WEES CROWD INTO KONIGSBERG

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 29, 3 February 1945, Page 5

WEES CROWD INTO KONIGSBERG

BLIZZMD OF SHELLS

Russians Preparing To

Storm City

N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 2 p.m. LONDON, Feb. 2

. Front-line correspondents, reporting street fighting In the southern part of Konigsberg, say it is estimated- that 200,000 civilian refugees nave, crowded into Konigsberg, the normal population of which is just under 370,000. They are now trapped with the garrison under a blizzard- of shells and bombs.

Reuters- Moscow correspondent says the latest messages from the Konigsberg front indicate that the Russians are preparing to storm the city from all sides. German attempts to break out of the city into the area of the main East Prussian encirclement have been repelled at all points. The battlefield northwesf of Allenstein, in the main German pocket, has become a "white hell" for the Germans as they hurl massed tank formations against the ever.-tightening Russian ring in blinding snowstorms and numbing cold.

Reuters correspondent points out that the elimination of Torun has released considerable Russian forces for a drive along- the Vistula towards Danzig. Brussels radio to-night reported that ■ the Red Army has reached a point six and a half miles from the -bay of . Danzig in the Konigsberg area. , The capture of Domnau, Schippenbeil and Guttstadt, in Central East Prussia, shows that the Russians are gradually tightening the ring around the 20 German divisions who are pressed against the Baltic shore.