HALF CITY IN RUINS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 100, 30 April 1945, Page 5

HALF CITY IN RUINS

NAZI MOVEMENT STOPPED

LONDON, April 20. 'Half of Berlin is conservatively estimated to be practically in ruins, report correspondents from Moscow. The combined air and land bombardment has virtually stopped all German movement above ground. Supplies are now being carried to the defenders through a network of cellars and basements linked up by slit trenches.

The German radio admits that the position in Berlin has deteriorated, but claims that fresh reinforcements are on their way to the capital. A Moscow correspondent says that hundreds of Germans are being trapped alive in the underground railways of Berlin as the Russians dynamite the tunnels. Battles are raging in the sewers, where the Germans' subterranean resistance points are being blown up by the Russians, who go down manholes to destroy the hidden menace. The water supply in Berlin is very low and the Russians' are bringing their own water.

The Spree and many canals are filled with floating corpses. Marshal Zhukov's men in the Berlin area yesterday killed 6000 enemy, states a Moscow supplementary communique. The German radio said that the Russians had thrown in their operational reserves in Berlin. "We have put in reserves landed from the air," added the radio.

Luxemburg radio says that 65,000 civilians are so far estimated to have been killed in Berlin.