NO SUDDEN END

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVII, Issue 23114, 31 January 1945, Page 5

NO SUDDEN END

What Commentators Think

Germans May Yet Make A Stand

By Telegraph—N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyrtgm (7.30 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 29. In spite of the gloomy prognostications now issuing from Germany, and also the continued amazing Russian advances, it is still thought here that the war is not going to end suddenly with a rush, but that the Wehrmacht will make a stand against the Red Army.

Commenting on the position the military writer of the “Daily Express,” Mr Morley Richards, says M. Stalin’s strategic plan is now clear. It is to drive by way of the centre through Posen to Berlin, while maintaining such pressure on the flanks that the Germans will be prevented from counter-attacking either north or south. “The beauty of it is that if the enemy could hold Marshal Zhukov in the centre, M. Stalin could quickly shift his break-through bid to his wings, where • General Guderian could not have comparable strength.” Answering the question whether the Russians can complete their plan before the thaw comes at the end of March, Mr Richards says they might, but it depends on how much of the German army has been withdrawn over the Oder and the speed at which the Red Army can organise supply lines. He thinks that the enemy’s losses are not yet fatal, because General Guderian is preparing to defend the line of the Oder. He will need replacements which are likely to come from the West, from Norway and from inside Germany. Mr Richards is reserved about the prospects of a finish by March, because Posen and Breslau, both needed as transport centres by the Russians, must be taken, and the Oder will not be an easy obstacle with the enemy fighting with everything he has. Limits to German Resistance “Liberator,” in the “Observer” is reserved in his comment, saying that while the Germans’ earlier plans for a withdrawal have failed, it could normally be said that everything bears out that the German defence positions have been made that deep that the Russian advance has reached its limit. But while a cool appraisal suggests that the Russians are approaching the limits of their advance, there are symptoms also—no more than that—that there are limits to the German resistance which are becoming noticeable. These cannot be measured on maps or in the mileage to Berlin. They have to do with such things as civilian morale, the closing of railways and roads, the non-arrival of supplies and the frequent inability of the High Command to maintain contact with the armies in the field.

“Liberator” sums up by saying: "Probably the Russians will have the chance we had last summer of moving in to a finish, but if it does not happen within the next two or three weeks, then the final offensive will come only after another pause, but this will be a much shorter pause than that experienced hitherto either in the West or the East, and it almost certainly will be the last. Stand on the Oder "Scrutator” in the “Sunday Times’’ says it is on the Oder with its long military history and many famous fortresses that the Germans are likely to stand, if anywhere, and it is only in the upper region between Breslau and Oppein that the Russians have yet reached it.

"Scrutator” adds: “Now that more time has passed, we can see this winter offensive in little more than perspective. The operations have been extremely rapid, but less so, it would seem, than in the advance of the Soviet armies which followed the break-through last July, and that is natural, because the ground underfoot is bound to be more favourable in July to the movement of great armies than in January. One must make a corresponding allowance for the time which our Allies may need to bring forward their lines of communications.”