Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1942. AN AXIS DEFENSIVE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 October 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1942. AN AXIS DEFENSIVE.

JN a remarkable descent from the sky-limit boasting in which he was indulging freely much less than a year ago. Hitler yelled, in his latest public utterance a week or two ago, that Germany would never capitulate. The idea of an Axis transition from the offensive Io the defensive has since been developed by Goering and other Nazi spokesmen and now the “Frankfurter Zeitung” has said that: “Most hopes are now centred on how the United Nations may lose the war and not on how Germany may win it.” This utterance of course must be regarded as carrying official sanction, since the newspaper press, like all other institutions and organisations, is enslaved in Nazi Germany. The “Frankfurter Zeitung”* argues that: — Only the defeat, of the European fortress and the total defeat of the Axis can change England’s situation. A war which was not lost would be for the Axis a war won, because the Axis holds the whole of Europe and its external approaches. However, for the English a war not totally won is a war lost, because, apart from some points in the Mediterranean, they have nothing in their hands which would be of interest to us oi - be decisive for future relations between England and Europe. It may be doubted whether this statement of the position and outlook will carry conviction even to the members of the Nazi Party, much less to the German masses who have been promised of late that they will he fed a little better than they have been, even if the rest of Europe has to starve.

Nothing is more obvious than that the so-called European fortress of the Nazis is largely a myth. Instead of holding the whole of Europe, the Germans and their satellites —several of them most, unwilling and exhausted satellites —are faced in Eastern Europe by unbeaten Russian armies on a front of some two thousand miles. At the moment the prospect is improving that the Germans may fail as disastrously in their immensely costly attempt-to capture Stalingrad and to gain control of the Lower Volga and the Caucasus as they failed at Verdun a quarter of a century ago. Tn any case their hopes of effecting that annihilation of the Soviet armies which Hitler last year declared to have been have vanished. It is no longer in doubt that Russia will continue to be a major factor in the war and it is a matter of time only, and probably of no very long time, before Germany and her partners will have to cope with the armed might of Britain and the United States on an additional front or fronts in Europe.

If tlic large part of Europe held by Germany consisted of nations linked in a voluntary alliance there might be some justification for talking about “the European fortress.” In fact, however, the inhabitants of a great part of occupied Europe are prevented only by savage terrorism and murderous methods of repression from rising against the Nazi despoilers and oppressors. Even Germany’s original ally Italy is in a state which appears to be summed up accurately as one of crumbling despair.

If it were open to Germany to set up impregnable defences in east and west, and, sitting down behind them, to organise and develop methodically the resources of enslaved Europe, she no doubt might be able to lengthen out the war indefinitely. No such prospect is opening before the Axis aggressors, however. This war has made it finally plain that no defences are impregnable in conflict on the scale on which it has developed and is destined yet to develop in European and other theatres. The actual position, as President Roosevelt has said, is that the strength of the United Nations is on the up-grade, while that of the Axis Powers has reached its peak, and that: “Germany and Japan were already realising what the inevitable result would be when the total strength of the United Nations hit them at additional places.” Talk of an indefinite defence of “the European fortress” can only be regarded as a feeble attempt to cover up realities which Hitler and his fellow-criminals dare not face.