CENTRE OF BERLIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 50, 28 February 1945, Page 5

CENTRE OF BERLIN

COMPLETELY WRECKED

Rec. 10.30 a.m. LONDON, February 27. The centre of Berlin is completely wrecked following yesterday's record daylight raid, writes the Berlin correspondent of a Stockholm newspaper. He adds that the whole district round the main objectives—the Schleisischer railway station and the Alexander Platz and the Berlin north station—has been blown to bits by a hurricane of bombs.

It is impossible to state the number of casualties, but they are believed to be tens of thousands. The effectiveness of the attack was increased because Berlin's ground defences were almost non-existent, it is believed, because of a shortage of ammunition following the loss of the Silesian factories.

Berliners received an early warning and hurried to their shelters, but the subsequent destruction of many of these greatly swelled the death roll. In the conflagration which enveloped the city within a few minutes many were trapped by tank barriers, trenches, and barbed wire constructed as defences against the anticipated Russian assault. These also interfered with rescue work, while the damage in many places was not the result of bombing but of the mines laid against the Russians. One exploding ammunition dump killed 300 persons. EFFORT AT SALVAGE. Immediately after the raid thousands of men of the Volkssturm were rushed ,to the goods yards in an effort to salvage stores which were brought into the city as part of Berlin's preparations for a siege, but it is thought that these were almost completely destroyed. Berliners who have lived through all the raids on the city say they have never experienced anything like the scenes when a blockbuster crashed through the thick concrete roof of a shelter in the Alexander Platz, killing 4000 people, mostly women and children. The Gestapo is still worried about the large number of incendiary strips dropped by Allied planes and intended for foreign workers for sabotage. Berlin was still burning at noon today. Whole districts have been evacuated because it is impossible to breath.in the smoke without special 'apparatus.