BATTLE FOR BERLIN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 28 April 1945, Page 5

BATTLE FOR BERLIN

RUSSIANS CLOSE TO HEART OF CITY FRANTIC RESISTANT £ BY STORMTROOPERS , London, April 27. The Russians are now so close to the heart of Berlin that they have constantly to depress their guns jo avoid shelling their own forces closing in from the other side reports the correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain.# They are firing down some thoroughfares over open' sights. Flamethrowers are in action throughout the city. The whole of Berlin has become a stony desert swept by Sahara-like winds, hot with flames from burning streets and charged so thickly with brick and cement dust and smoke that Russian stormtroopers have to use torches even at noon. There are almost no buildings left in which to place the wounded, many lying unattended in the streets. Berlin in its eleventh hour has become a city of horror. The Red Army has broken into Moablt, a working-class district adjoining the Tiergarten at the eastern end of which lie all the main Government offices, including Hitler's Chancellery. Correspondents in Moscow report that the most advanced elements are under 1000 yards from the Tiergarten. The Russians are developing a threepronged «drive south of the River Spree to cut central Berlin into segments. When the drives meet central Berlin will be divided into small pockets and only mopping -up will have to be completed. The largest prison in Berlin is located in Moabit.

German stormtroopers are compressed in an area nine miles long and seven wide in the centre of Berlin, says the correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain. They are putting up frantic resistance as Russian artillery concentrates its fire on the streets leading to the Wilhelmstrasse, the Unter den Linden and the Tiergarten, where lies the core of German resistance.