Evening star., 1945-01-25
Black Days for Hitler

On paper at least, Germany's po-
sition looks SO bad today that new
wave of optimistic thinking among
Allied peoples can hardly be avoid
ed. The tremendous Russian of
fenSive seems to be sweeping every
thing before it. all the way from
East Prussia down across the Polish
plains into Silesia At one point,
near Poznan, the Red Army is re-
ported to be not much more than
1877 miles from Berlin, and at an
other point, to the south. it has
already crossed the Oder, the last
important natural barrier to the
heart of the Reich
Meanwhile, on the western front.
all traces of Won Rundstedt's bulge
in Belgium and Luxembourg are be-
ing wiped away. and an Associated
Press dispatch from France declares
that "momentous events" are in the
making. Presumably this means
that General Eisenhower's armies,
capitalizing upon the fact that the
Nazis have been observed shifting
huge numbers of troops from the
west to meet the titanic new threat
in the east, may be able in the very
near future to launch another great
offensive of their own, synchronizing
it with RuSsia's in an effort to
achieve Germany's final knockout in
the fastest time possible.
The military crisis thus confront
ing the Nazis can perhaps be best
visualized by thinking of Berlin in
terms of Washington In the east
the seemingly irresistible Red Army
is as close to the German capital as
Philadelphia is to this city, and in
the west General Eisenhower's Al
lied forces are no farther from the
Reich's nerve center than is Char
lotte, North Carolina, from us. Ac-
cordingly, should there be a decisive
break-through in either direction, all
of Germany would be swiftly overrun
and engulfed-a possibility now be-
coming so real and immediate that
the greatest and most hopeful of
expectations seem warranted.
There are certain factors in the
overall picture, however, that should
serve as warning signals against ex-
cessive optimism. First of all, just
as happened to our Allied armies
after the Normandy through
and the sweep across France, the
Russians may soon begin to outrun
their supplies and be forced to slow
down long enough to enable the
Nazis to regain their balance. And
second. it is worth noting that al
though the Red Army is closing
giant pincers on Is or 30 German
divisions in East Prussia, official
Moscow communiques are not yet
claiming any large prisoner bags or
enemy casualties. In other words
up to now, at any rate-only rela-
lively small part of Hitler's $50 or
200 divisions on the eastern front
"pPSoio w AldfC UCCIl llUi u, dllu DIS
long as that remains a fact, heavy
counterattacks, or a strong and des-
perate defensive stand somewhere
near the Oder, must be expected.
1t may be, of course, that the
Nazis, caught between the immense
pressures of the armies converging
upon them from the east and west,
and suffering grave new stresses and
strains on their bomb battered home
front, may already be too far gone to
delay total defeat much longer. But it
is important to remember how big
their armed forces still are and how
desperate and dangerous and re-
sourceful they have proved them
selves to be in past crises. Actually,
however hopeless their present posi-
tion and however good the news
seems to us now, the bitterest battles
of the war may yet have to be fought
before they finally go down.