NAZI INDUSTRIAL AREA CLEANED UP

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 70, 23 March 1945, Page 5

NAZI INDUSTRIAL AREA CLEANED UP

VITAL WAR FACTORIES Koniev's Drive Deep Into Upper Silesia N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 12.30 p.m. LONDON, March 22. Marshal Koniev's drive cleans up a corner of Upper Silesia where mines and industries are situated, and also consolidates his left flank, which is now based on the Sudeten mountains (Neustadt lies on the foothills), and strengthens his position as regards the Morava Gap into Czechoslovakia, states Reuters military correspondent. His thrust has given him a number of places along the railway which, from Katonice, cuts across the southern tip of Upper Silesia. Moscow radio emphasised that the Soviet offensive in Upper Silesia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary was threatening the Germans' largest munitions concerns—the Hermann Goering works, which are situated in Austria and Czechoslovakia. The Times Moscow correspondent says that by dawn this morning the Germans had been driven to within four miles of Frisches Haff, in the Konigsberg sector, everywhere along a 12 to 15-mile strip of East Prussian soil.. Soviet planes all day yesterday were over this tiny patch. They bombed and strafed Heiligenbeil and the wharves on Frisches Haff. Soviet tanks and infantry, advancing in small detachments across the flooded countryside, met violent resistance at some points. One German garrison, rejecting a demand for capitulation, fought until not a man was left alive or uninjured. / Soviet Communique Troops of the Third Ukrainian Command continued to fight for the destruction of the encircled enemy in the area of Heiligenbeil, says the Russian communique. occupied a number of inhabited places, and in this area yesterday took over 800 prisoners. Troops continuing the offensive in Danzig direction occupied several inhabited places, and in this area yesterday tcok 500 prisonIn Czechoslovakia, north-east and east of Zvolen, troops operating in wooded, mountainous territory of the Carpathians took over 40 inhabited places. The Germans in the area of the lower reaches cf the River Drava, north-west of Orasje, forced the river at two places and attempted to extend their bridgeheads. Bulgarian and Yugoslav troops fighting with Soviet forces routed German units which crossed the river in a determined counter-attack and threw back the remnants to the southern bank of the Drava. Yesterday along the front we destroyed or disabled 89 tanks and self-propelled guns and shot down 51 planes, besides taking 15,000 prisoners. The Germans over 30,000 killed. ' . . Troops of the First' Ukrainian Front in this offensive also took 57 tanks and self-propelled guns, over 1000 machine-guns, over 13,000 rifles, 3000 lorries, 27 locomotives, 1520 railway trucks, 5000 horses, 75 ammuntion dumps and 21 planes.