Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1941. ANOTHER GERMAN DEFEAT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 December 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1941. ANOTHER GERMAN DEFEAT.

JN the recapture by the Russians of Rostov on the Don, another blow, and a telling one, has been struck .at the legend of the invincibility of the German war machine. With the accompanying and related news that in the Crimea the Russians have broken into enemy offensive preparations against Sebastopo and have recovered strategic heights, the rout of General von Kleist’s panzer forces in the Ukraine evidently is of grea’ importance and significance. The total effect is that for tic time at least the enemy has been checked heavily in his attempts to open an approach to the Caucasus.

What the myth of German invincibility is really worth has been demonstrated on various occasions, in a number o. theatres of war. The opinion formed by our own soldiers in Greece and Crete was that they were fully equal to dealing with the Germans in meeting them on anything like equal terms. Today that claim is being justified handsomely by British and Imperial troops, including the New Zealand Division, in Libya. It is presumably in the hope of limiting the blow to then prestige that the Germans are now pretending that the supreme command in the North African theatre is in the. hands of an Italian and not of General Rommel. In the Russian campaign it has been demonstrated often that the Germans are very far indeed from being invincible.

What has appeared on the Eastern front is not that the Germans are invincible, but that where they are able to mass a sufficient preponderance of force —particularly armoured units -—they are. able to gain ground. It is not denied that the German war machine is highly efficient and that in Russia it lias gained a great deal of ground. It is also true, however, that the Russians, though still considerably inferior to the enemy in material and equipment and frequently, too, in available numbers, have time and again stemmed the greatest and most powerful, attacks of which the Germans were capable and on many occasions have hurled the Nazi forces out of areas and positions they had made great sacrifices to secure.

The recovery of Rostov is outstanding among achievements in this category. Even more serious issues are in the balance in Southern Russia than on the Moscow front, on which the Germans are stated to have deployed one-half of their total armoured strength.. Apart from any question of an attack on the Caucasus,, the Germans, retaining Rostov, would have had prospects of crossing the Don and extending their drive to the Caspian Sea, across vital Russian communications. Heavily as von Kleist has been defeated —his army is stated to be in full flight towards Mariupol, 100 miles west of Rostov, with the Russians in hot pursuit—it is of course not to be taken for granted that the defeat is final. Campaigning is practicable in South Russia throughout the winter and no doubt the enemy attempt to force the line of the Don will be renewed, but it is clear that the Russian counterstroke was admirably planned and gallantly executed. With the resolute defence of Moscow against what the enemy intends to be an overwhelming onslaught, the recapture of Rostov does much to brighten the outlook.