A BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 14, 12 October 1942, Page 4

A BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

An Anniversary HITLER’S BOASTS AND PROMISES Twelve months ago yesterday therewas a gathering in the palatial office in the Wil'helmstrasse, Berlin. It had been called together with all the pomp, of Nazi propaganda methods. All the remaining journalists of the foreign Press in the city were invited and they were addressed by Dr. Dietrich, the Nazi Press chief. He had a momentous announcement to -make. The power of the Red Aj?my was broken, he said. Nothing stood between the victorious German forces and Moscow other than a few miles of easy country and the time it twoulij take to traverse them. The foreign correspondents, cut off from untainted sources of information, were much depressed, according to Americans since returned to the United States, but decided to wait till confirmation came from another source, specially from Russia. “I’ve been waiting for the confirmation from Russia ever since,” said one of the American correspondents in a radio commentary yesterday. “The German people were greatly buoyed up by the news for a while, a short while. They then grew despondent. Then a joke began to toe passed round. ‘The Russians don’t know it,’’it was said; ‘they can’t read our papers.’” That boast of Hitler’s, so confidently passed on by Dr. Dietrich, still remains unfulfilled.

Stalingrad Unwarned l by the experience of the boast of October 9, 1941, Hitler, speaking in the 'Sportspalast only nine days ago, promised the German people that Stalingrad would >be taken. Since then German blood has been prodigally squandered with the intention of making good that promise. Today Hitler is little if any nearer taking Stalingrad than when he spoke; indeed, the Russians claim to have put the enemy on the defensive in many parts. Perhaps they still have not learnt to read the German papers. There has been a curious trend in the tone of Nazi propaganda over Stalingrad of late. Military commentators, even the most prominent who speak to the German people, (have been adopting an attitude which tends to dismiss the capture of the city as of minor importance. One such commentator suggests that military action is no longer needed at all. It is possible, of course, that the German High Command has decided to concentrate its available forces on an all-out drive in the Caucasus area, with a view to providing the German people with at least one of the objectives for which the 1942 campaign was at the outset designed, the Caucasus oil. The time left for the necessary operations to reach the rich Grozny area is drawing short. Autumn rains are close at hand. ■So we hear of gathering reinforcements in the Terek River area, and German propaganda has been telling the German people that their eyes should be on the Caucasus, not on Stalingrad, this while Hitler promises them Stalingrad. Stalingrad may fall. No one will deny that the Germans are still striving dangerously to take the city. But the Russian resistance is magnificent and their flanking strokes against the attackers are making steady progress while diverting more and more of the German reinforcements intended for the assault on the city.' Seven weeks ago the Germans were confidently claiming the imminence of the capture. They have captured suburbs, lost them, recaptured them, and lost them again: The latest news is that they have captured two more streets, but it cost them 4000 men in four violent attacks, and to. judge from past experience, the streets may be in Russian hands again.