Monday, 31 January

Warm, sun

Military Attaché Guo Dequan said in the past few days that he had talked to the British, American, Canadian and other Military Attachés with regard to the war between Germany and the Soviet Union. They personally thought that the German army did not retreat completely from Leningrad, because the Soviet Union announced that they only captured several thousand rifles, but they said that the German army casualties were several tens of thousands. It seemed to be unreasonable. They reckoned the German army still maintained considerable strength. Probably the German army will retreat to a line further backward, from Narva via Peipus Lake then straight to Sarny, and go East from Vinnitsa to Nikolaev, with the hope they can spare a little more effort to cope with the British and American invading armies. Anyway, I thought that the Soviet army will certainly increase its strength on that side, and Germany will be forced to retreat. The encirclement of the Soviet Union’s old capital for two years has been eased, and this is surely the biggest victory for the Soviet Union. So the day before yesterday there were celebratory gun salutes in Leningrad. At the same time this has very serious political influences on Finland. If the Soviet army advances further and reoccupies Estonia, Finland will become isolated. It cannot stand alone further, and the Axis powers would lose one more country. Probably what perplexes Hitler is if the Front line is not curtailed, then its military power will be unable to cover it, and if curtained, the German army will retreat from the North and Finland will be lost. If it retreats from the South, it will affect various vassal states in the Balkans. Politically speaking they are very important. So he can only wait to be defeated. No wonder his recent speeches never mention Germany, but only murmur sorrowfully.