MOSCOW FIRES SALUTE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 88, 14 April 1945, Page 5

MOSCOW FIRES SALUTE

CITY FREED AFTER SEVEN YEARS UNDER NAZIS

N.Z.P.'A.-—Copyright—Rec.' noon -■ •' LONDON, April 13. Vienna was captured by a concerted movement of Marshal Tolbukhin's and Marshal Malinovsky's armies, freeing the popular tion of 2,000,000 seven years after German tanks, closely followed by Hitler himself, rolled into the-streets to proclaim the longpredicted anschluss. Vienna is the greatest communications centre in central Europe, controlling the transcontinental road and rail routes to Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and Austria. Vienna is the sixteenth European capital to be liberated from the Axis Powers. There now only remain The Hague, Prague, Oslo and Copenhagen. Vienna is the fifth European capital to fall to Marshal Tolbukhin's and Marshal Malinovsky's armies in the last eight months.

Vienna, although in the heart of central Europe, is a great port and the headquarters of many ships, the Danube flotilla operating the whole length of the Danube from the Black Sea right into Germany. Since the start of the Allied bombing in the west, Vienna had become an increasingly important German arsenal. Some reports suggested it had latterly been the Wehrmacht's main supply centre. It was also one of the main evacuation centres, and until recently was crammed with the families of leading Nazis, Who had moved south-eastward to be out of range of Allied bombers.