BEHIND EUROPE'S WALLS

With his new defeats in Russia and the loss of all Africa except Tunisia, Hitler may indeed go on the defensive as he promised his people last fall. And if he does so, the defensive may make him harder rather than easier to beat. He is turning his Festung Europa into a giant hedgehog with many outlying strong points.

On the south, where the Germans expect a thrust across the Mediterranean, they are building their main line of southern fortifications well back of the initial invasion area, preparing in the last resort to sacrifice Italy, Greece and southwestern Yugoslavia. The southern line, existing and abuilding, runs from the Spanish border across northern Italy to Fiume, then southeastward along the Sava valley and down a historic route of Balkan invasion -- the Vardar Valley -- to heavily defended Salonika.

On the east, where the Russians last week were within 125 miles of the old Polish border, the Germans' plans were better hidden, but London heard that the famed Todt organization was at work on an "Eastwall" extending southward from Riga, through Poland and the deep Pripet marshes, along the Carpathians, to the famed "Iron Gate" of the Danube Valley.

On the west German fortifications are being strengthened all along the coast of the Low Countries and France down to the Spanish border where the Pyrenees offer natural defensive positions. On the north the Germans have outlying bastions in Norway to protect their relatively unarmored Baltic front.

But in one sense Hitler has no wall at all -- the R.A.F. and U.S. Air Forces can carry the war at will into the heart of Germany from Britain, and in North Africa and the Mediterranean the Allies are fighting for bases which will expose German Europe to sustained air attack from the lower side as well.

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