Evening star., 1945-03-10
WeII-Nioh IntoIerubIe'

Although the Nazi radio, having
lied SO often in the past, must always
be held suspect, it sounds almost
truthful when it reports that Cen
eral Heinz Guderian, chief of staff of
the German Army, has just openly
admitted that Allied pressure from
the east and west has become well
nigh intolerable."
Possibly DR.. Goebbels' ninions
have broadcast this report in a sly
effort to lull us into a false sense of
security. Yet it is certainly true that
General Guderian and the entire
Nazi high command have ample rea-
son to feel at least measure OF
despair over the course of events.
For there are no walls around Ger
many any moreno walls around it
and no roof over it-and it's food
resources, its manpower, it's industry,
its morale, its capacity to resist, are
all in varying stages of deterioration,
some to the point of crisis and
collapse.
Germany has had many black
weeks in the past year or two, but
this week has been the blackest by
far. In the east, the Russians have
smashed forward in a mighty new
attack across the Middle Oder to
points almost within artillery range
of Berlin. And more momentous still,
in the west, the Rhine has not only
been reached by General Eisen-
hoWer's forces but has been spanned
as we'll. The American First Army's
epic capture of the bridge at Rema-
gen-only ten minutes before the
Nazis were to blow it up-has. in
fact, so changed the overall mill
tary situation that the war in Europe
may we'll have been shortened by
months.
Now there is an ver-growing
bridgehead on the east bank of the
great river, and the power to exploit
this, together with other bridge
heads yet to be established. is avail
able in immense quantities. A whole
new American Army, the American
18th, has just been thrown into ac-
ton, and the British Second, which
has been significantly inactive for
some weeks, is undoubtedly poised
somewhere for an important thrust.
All told, apart from the tremendous
Red Army in the east. the battered
German Army - which in some
places appears to be bewildered and
disorganized - faces no fewer than
nine American and Allied armies in
the west. And all the while, as city
after city falls in the Reich, our air
power keeps hammering away with
an unprecedented fury that knows
no letup.
If in these circumstances General
Guderian feels that Germany's posi-
ton has become 'Well-nigh intoler-
able" who can blame him? The
most dull-witted citizen of the Reich
must see how bad the situation is
and must sense that further resist
ance, even though it may protract
the struggle for little while, can no
more prevent our inevitable victory
than mans hand can dam up the
heaving sea. There is a vast and
terrible futility now in the Nazi VOW
to keep on fighting to the last breath
"a Gotterdammerung madness that
can serve only to carry out Hitler's
reported threat not to surrender
Germany to us until it has BEEN
burned and pulverized into a place
Of ruins, stone heaps, rats. epi-
denies. hunger and death"
But like many other of the Fuehrer's
lurid and fevered resolves. this one
too may be frustrated. for our armies
are moving fast and the end may
come before he has chance to make
the "well-nigh intolerable" any more
intolerable than it is already.