TO BERLIN, 40 MILES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 31, 6 February 1945, Page 6

TO BERLIN, 40 MILES

500 MILES OF RIVER FRONT

LONDON, February 6. A Moscow communique announces that Marshal Zhukov's army has reached the Oder midway between Frankfurt and Kustrin, where it is only 40 miles from Berlin.. Other positions have been taken on the Oder south of Frankfurt. The German positions covering the Frankfurt- and Kustrin line are being rapidly reduced, and More than a hundred places fell in this sector today. Moscow announces headway in the battle to wipe out the German garrison in Poznan, where an armament factory was taken today.

; In Eas,t Prussia, Marshal Koniev has j had further successes, and continues to •mop up the peninsula. With the first stage of Marshal iZhukov's push to the Oder nearing its iend, Moscow correspondents have been 'hinting that the next' crack on the j Eastern Front may come in Silesia. The [Russians have been silent—perhaps ■ significantly—about the armies massed along the Oder, in Silesia, where the German communique says Koniev is j attacking with strong forces, and apijparently the attack has a considerable backing of armour.

Moscow reports estimate that the i Russian armies are on or threaten the fOder line for nearly 500 miles. In the ! Frankfurt and Kustrin sector, the Germans are said to have lost 24,000 in killed and prisoners in two days. Marshal Zhukov is reported to be stepping .up his attack on the right flank towards ,the Baltic, and the German comismunique reports new thrusts over a wide area extending to within 22 miles of Stettin.