VITAL TEST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 November 1942, Page 3

VITAL TEST

OF GERMANY’S REMAINING STRENGTH APPLIED BY THE ALLIES IN MEDITERRANEAN. BEARING ON DURATION OF WAR. NEW YORK, November 21. “Herr Hitler’s full answer to the British and American drive for control on the African coast will provide the first adequate measuring stick on his remaining military resources after three years of war and two stupendous and costly campaigns in Russia,” says Joseph Harsch in the “Christian Science Monitor.” “The aggressive answer would be an attempt to turn the tables on our forces once 1 they were established inside the Mediterranean by pincers through Spain and Turkey. The passive answer would be to interpose all available forces between the Libyan and Tunisian fronts, striving only to retain the now threatened bridgehead to Africa as a means of denying us full use of the Mediterranean.

“The only recent official estimate of the size of Hitler’s total armies is'contained in M. Stalin’s speech of November 6, crediting the Germans with 256 divisions, of which 179 are on the Russian front. If Hitler has left only 77 divisions for garrisoning the occupied countries, fighting in Tripolitania and providing home reserves, he is scarcely in a position to launch a major offensive around the two ends of the Mediterranean.

“The moment Hitler shbws his hand, we will know reasonably accurately the extent of his resources and be able to calculate the likely duration of the war. If he chooses the central Mediterranean it will mean the war can end sooner than realistic minds had hitherto dared hope.”

DISASTER FOR GERMANY SEEN BY AFRIKA KORPS COMMANDER. IN HITLER’S ASSUMPTION OF CONTROL. • LONDON, November 21. General von Thoma, commander of the Afrika Korps, after his capture in Libya, is believed to have stated that Herr Hitler’s assumption of supreme command spells disaster for the German war machine, says the “Daily Mail’s” military correspondent. General von Thoma belongs to the professional school of German soldiers, who maintain that war is the professional soldier’s preserve, and dispute encroachment on their sphere by civilians and politicians, including Hitler and all members of the Nazi Party.

. It is also reported that von Thoma criticised Hitler’s economic policy. Members of the German High Command have so far subdued their views, but many are known to be opposed to the Russian campaign, or at least to German tactics in Russia. They now see their long-range plans wrecked by the Allies’ African stroke. It is, therefore, possible that a strain which must rapidly become intolerable has been placed on the men who are responsible for the Axis conduct of the war.