Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1941. NAZI PROBLEMS IN RUSSIA.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 September 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1941. NAZI PROBLEMS IN RUSSIA.

» ; yyiTII many details obscure at the moment of writing, there does not seem Io be any doubt that the German armies in Russia, with difficulty and at an enormous price in lives and material, have made at least substantial progress towards cutting the communications of Leningrad with the rest of Russia. In spite of the heroism and energy with which its approaches are being defended, the great city on the Neva is in some obvious danger of being encircled. Its capture is another matter, but even if that should prove to be. in prospect—the Russians at present, backing their words with splendid deeds, are proclaiming that Hitler’s hordes shall not enter the city—the Germans will .have little enough on which to congratulate themselves in the results of their onslaught on Russia. The loss of Leningrad of course would be a serious calamity, but there is no reason whatever to suppose that it would be a crippling blow. Apart from being one of the greatest industrial cities in the Soviet Union, Leningrad commands and dominates the communications and supply routes of North Russia, including the ice-free Arctic port of Murmansk and Archangel, and is the key to Russia’s naval hold on the Bailie. If Leningrad were lost, the principal Russian Bailie naval base of Kronstadt automatically would share the same fate. With Leningrad in their hands, or even effectively encircled, the Germans also would have opened new routes by which to prosecute their drive on Moscow. As one of yesterday’s messages pointed out, however, even if the encirclement of Leningrad has been or is accomplished by the capture of Schlusselburg, it does not of necessity follow that the encirclement can be maintained in face of such counterattacks as the Russians are launching on the approaches to Leningrad and on the centra! front, where Alarshal Timoshenko’s troops have routed and hurled back the enemy in the Smolensk region. The position admittedly is critical, but against the loss by which the Russians possibly are threatened there is to be set the tremendous strain evident!,v imposed on the German war machine, with the northern winter near athand. That strain is made manifest, not only in events on the total Russian front, but in the fact that file Germans are still making only relatively feeble retorts, in air attacks on Britain, to the powerful assaults in massed force the Royal Air Force is now extending from Western Germany and invaded territory in France and elsewhere to Berlin. Nothing but overmastering and unsatisfied demands on the Eastern front will account lor the Luftwaffe being restricted to comparatively small attacks on Britain while Berlin, as Avell as the Ruhr and other areas vital Io the German war effort are enduring the blows now being struck by British bombing squadrons. With the campaign against Russia in its twelfth week, the Germans at most are able to claim that they now have some prospects of isolating one of the three main objectives which they gaily declared themselves confident, when the campaign opened, of mastering in a month or six weeks. Il is rightly being emphasised at present in Britain and in the United States tfiat Russia must not be expected to win the war for the nations allied against the Axis—-that each one of these nations must continue to exert itself to the utmost. That being said, however, the position reached on the Eastern front, whatever the immediate outlook in the Leningrad area may be, is well calculated to fill Nazi Germany and its satellites with dismay. Some frank admissions to that effect are already being made, notably in Italy and even to an extent in Gorman reports.