NAZIS’ DILEMMA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25304, 14 August 1943, Page 5

NAZIS’ DILEMMA

INSUFFICIENT RESERVES MUST REDUCE COMMITMENTS (Rec. 10.45 pm) LONDON. Aug. 13. “ Germany Appears to have insufficient strategic reserves in Russia to restore a bad situation,” says the well-known military commentator, Captain Cyril Falls. “If Britain and America can contrive to increase .their pressure to a certain degree it seems inevitable that the Germans must- find a way of reducing their commitments or face the risk of a serious crack. German reserves have been to some extent disposed in.‘small parcels’ because of the length of the front. They seem to have been kept scurrying to and fro to guard against one threat after another—Orel, Byelgorod, and the Donetz Basin.”

Discussing whether the Germans can re-create a “ mass manoeuvre ” as they did last winter, Captain Falls says the German front has been shortened for them by the elimination of salients, and will be still more shortened it Kharkov is abandoned, but go has the Russian front, and it is the Russians who are dictating the course of operations. Moreover, against the saving which the Germans have to their credit with the shortening of the front must be set the losses involved in their defeats at Orel and Byelgorod. Commenting on the extension of the Russian threats to the region of Vyazma and the heavy bombardment of Chuguyev, which the Germans believe to be the forerunner of a big attack south of Kharkov, Captain Falls says the Donetz Basin insistently demands its share of the scanty German reserves, while there are other sectors where the enemy dare not entertain complacency. The natural deduction is that the -Germans are unlikely at present to be able to create the strategic reserve which is so urgently required.

Other problems of the Wehrmachi arise from the reported decline in its strength because of the losses of men and material and the effects of Allied bombing. Panzer divisions formerly possessed 450 tanks, but they now go into action with 160. In addition, many divisions have between 50 and 75 per cent. non-German “ press-ganged ’ troops from occupied countries. Other divisions have been reduced in strength from 12,000 to 8000.