserves, unless the enemy can reform his battered divisions, which represent a loss far exceeding any gain which might accrue from the shortening of the line.