BERLIN CITY GOING DOWN IN CHAOS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 95, 23 April 1945, Page 5

BERLIN CITY GOING DOWN IN CHAOS

RUSSIANS HACKING WAY INTO CAPITAL

Two Miles From The Centre SIXTEEN SUBURBS CAPTURED, ALSO TOWNS ON OUTSKIRTS X.Z.P.A.—Copyright—Rec' 12.30 p.m. LONDON, April 22. One of the greatest concentrations of men and weapons ever assembled for storming a city is moving along Hitler's great broad motor roads into Berlin, says Reuters Moscow correspondent. At crossroads Red Army girls are calmly directing streams of Soviet tanks, guns and motorised infantry. The position to-night is that the crack Soviet assault troops, who are hacking their way into the city along the arc-shaped front, are unofficially reported to be two miles from the Unter Den Linden. Massed artillery is ceaselessly shelling this most famous Berlin street and other key targets. The Allied Air Forces in Western Germany, apparently owing to the close-up fighting, have made their last raid against the city and handed over the air bombardment of the remaining strongpoints to the Red Air Force, whose planes, flying low over the roof-tops, are keeping up their attack around the clock. Street battles are being fought amid smoke which is so dense that Russian transport drivers are switching on their headlamps in daylight. The big question to-night is whether the German leaders, amid the chaos and certain knowledge of an impending crack-up, can keep up the defenders' morale. For many of these defenders the war is over. They are being marched to prisoner cages by side roads because Soviet transport has packed the main roads. All communicating arteries which could still supply Berlin are being denied the Germans one by one, while the Red Air Force is hammering at every batch of reserves which are attempting to reach the almost beleaguered capital. The British United Press correspondent in Moscow says bare hulks of great buildings which somehow have managed to survive Allied bombings are now being crumbled to fragments by Russian gunfire, burying the suicide defenders who have pledged themselves to hold the city to the last man. The Russians, spreading fire and destruction, have levelled the eastern outskirts of Berlin, blasting a path for the infantrymen who are storming towards Alexander Platz.

BERLIN GARRISON EFFECTIVELY TRAPPED

The German positions at the main eastern entrances to the city were manned by Storm Tiroop men and police units, who are a poor match for the crack tank-borne infantry, selfpropelled guns and Cossack cavalry now ending the race which started at the Volga in February, 1943. The Russians have cut six railways and six highways radiating from Berlin to the north, east and south, the last one with Marshal Koniev's occupation of Luckow, south of the capital. The Berlin garrison is effectively trapped, with virtually all escape routes to the south cut and those still open lying in the narrow corridor in the Dresden - Leipzig area, where a link - up between the Russian and American forces is expected to take place at any moment. The Russians report the capture of 16 more suburbs in their surge toward the heart of Berlin. These reports put the Soviet forces three miles from the Unter Den Linden. Earlier reports put them two miles away. Most of the suburbs taken are in the north-east part of Berlin. Others are to the south. One report says that the Russians are approaching the Templehof aerodrome to the south of Berlin. The Red Army has also taken more towns on the outskirts of Berlin. The main Russian drives are coming on the German capital from the south and the east, but other forces have swung round to the north and are coming in on the west of the city. To-night's Soviet communique announced the capture of a number of Berlin suburbs, and stated that from Tuesday to Saturday 13,000 prisoners had been taken in the Berlin area. The communique says: "The Red Army central group to-day continued offensives in the Dresden and Berlin sectors. Our troops in the Dresden area captured Finsterwalde, Bischoeswerda, RuMand and Lubbenau, and from April 17 to 21 took prisoner 10,000 men and captured 96 planes and 105 tanks. Our troops in the Berlin sector captured the towns of Biesenthal (ten miles north-north-east of Berlin's outskirts and 21 miles northeast of the Potsdamer Plata), also Kalkberge and Kleinschoenebeck (respectively 13 and 14 miles east of the Potsdamer Plata), and Friedrichshafen (11 miles south-east or the Potsdamer Plata). Our troops captured the following Berlin suburbs: Glienicke, Leubarb, Blankenfelde, Buccholz, Blankenburg, Rosenthal, Wiesensee, Wilhelmshagen, Fichtenau, and Schoeniche. According to preliminary data we, in the Berlin area from April 17 to 21, took prisoner 13,000 men and captured 60 planes and 100 tanks, besides 500 guns. Russians north of Vienna captured 30 places. In all, 156 tanks and 56 planes were destroyed on the whole front to-day." "The suburbs of Leubarb, Blankenfelde, Buccholz and Blankenburg closely ring Berlin to the north," the communique explains. "Wilhelmshagen, Fichtenau and Schoeniche he south-east of Berlin in the Koepenick Woods. Rosenthal is five miles north of the Brandenburg Gate, on the direct road thereto."