World War: EASTERN THEATER: How Big Were the Lies?

There was a gigantic clash of arms in the Ukraine last week, and over the whole Russo-German Front a gigantic clash of words in the communiques.

The former looked like a lock of death —to which the Germans seemed to hold the key. The latter was a deadlock of inanities.

On the Desk Front. Adolf Hitler told how, on the three main fronts, his Armies had broken through, encircled and destroyed the enemy. He claimed that the Germans had captured 895,000 soldiers (killing or wounding "many times" that number), had taken or destroyed 13,145 tanks, 10,388 pieces of artillery, 9,082 aircraft.

"The German High Command reports," said a Red communique, "are Arabian fairy tales." The communique put German losses at more than 1,500,000 casualties, 6,000 tanks, 8,000 cannon, 6,000 planes; Russian losses at 600,000 casualties, 5,000 tanks, 7,000 guns, 4,000 planes.

There could be only one certain conclusion: great numbers of men on both sides had had the scrap shot out of them; and great masses of materiel had been shot into scrap.

On the Ukraine Front. "The German forces," Herr Hitler wrote at the end cf his announcement, "now stand ready to continue with a new phase of operations" —a great effort to clean up the Ukraine.

Cleaning up the Ukraine is no afternoon tea party. It comprises an area bigger than Italy, and about one-sixth of Russia's peoples live there. But Adolf Hitler must have it, must grasp its steelworks, its great Dnieper dam, its rich black dirt which pushes up abundance and covers coal and iron.

Last week his Ukraine strategy became apparent. It was his aim to encircle the Russian defenders and contain them in the great geographical sack defined by the Dniester and Dnieper Rivers and the Black Sea; there to cut them up. Wrote authoritative Dienstaus Deutschland of this ambitious undertaking: "The size of the encircled area or the time required to liquidate it is not important. What counts is that the enemy is grabbed; he can't retreat and he is destroyed."

Early results were claimed. The Germans said they had destroyed the Sixth, Twelfth and most of the Eighteenth Red Armies—about 25 divisions, perhaps 450,000 men. But the Russians still seemed to have some pepper. How much?

Assessment. The one claim to which Adolf Hitler had some right was the number of prisoners he said he had taken. He claimed 895,000 in his communiques early in the week; with the prisoners from the Ukraine, his total moved over the million mark. In the last war, the Russians had one and one half "blood casualties" (killed and wounded) for every prisoner loss in the early, mobile phases.* In last spring's Balkan campaign, the Greeks, where they fought hard (in the Struma Valley, for instance), had about three and one half blood casualties to every prisoner loss. Supposing the hard-fighting Russians to have suffered at least two blood casualties to each prisoner loss, total casualties early this week would be 3 X 1,000,000 = 3,000,000.