TO BERLIN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 46, 6 February 1945, Page 4

TO BERLIN

FROM three sides the relentless pressure of the invading armies is being* maintained against the doomed Reich. Most spectacular is the Soviet offensive from the east where Hitler's choicest legions waging a bitter struggle in the chilling blast of mid-winter have been hurled back along the refugee-packed roads leading to the German capital. On the west the Allied forces have recovered from their temporary setback in the Ardennes, and are now biting deeply into the Seigfried 'Line. Only in Italy does the stalemate appear to continue, and the news-hungry public must content itself with stories of raiding parties and skirmishes by patrols on reconnaissance. The main pulse of the giant battle for Germany is still taking place in East Prussia, where the first magnificent sweep of the avenging Muscovites astounded the world by dint of its force and power. For the 'first time in German history the River Oder has been reached by invasion forces and by night the fear-crazed refugees in Berlin crouch still lower ia their cellars and basements as the thunder of the Russian artillery draws nearer. Only forty miles away from the heart of Hitler's Germany are the foemen most dreaded by the Herrinvolk. Mighty armies are fighting to the death for their defeat, and still their leader speaks of victory, using the argument that fate could never have raised such a leader as himself, merely to crush him out of existence again. It is this incurable egotism which has urged the war-wearied people of Germany to make one more supreme effort in the cause of the Fatherland. It is this supreme effort that the world is waiting for. The clying struggle of a doomed people is neither heroic nor spectacular, but it can still be nevertheless, a dangerously desperate affair with far-reaching results.