Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1942 STALINGRAD

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 20 October 1942, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1942 STALINGRAD

Af’TER withstanding for nearly two j 1 months the greatest military assault! 1 in history Stalingrad is in a very : critical position. Following a lull, 1 during which the Germans massed' £ more reinforcements, they have beenjj able to get their teeth into the fac- J tory belt where house-to-house fight- ' j ing is proceeding relentlessly, as it i j has done ever since the Germans i j readied the outskirts weeks ago. The ; t city was saved before by a “miracle” * in the form of almost super-human f efforts by the Russians. Another c such “miracle” will be needed now ' if the defence is to tide over the next i few weeks until the weather can ' take a hand. Already the Russians 1 have shown themselves past masters in the art of improvising to counter U new enemy moves and they may do.r so again- As yet Timoshenko’s re- 1 lief army shows little signs of being ■ p able to break through and the zoned 1 r fury of the Luftwaffe is softening up! \ the path for reserves the Germans!* are throwing in once more- To this;., the Russians are opposing an uncon- |c querable will. Red Army troops !* from many parts of the union are now ! J fighting together in the holocaust. L The call is for still more stubborn- c ness, still more stamina, still more;Jj tactical skill to outwit the attacker. r They have sworn to hold out till the if last breath. / , 1 Such superb courage backed by 1 military skill has already robbed*® Hitler of most of what he set out to • v obtain this fighting season. Should a he at length gain Stalingrad the Red * Army will have gone a fair way k towards achieving one of its main; purposes: bleeding the German army! to death. Winter on the open t steppes around the city is a prospect a from which the German High Com- f mand must shrink in dismay. There J is no other large town in the vicinity y to offer shelter from the icy winds: * nor, on strategical grounds, can the j attackers now afford to fall short of j a their goal- The way that life is be- ! t ing kept going within the beleaguer-! r ed city is nothing short of remark- j. able. By this time it must have lost I jmost of its importance as a source of c Soviet arms and munitions but still r acts as a partial shield to the lower ’ Volga, though traffic on that great t river is now seriously interrupted by t German guns and planes. As long * as Stalingrad holds out Hitler is de- ( nied access to this waterway and the 1 season is too far advanced now for t him to penetrate far beyond it before j, the winter even if his Army is able j to set up winter quarters within the 11 city. \\ The titanic struggle for possession c of Stalingrad is to a great extent t a contest of the spirit. On the Nazi side Hitler’s personal pres-,* tige is involved. In his speech 21 ;i days ago this vain man made one |» promise to the German people: that j] Stalingrad would fall. For the grim satisfaction of being able to say, “I; 1 told you so” he is prepared to pile . still higher the German losses in , lives and engines of war. There is a i suggestion that the renewed assault i has been imposed ori the High Com- J mand by Hitler's personal dictate- j Possession at any price to gratify 5 the whims of a demoniacal Dictator j seems to be the order of the day. t For the Soviet Stalingrad has be- j come a symbol of all that the new < Russia means. There is no other explanation of the passion animating J its defenders- Half a dozen other j cities now in the Nazi grip were 1 greater in population and industrial “ capacity, yet none of them has called j

forth quite the same upsurge of re--1 solve being demonstrated daily in | Stalingrad. It is the child of the Revolution. Twenty-lour years ago, I when Russia was being rent by civil war, a lesser known Bolshevik commissar set out for the lower Volga city of Tsaritsyn in search of food needed by the starving industrial centres of the north. That commissar now leads Soviet Russia. Tsaritsyh was saved from the advancing Cossacks and, in tribute to the man who | organised its defence, it was renumj ed after him—Stalingrad: the city jof steel- In less than two decades , he raised it from a frontier post to ] a great industrial centre planned for work and for the workers. The i Soviet masses see in it the visible i sign of progress towards a new order. This is the inner significance of the powerful moral force bracing and backing the Red Armies in their fight j against the ruthless and arrogant ' legions nurtured in Nazism- A struggle between philosophies as well as I of armed might is being played out !on the steppes. The steel of Stalingrad has entered the Soviet soul to give it toughness, tenacity and resilience in this hour of supreme trial.