Battle of Berlin

Southland Times, Issue 25279, 4 February 1944, Page 4

Battle of Berlin

THE Battle of Berlin is now said to be in its concluding stages. “Acres of the city are in ruins,” said a cable message, printed yesterday. “Industrial plants have been wiped out, and the administrative centre, from which the Reich was ruled, has been destroyed.” These claims may require some modification. A Swedish correspondent has reported that only one-fifth of Berlin’s factories were able to reopen after Sunday night’s raid. If -four-fifths of the industrial plants are closed, even temporarily, the city’s productive capacity is dangerously weakened. But it is still not possible to say that industry is out of action. Similarly, although the administrative centre is broken, its functions are operative elsewhere. A more serious matter, of which curiously little has been heard so far, is the effect of the raids on Germany’s transport system. Berlin is the nerve centre of communications. There are probably 12 main railway lines which have their termini in the capital. Dislocation at the centre means a weakness throughout the entire system, and it comes while the Germans need an uninterrupted service to meet the requirements of battle fronts as widely separated as Russia and Italy. It is true that the country has a network of admirable motor roads; but these have been used sparingly. The need to conserve petrol has forced the Germans to rely heavily on their railways. “Train busting,” a form of attack used assiduously and scientifically by the Royal Air Force, has made it difficult for the enemy to meet the demand for locomotives. Rolling stock is hard to re-

place while the heavy industries are required for wai- production. And now the railway controls, fixed by a centralizing policy in Berlin itself, are being systematically weakened. The Germans will do their best to supply improvized services. But the task is becoming difficult at a time when there is need of defensive preparations for the coming battles in western Europe. The destruction of Berlin is not merely a physical eradication: it is a blow at the centre of the war machine, and as such is one of the most significant operations of the war.