Show NEWS I 1 w 0 REM w t THELON by PAUL MALLON released by Western N newspaper union eisenhower TO REPORT WHEN PEACE COMES washington the peace rumors have been coming from nearly every place except the spot that matters inside germany the widest spread expectation can be traced to a misunderstanding of newsmen from a white house order word was passed to them from those august portals to stand by for an important announcement the newsmen figured it must be a peace offer when no announcement was issued they deduced the warning r night might have related to the peace offer reported out of paris by INS upon which the white house decided not to comment in the end when the peace news does break eventually it is not likely to come from the white house but from general Elsen Eisen howers headquarters and there will be no possibility of doubting its authenticity arrangements to that effect have been made the surrender will be military in all probability and made to him rather than through berlin wash ington political channels and he is empowered to announce it As for the peace offer it was simply a bid to get us to sell out the russians and therefore could not lot be bd seriously considered the other rumors in general have sprung from financial authorities in new york and were largely inquiries i designed to sound out the administration FACING destruction the germans of course are facing complete destruction of their entire country if anyone with any common sense could get into authority the germans would decide to save themselves the rest of the fight but an all our inner reports from germany suggest the people are phlegmatic and in a mood to take whatever comes from anyone they have been beaten into complete docility by years under hitler the soldiers have shown an increasing aptitude for surrendering since their bulge in belgium was broken after the professional soldiers retired behind the rhine to prepare for the spring campaign the left alone at the front have not fought well but no collapse in morale has been apparent yet and the army as a whole is still tough events up to the rhine and across the remagen bridgehead have hav e of course merely been leading toward a greater full scale assault even the brilliant patton patch encirclement of the rich industrial is merely preliminary neither was the collapse of the ludendorf Lud endorf bridge an impediment to our further advance we had three other bridges set up and working actually before the announcement of the collapse was given out EARLY NEED SHOWN for our big scale offensive however we will need at least two or three other bridgeheads established in the north the best fighting route to berlin is across the northern plains ahead of us in the remagen demag en area is difficult hilly country of volcanic origin and of little use except for nazi defense but ahead of us in the north is the industrial ruhr and thickly settled communities vital to sustenance of the german effort it is being commonly reported our strategy will be to effect a junction with the russians russian S south of berlin rather than heading directly toward the capital to do that we will have to break through the nazi defenses with a roving armored column our immediate strategy no dou doubt bt will be to develop spearheads spear heads across the rhine switching our power from one to the other as the russians do to fin find d the weaker resistance si stance rather than taking a fix fixed ed route it will not be necessary to take hamburg and the northern coastline although if we could land a force there in the rear of the german defense line they could be dealt a crushing blow the russians also have been mopping up reducing pockets in their rear knocking out a lot of german forces therein and drawing up their power to the oder river as we are to the rhine both are threatening to cross at any point when that movement starts you will know the u le final drive is on |