Russians Close to Centre

Evening Star, Issue 25470, 28 April 1945, Page 7

Russians Close to Centre

Bulk of Fanatics Dead

Capital a Charnel House

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright

(Beo. U. 50 a.m.) LONDON, April 27. The firmness of the Russians' grip on the Berlin area is shown by Marshal Stalin's latest order of the day announcinjs the capture of Spandau', nine miles north-west of the Potsdamerplatz, Potsdam, 15 miles south-west of the Potsdamerplatz, and Rathenow, on the east bank of the Havel River, 45 miles west of Berlin's centre. These captures are described as important road junctions and powerful bases of the German defences. Keuter's Moscow correspondent says the Red army's adoption of the stab-to-the-heart policy for Berlin, aiming straight for the eentre of the capital and leaving pockets in the rear to be cleaned up later, has brought great results. It has swiftly led to a position where one more Russian break-through in force to the , .Unter Der Linden will mean the virtual collapse of the German defence. x -

Already the only remaining German troops who show any semblance of a battleline are those fighting with their backs to the Tiergarten, west of Unter Den Linden. Elsewhere front and rear have become hopelessly intermingled. More and more Eed army troops, tanks, and guns are being concentrated on the forward bases in streets and squares for a general assault against the capital's centre. Zhukov's and Koniev's men, infiltrating through the debriscovered streets with the air acrid with smoke and dust, have closed the ring around the most vital Berlin areas, except for a small gap in the Charlottenburg sector. ,

The British United Press correspondent, quoting the latest frontline reports, states that the Red army is fighting in practically every part of Berlin except the small circle drawn around the Unter Den Linden. The Russians, however, only partly hold many districts, because of a trick which it was feared the Germans would use when the situation became really desperate—the use of hostages. The Germans are keep* ing groups of as many as 200 Ukrainian and White Russian slave workers on the upper floors of buildings so that the Russian sappers won't blow them up.