SHORTEST ROAD TO BERLIN

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVII, Issue 23115, 1 February 1945, Page 5

SHORTEST ROAD TO BERLIN

Zhukov’s Forces Sweeping Forward

Germans Playing Their Last Card

(9 p.m.) LONDON, January 30. Marshal zhukov is on the shortest ROAD TO BERLIN, BUT THE ENTIRE FRONT IS ON THE MOVE FROM THE BALTIC TO THE DANUBE. THE MOSCOW CORRESPONDENT OF THE BRITISH UNITED PRESS SAYS THAT THIS IS HOW THE RED ARMY NEWSPAPER “RED STAR” SUMS UP THE POSITION ON THE EASTERN FRONT TO-DAY.

The correspondent adds that this is a true summary, because Marshal Zhukov’s drive is not an exploratory foray with a few tank columns. His entire army, led by tanks and followed by mobile artillery and motorised infantry, has swept into Germany over a 50-mile front across the Obra River, overwhelming in its stride the “Oder Square,” which is a vast German hedgehog extending from Schneidemuhl to Uustrin. General Guderian had two panzer and four infantry divisions waiting at the Obra River to bar Marshal Zhukov’s entry into Germany, but the Russian armed fist caught them, smashed through and drove across the Obra River to German soil.

The German High Command is playing its last card in the East. It consists of the remaining strategic raserves ’which are being rushed to the front for the defence of Berlin, and a great clash is imminent on the flat plains between the frontier and Berlin itself.

• The correspondent continues that the speed of the Red Army’s advance in the centre can be judged by the fact that Marshal Zhukov’s advance columns over-ran large numbers of German farmers who had been sent to “colonise” Posen Province after the Poles were thrown out in 1939. “They are behaving like lambs noW,” was the description the Poles gave Russia of their erstwhile German masters. The Poles also told of the exodus to Germany of German officials, shopkeepers and landlords from the Posen area as the Russians advanced. “Marshal Zhukov’s advance into Germany has produced one of the big moments in the war’s final phase,” declared Reuter’s Moscow correspondent, who adds: “Headed by the men of Moscow and Stalingrad, who time after time have thrown the Germans back, Marshal Zhukov’s avalanche is rolling forward through avenues of flaming German houses. One word ‘Berlin’ is now sounding like a drumbeat, and the Red Army shock troops are shouting it after the Germans as they chase them across German fields.”

Picked German units are trying to slow down the impetus of Marshal Zhukov’s advance. German hopes that the Pomerian Lakes would check the Russians advance have been dashed, as Marshal Zhukov’s mobile columns have used them as flank support for even deeper thrusts into enemy territory.

The correspondent points out that even at Bentschen, Marshal Zhukov is 200 miles nearer to London than Moscow.

Von Hammer, the German News Agency commentator, to-night declared that German concentrations of men and armour are being assembled for a counterblow equal in scope to the Russians' super offensive.

Von Hammer at the same time prepared the way for the announcement of further Red Army penetrations into Germany by adding that Russians from the newly-captured German bases of Driesen and Woldenburg are now feeling their way north-west toward Stettin. Von Hammer, however, said: "Of all the focal points of the fighting, the Posen area is the very centre of the Russian endeavour. Berlin continues to watch the battle of millions now raging in the East seriously and with realism." Von Hammer added: "The battle for Posen has reached a critical stage quite at the fringes of Posen. Both sides are fighting to the point of exhaustion. The Russians have brought up reserves and have increased pressure from all sides. Fighter-bombers have also been brought into action against the heart of the city, where great fires have broken out. All streets which the German garrison are defending are blocked by overturned trams, barbed wire, piles of debris and tank traps. Every single house is being contested with the greatest ferocity. The battle for Posen absorbs nearly all Russian formations following tip the tank spearheads." Obra River Crossed

Von Hammer admitted that the Russians had crossed the Obra River. He stated that tank spearheads were approaching a line between Zillichau, 45 miles south-east of Frankfurt, Schwiabus. 43 miles east of Frankfurt and Meseritz, 44 miles east of Frankfurt.

The British United Press points out that this line is 14 miles inside Germany. Von Hammer added: "Although German troops guarding the frontier engaged the enemy in very hard fighting. the crossing of the frozen Netze and Obra Rivers could not be prevented everywhere." Describing the East Prussian battle, the German News Agency commentator. von Olberg, said that a German tank column, fighting its way forward from No. 5 river bridge, restored touch with Ebling and thereby pierced the barrier between East Prussia and the corridor. German divisions are attacking all along the eastern flank of the Russian wedge. They have driven upward of 20 miles into the Russian penetration area. "This feat, combined with heavy fighting south of Ebling, is formidable evidence of the rising strength of German resistance.” Von Olberg claimed that German troops last night made a surprise thrust from the famous castle of Marienburg and recaptured a major part of the town.

The Russian offensive is definitely slowing down, said the Berlin radio commentator. Captain Dietmar. He added: "The situation is easing for German troops. The Red Army’s tank corps advance this time is far more forceful than the summer offensive of iS-4 The soeed with which the names

of captured towns appear in the news shows with bitter clearness the extreme speed of the attacks. The question of how the German High Command will master all the difficulties which are heaping themselves skyhigh is deep in our minds.. The heavy fighting in Upper Silesia is an extreme worry to us. It is unthinkable that we should be able, with only a loosely improvised Volksstrum formation to stand up to an enemy many times our superior.”

Sertorius said: “The German Command is now in a position to take strong operational reserves from the Western Front and transfer them to another theatre of operations, because of the new British and American assault would require the employment of smaller German forces than last autumn as the result of the German counter-offensive.”

West of Posen, where the position has deteriorated, the Soviet spearhead has achieved a deep breach. Heavy battles are now raging on this front, said the German News Agency, quoting a German High Command report. It added that west of Brieg the Russians gained fresh ground and the German Command ordered the necessary measures to be taken. South of Konigsberg the position has deteriorated. Mass Migration

Millions of German refugees in apparently endless columns some 30 to 40 miles long, are trekking west from the advancing Russian spearheads, said a German News Agency reporter in a broadcast over the Berlin radio.

This mass migration is still on the march to-night and covering between 20 to 25 miles a day. The first batches have already reached their destinations. These refugees set out, village by village, and try to keep together as much as possible. They vary in size from small groups comprising a few carts to giant columns, sometimes 40 miles long, straggling along with thousands of vehicles. The grim winter weather is making things very difficult for the women, children and aged persons who are walking hundreds and hundreds of miles, almost without rest. Food for the horses is extremely difficult to find and the animals grow weaker every day. The authorities are establishing food stages at road sides to make things easier for the failing columns.

Giving- no source for the information, which is unconfirmed elsewhere, the Paris radio stated that General Guderian, German Chief-of-Staff and Commander-in-C'hief on the Eastern Front, has resigned, and has left Germany.

The radio added that Hitler has appointed General Rendulic as Guderian's successor. General Rendulic until recently was Commander-in-Chief in Norway. He has always been regarded as one of Hitler’s favourites. A Stockholm report, quoted by the Moscow radio, states that industrial districts on the west bank of the Oder have been declared evacuation zones. “The first to be cleared arc Stettin, Glogau, Gruneberg and Frankfurt.” Swedish correspondents in Berlin report the German official spokesman as saying that Berlin had been declared a "fortress city,” and would be defended to the last. Among places captured by the Russians west of Posen was Stolzenberg, six miles north-east of Landsberg. Marshal Zhukov’s tank and motorised infantry columns are steadily whittling dowij 1116 mileage on a direct route to Frankfurt and Berlin and are cracking

the border defences over a wide area. An Associated Press dispatch from Moscow states that the Russians are operating along a curving front of more than 250 miles inside Germany. Reuter’s correspondent says that latest reports reaching Moscow speak of the Germans offering fanatical resistance only 48 miles in front of Frankfurt. The Red Army’s break-through has reached the Pomeranian town of Brandenburg-. It is merging' into an almost continuous front on German soil, paving the way for a general advance against Stettin, Frankfurt and Berlin, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent.