Germans Must Know War Is Lost

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 65, 20 March 1944, Page 5

Germans Must Know War Is Lost

Received Sunday, 10.40 p.m. LONDON, March 19. The Germans have lost the war in Russia, says the Observer’s commentator “Liberator.” There are signs that von Mannstein is thinking of abandoning Bessarabia and all Rumanian territory to the foothills of the Carpathians. There is no sign of the arrival of a great general reserve whereof German military spokesmen hitherto were boasting. The Germans must know they are lost. What the Nazis fight for now is to lose the war in a way favourable to them for peacemaking. The military correspondent of the Sunday Times says, having inflicted on tho German southern armies the greatest defeat they have ever suffered, Stalin is striving with all his strength ito knock them out of the ring. He is driving onwards in Poland, holding the Germans between Tarnopol and Proskurov, surrounding them at Vinnitsa, pursuing them in the Middle Dniester, pulverising them east of the Bug and almost besieging them at Nikoiaiev. The most important achievement is to reach the Dniester at Yompol. If the Russians are able to cross the river in force, von Mannstein will face the last stage of his humiliation. The Germans offered dogged resist anco at Zhmerinka, states the Russian supplementary communique. The Russians broke in simultaneously from the east and south and routed the enemy after two days’ fierce fighting. The remnants of the German defenders then retreated in disorder. The Russians captured great quantities of arms and equipment. Southeast of Uman the Russians cleared the Germans from Yampol and pushed the enemy into the river where they inflicted heavy losses. The Rea Army has also captured a railway station seven and a-half miles from Nikolaiev.