THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW THE gigantic European fortress, built by the once unconquerable legions of Nazi Germany, was falling apart this week in the grip of one of the most powerful pincers movements in...
...Further north, the Russian offensive continued to hammer at the hapless Germans between Warsaw and East Prussia...
...Paris, the symbol of Nazi conquest at its zenith, was freed of four years of German domination, after a bitter fight within the city itself between French underground forces and the Nazi occupation troops...
...Gen...
...Commentators, acknowledging that the fanatic Nazi leadership was determined to fight to the bitter end, found the greatest obstacle to complete German surrender in the fact that the Allies had failed to offer peace terms that would rally a substantial and responsible element of the anti-Nazi forces within Germany...
...A puppet regime, opposing the new pro-Allied government of King Michael, was formed in Rumania...
...Charles de Gaulle was back in the French capital preparing to eject a new French government on the ruins of the rapidly disintegrating regime of Marshal Henri Petain...
...He was also reported to have told the Prime Minister that although the Catholic church has no objections to punishment for the war criminals, lie hoped that such punishment would not be inflicted on Italy and asked that Italy's status be changed from a conquered nation to a full ally...
...A Bulgarian declaration of war against Germany was considered imminent...
...Events in the Pacific were dominated this week by more raids on the Japanese homeland by the Army's long range bombers, the B-29's, and by a report that the enemy had launched a new drive on the mainland to rid Honan Province of all Chinese resistance...
...Bulgaria, too, had been offered terms by the Allies and reports from Ankara told of fighting between Bulgarian and German troops as the latter sought to withdraw...
...The Seine River, from Paris to the sea, was in Allied hands and hard-hitting tank units were already battering their way northward to the Nazi robot coastline...
...There were rumblings in Hungary, too, and German officials were reported to be striving desperately to bolster the wavering Regent Nicholas Horthy...
...Some reports claimed that plans called for a partition of Germany with each Allied nation occupying a separate part...
...In Finland, where there were signs of new peace activity on the part of Finnish officials, the Germans had launched a propaganda campaign to the effect that they were giving up France to the Anglo-American forces in order to launch a powerful offensive against Russia...
...Some indication of the turmoil in the Balkans could be seen in the reports that while some Rumanian troops were still fighting alongside their former German allies, others had turned on the Germans, while still others were marching against Hungary in a hasty grab for the disputed lands of Transylvania...
...In a speech to the wildly cheering Parisians, the French leader pledged that France would take her place again among the great nations of the world and asserted that French troops would not be satisfied with driving the enemy from French soil but would invade and occupy Germany...
...At the conclusion of a triumphant tour throughout the liberated city the Kansas-born American told the rejoicing people of Paris, "I have come to pay the tribute of the Allied forces to the indomitable spirit of Paris," As Eisenhower spoke his armies continued to roll ahead in spectacular gains which brought into the news such historic battlegrounds of the last war as the Marne, the Somme, Chateau Thierry, Reims, and a host of others...
...The usually cautious Eisenhower himself proclaimed in an order of the day that the annihilating blows struck at the German 7th Army had decided the battle of France...
...See map...
...Churchill And Pope Confer In Rome, biggest news of the week was made by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Pope Pius XII who met to discuss the terms of the Em-oripnn wace and the future of Italy...
...Dwight D. Eisenhower and his Allied staff...
...The Allies themselves seemed to have found no substantial agreement on how it was to be carried out...
...THE WAR IN REVIEW THE gigantic European fortress, built by the once unconquerable legions of Nazi Germany, was falling apart this week in the grip of one of the most powerful pincers movements in all history...
...The German position seemed so desperate that the press was already breaking out with speculative articles concerning the problems of surrender and occupation...
...The United Press reported that the Pope had urged Churchill to take into consideration the principle of nationalities on the thesis that nationalities do not die...
...From all fronts came reports of spectacular Allied victories...
...An indication of the enormous complexities of total occupation, such as President Roosevelt has demanded, was given to the American people by dope stories dealing with the subject...
...All political parties, in Hungary were outlawed in the desperate hope that intrigue to take the country out of the war could be thwarted...
...He expressed his aim of uniting all Italian Catholics into one political party, according to the United Press...
...A new cabinet, made up of representatives of Rumania's four leading political groups, immediately declared war on Germany...
...But the old tricks which worked so successfully for Hitler in the days of German victory no longer held their magic...
...Meanwhile, both German and Allied planes were bombing the Rumanian capital of Bucharest...
...Invasion forces in the south had swept north to the Swiss border, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy and threatening to cut off his position in southwestern France...
...Turmoil In The Balkans The eastern jaw of the pincers this week cracked open the Balkans...
...Most experts agreed that the German grip on France had been broken and that the badly mauled German armies could do nothing more than fight delaying actions as they made their way back into the Reich itself for a last ditch stand...
...As American, British, and Canadian forces smashed eastward in France toward the borders of the Reich itself, the mighty armies of Soviet Russia poured westward into the Balkan satellites to shatter the German unity built in that area in the early years of the war...
...Old Battlegrounds In The News De Gaulle was followed into Paris by Gen...
...Berlin tried frantically to salvage something from its crumbling outposts in the Balkans...
...Forcing the Nazi-held passes in the Carpathian mountains, the Red Army drove into the heart of Rumania, causing the collapse of .the regime of German collaborator, Premier Ion Antonescu...
Vol. 8 • September 1944 • No. 36
