IN IRON GRIP

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21697, 26 April 1945, Page 5

IN IRON GRIP

BERLIN’S END NEAR

RUSSIANS’ FURY VAST AREAS IN FLAMES

SLAVE WORKERS' REVOLT (11. a.m.) LONDON. April 25. “All Berlin is now clutched in an iron grip of the Red Army," stated the Moscow radio. "The end of the death struggle of Berlin, Hitler and Germany is at hand." Correspon,dents report that the weight of Russian fire is increasing against vital districts. The Russians and Poles in Berlin hold 27 suburbs and eight electric railway stations. Whole streets in Berlin have been reduced to a mass of wreckage after the most savage hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets and tommy-guns, says Reuter’s correspondent in Moscow.

The guns of Russian forces holding the last main roads to Berlin are under fire. Russian pilots report that new large fires are raging in Berlin. All roads to the capital are crowded with traffic. Apparently reinforcemehts are moving in.

A Russian correspondent, describing the fighting, says that German anti-tank guns and machine-guns are firing from basement windows and special embrasures in the wails of brick buildings. German soldiers With grenades are ambushing Russian tanks. All the streets and squares are mined. The Germans dre launching continuous counterattacks, but the Russians are fighting with unparalleled fury, knowing that victory is in sight.

The war correspondent of the Moscow paper Izvestia reports that the centre of the city is an inferno. White flags are becoming more numerous.

Eye-witnesses in Berlin report that fierce fighting is raging in underground stations and tunnels. The Germans are attempting to send special Tommy-gun squads underground through the Russian lines to disrupt the communications. Moscow correspondents states there is chaos in several areas of Berlin where foreign slave workers and antiHazi Germans are fighting storm troopers and members of the Gestapo. The Tunes’ correspondent in Moscow says that as the Red Army tanks grind through Berlin the foreign workers, after long enslavement, pour out from alleys to greet the Russian soldiers.. German civilians, also driven by the terror of the hell of central Berlin, rush towards the oncoming Russians. Hitler’s passion for road-building again served his enemies better than his own armies because it is on the Abroad highways from Malcow to Teltow that heavy German artillery and the majority of Berlin’s dual-pur-pose anti-aircraft guns are placed, and once the Russians had a foothold on the highway they were able to swing around it and eliminate battery after battery with flanking fire. The Hamburg radio, giving what it described as the latest developments on the Berlin front said: “Strong Russian tank forces have broken into the Frankfurter Allee, running into the city from the east. Foreigners near the Silesian station near Berlin’s biggest terminal, fortified themselves in blockhouses and ran ud the Red fi 'g. Members of the Volkssturm and Hitler Youth fought a pitched battle and overcame them. The Russian captured the Plaza cinema and also the Berlinerplatz. The whole of the district is in flames.