GERMAN PROBLEM

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 224, 19 June 1944, Page 5

GERMAN PROBLEM

May Leave Norway And Greece SHORTENING FRONT (Received June 18, 10.30 p.m.) NEW YORK, June 17. The “New York Times” correspondent at S.H.A.E.F. says: “Extremely well-informed soldiers, commenting on the German predicament in their three-front war, expect that the Nazis will evacuate Norway and Greece in the near future because the enemy desperately needs the 15 divisions which are now occupying those countries, and their strategic position there is becoming untenable. , . . “The Germans cannot hope to maten the Allied weapons after the two years destruction suffered by German industry nor hope to equal the proficiency of the veteran Allied divisions, but they believe they can, through wise generalship and husbanding of their resources, hold the Allies east, west and south of their inner fortress and thereby win a negotiated peace.” SIZE AND POTENTIAL Present Western Front LONDON, June 16. “The operations in Normandy have become a considerable achievement for a period of a little over a week, but it would tax credulity unduly to .suggest that in this and the campaigns in Italy and Finland can be discerned the major parts of the general engagement which is scheduled for the present summer,” says “Strategic™” in the “Spectator.” . • “There are sufficient strains on the intelligence already. Lavish candour as to the insignificant and miserly doling out of the essential, inevitably breed a certain virtuosity of speculation. The Atlantic Wall,’ for instance, is dismissed as if the fiction were ever accepted tor the true, with the result that the task of landing is made to appear much easier than it was. - In fact, the multiplicity of reports has not so much added to our news of the ‘clash in the west which is speeding toward a terrific climax, as General Dietmar says, as to blur its outlines. , . . • “If we attempt to get back to objectivity we have to realize that though the expedition to Normandy is potentially the most important of the operations, at present in being, the Italian campaign is engaging, the greatest number of enemy divisions, and the Finnish the fewest. “Speculation as to the present strength of the Twenty-first Army Group is not encouraged, but the Germans are putting it as about 25 divisions, and it is thought that General Montgomery is engaging some 13 to 15 German divisions. If there is anv truth at all in the German estimate it can be readily realized that there are tremendous potentialities in this expedition that need no emphasis.” He adds that it. can be seen that the original plan in Normandy was intelli--entlv ambitious in offering for attack a left flank over 60 miles from the thrust threatening one of the main objectives— Cherbourg. Indeed, it is because of that bait that the Allies have not only been moving forward against nodal points and communications with growing success, but at" the same time have been narrowing the door by which the enemy can reach Cherbourg. Threat North of Seine.

Great dangers cloud Rundstedt s strategical decisions, the writer continues. “General Montgomery expects to engage the enemy’s strategic reserve, but even if discretion should counsel us to turn a Nelsonian blind eye to the country north of the Seine, Rundstedt cannot but be well aware of its potentialities. Action from the air has imposed a not ineffective barrier on the flank of the Twenty-first Army Group, and for present purposes that should restore the Seine to a. military use which has sometimes tragically failed. But there remains the considerable and inviting stretch . of coastline which is so well known m this conntry* . ■ “One thing may be said. It is difficult to imagine the enemy can now do more than contain the Allied force, at best. That, indeed, is a dismaying success, and General Eisenhower undoubtedly will make use of his opportunity tor launching other attacks when the enemy commits himself to a strategic counterblow.” ROMMEL’S DIVISIONS (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, June 17. Reports on the strength of the German forces in the Normandy battle, writes a correspondent, indicate that the enemy has 300,000 men in this area, of which 200,000 are fighting troops. His armoured strength is estimated to be equivalent to four panzer divisions. To keep his units in the west up to this strength the enemy has been forced to use as much as 25 per cent, of foreigners. Information from prisoners of war indicates that the greater number of foreign troops contacted by the Allies in France to date have been Russians. It was indicated that these troops came from “scorched” German occupied areas in Russia and were given the choice between service in the German army or starvation. Formations of troops recruited from Poland. Rumania, Georgia and Turkestan have also been contacted. The fighting qualities of these foreign elements in the Nazi armies are described as “extremely low.” A total of over 10.000 prisoners of war has been brought to England. Four German divisions have been either virtually destroyed or seriously impaired in fighting efficiency to date.

Berlin radio says that Major-General Fritz Witt, commander of the Hitler Jugend S.S. Panzer Division, has been killed in Normandy.