The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-01-16
Interpreting
The War
By KIRKE L. SIMPSON
Associated Press War Analyst


Caught in the relentless grip of
a three-way victory squeeze fore
Swallowed at Teheran, the outer
walls of Nazidom's roofless fort
ress Europe are slowly distinteg-
rating-even before the final al
lied pressure from the west is
brought to bear.
How long German morale can
bear up under the tide of defeat
that has logged the Nazi war ma
chine ashore, afloat and in the
air for more than twelve montas
no man knows. There is no au-
thentic hint yet of an impending
internal crack-up to warrant pre-
dictions of German surrender in
/ 1914, but there is every evidence
that the supreme test will come
this year.
Beginning To Crunch
The jaws of the Russian-Allied
death trap devised at Teheran are
beginning to crunch, swiftly in the
east, slowly in the south. The air
attacks upon Germany are re-
morseless.
Russian victories since Teheran
, that have torn gaping hole in
the critical center of the Nazi east
front and threaten a million or
more German troops in the south
with enlightenment and annihila-
ton are due in part to Russian
Allied battle commitments then ex-
changed.
Since Teheran Russian leader
ship has held nothing back. Every
, available Red army resource in
men and fighting equipment is now
being expended in exact line with
Stains insistence at Teheran that
the joint objective of the strategy
evolved should be not only to win
the war, but to shorten it.
The Churchill Stain
! agreement upon that has been re-
Elected in more than words. 1t is
shown clearly in about winter use
of Russian reserves which have
shattered Nazi hopes of a winter
stand in the east.
What actually has happened to
the Nazi front in Russia grimly
refutes every Berlin attempt to
picture an orderly falling back to
i conserve man power and wear out
Russian offensive capacity by a
flexible, yielding defense.
The fact is that the already over
extended German front in Russia
from the Baltic to the Black Sea
has been extended further by Rus
sian successes west of the Dnieper.
Long Front
Laid out on the battleline con-
tours, the battered, weary, defeat
haunted Nazi army in the east,
even ignoring its trapped elements
in the Crimea, is attempting to
hold front nearly 1000 miles
long as compared to the short front
hoped for in retreat to the Len
ingrad-Dnieper line from the Vol
ga.
The Nazi perimeter of the ever
expanding and deadly Kiev bulge
has added many miles of front
for the Germans to guard. The
clear evience is that neither that
extended German front in the cen.
ter nor the southern or northern
flanks are secure anywhere
against the weight of striking pow
er the Russians can concentrate
at any point.
German armies are still intact.
it is true. The Russians have not
yet closed any major trap like
that at Stalingrad upon any con-
siderable number of Nazi troops
in the Dnieper Bend or elsewhere
except in the Crimea. Yet they
have used their overwhelming pre-
pondrance in manpower effec-
| lively to stretch the German front
dangerously thin along the whole
line from the Baltic to the Black
Sea.
simultaneously, the Allied cross
channel air attack on Germany.
the invasion coast and its hinter-
land has depleted greatly the Nazi
air power in the east at the mo-
ment it is most vitality needed
against the Russian juggernaut.