FRICTION EVIDENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 February 1943, Page 3

FRICTION EVIDENT

WIDENING DIVERGENCE OR VIEWS DISPUTE IN BERLIN. TROUBLE OVER MAN POWER DEMANDS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, February 21. The correspondent of "The Times” on the German frontier says that a widening divergence of view regarding the use of German manpower has become evident between Hitler's headquarters, supported by Nazi political circles, on the one hand, and military, industrial and economic authorities on the other. The Labour Front and the great insurance companies estimate that the total number of Germans killed, permanently disabled and taken prisoner up to December 31 was about: 4,800,000, to which are added losses in January of nearly 700,000, including the losses at Stalingrad. Military circles fear that the Red Army’s obstruction and capture of railways in Russia and the lack of petrol will force the Germans to relinquish two-thirds of the Ukraine before the end of February, which would also involve great losses. These cannot be replaced by total mobilisation, because all physically fit men have already gone to the front, and stemming the Russians is a task for hardened veterans. Some military authorities urge that recovery of the initiative by the Germans is possible only by consolidating the existing armies on the Continent and withdrawing troops from North Africa, Italy and the Ukraine provisionally to the Po River line in Italy and the Odessa-Mohilev-Riga line in the north, which alone would solve the increasingly critical scarcity of locomotives, trucks and lorries. Hitler is opposing every plan that involves abandonment of territory, fearing dangerous political reactions, the correspondent says. The military authorities maintain that unless the line is shortened there will be) a succession of defeats, specially if a second and third or more fronts are started fairly soon. Nevertheless, it is imperative in order to check the Russians that the war industries must not be disorganised by a withdrawal of skilled labour while the decrease in output must be stopped to maintain the armies.