SIXTEEN BERLIN SUBURBS FALL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 96, 24 April 1945, Page 5

SIXTEEN BERLIN SUBURBS FALL

BRITISH BEGIN FINAL ASSAULT ON BREMEN RUSSIAN AND AMERICAN TROOPS HAVE PROBABLY UNKED-UP Recd. 1 1.1 5 p.m. London, April 23. Sixteen suburbs of Berlin have been captured by the Russians, and generals of the Red Army are now d irecting their operations against the Reich capital from air raid shelters within Berlin itself. The Russians hold suburban areas around the capital in an arc extending from the north-east to the south-west. Spearheads are attacking the Templehof aerodrome, due south of the central portion of the city. German sources say that the Russians and Germans are engaged in fierce hand-to-hand fighting within two miles of the famous Brandenburg gate in the centre of the city. While the battle for the city rages with unabated fury, the British 2nd. Army (General Dempsey) has begun an all-out assault on the great inland port of Bremen.

So far, the Russians and Americans have not linked up south of Berlin. but strange movement has been reported by the Americans, and is believed to be Russian forces moving in for the contact, which both the Ist. and 9th. Armies have been warned to expect. When the link-up does take place it will not be spearheads, but very strong forces will have been established right across the Reich from east to west, closing completely the corridor through which the German forces have been moving of late southward, toward Hitler’s so-called Bavarian stronghold.

Correspondents predict that the link-up will take place north-east of Leipzig.

The attack on Bremen was followed by a call by General Dempsey to the German commander and his garrison to surrender. This demand was fired over in shells on Friday. The Germans spurned the request. They were again given an opportunity when British troops took a railway station nearer the heart of the city. A telephone eall was put through from there, but again the answer was in the negative.

The Germans had been warned what refusal would mean, and within a short time over came British heavy bombers to blast the city. Bombers attacked the city again last night, and are out again to-day. Meanwhile, the ground forces have gone into action on a full scale. Correspondents speak of Berlin as a city of crumbling ruins, in which fires blaze as the guns of the Bed Army thunder shells into the heart of the capital. Dessau, on the west bank of the Elbe, has been cleared. There is no fresh news of the fighting in the Juterbog area, between Berlin and the Elbe.

One of the greatest concentrations of men ana weapons ever assembled for the storming of a city is moving along Hitler’s great, broad motor roads into Berlin, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. At crossroads Red Army girls are calmly directing streams of Soviet tanks and motorised infantry. The position last night wa* that, crack Soviet assault troops hacking their way into the city alondg an arc-shaper’ front, were unofiic.ally reported two miles fram the Uni er den Linden. Massed artillery was ceaselessly shelling this most famous Berlin street a a other key targets. The Allied air forces, apparently owing to the close fighting, have made their last raid against the city and have handed over the bombardment of remaining strongpoints to the Red Air Foice, whose planes, flying low over the rooftops, are keeping up an attack around the clock. Street battles are being fought amid smoke so dense that Russian transport drivers are switching on their headlamps in the daytime. The big question last right was whether the German leaders, amid the choas and certain knowledge oi an impending crack-up. would keen up the defenders' morale. For many of these defenders the war is over, and they are being marched to prison cages hy side roads, because Soviet transport has packed the main roads. All communication arteries which could still supply Berlin are be : ng denied the Germans. Ono by one the Red Air Force is hammering at every batch of reserves which is attempting reach the almost beleagurcd capiThe first uncensored report to reach Stockholm from Berlin during the war came through before the tele-

phone lines were cut off. says the British United Press Stockheim correspondent. Swedish correspondent.; tried to find censors in Berlin, but they had either fled, or the censorship organisation had been knocked out by Russian gunfire, so the reporters phoned Stockholm and got their reports through uncensored. Here is a story telephoned by Ivar Westerland to the “The fall of Berlin is expected in a few days, possiblly a few hours. Hundreds of thousands of Berlin people are massing outside shelters, awaiting the official a.ert allowin;: them to enter. They have reached the stage of utter exhau tion after nights of mtinuous raids, when hundreds hai n spend six to seven hours standing i dark shelters too crowded for sit-

in another message the correspondent said: “I saw scenes so horrible when the first shells fell that they cannot be described. Men and women, wild and hysterical, squeezed wounded soldiers from underground trains. Russian slave workers fled from S.S. guards and endless streams of refugees began to pour westward when they learned that the Russians were encircling the capital.” MUCH CHAOS Other correspondents said that Berlin's civilian population was in a state of complete chaos. They feared hunger and also the Russians. Many asked why the Americans were not advancing faster to save them from the Russians. A traveller from Berlin stated that the civil administration had completely broken down. Food was so scarce that 20 shops might be visited before getting a single potato. A German radio transmitter calling itself the ‘‘Werewolf Station,” yesterday appealed to Berliners to defend the capital. It said: “Remember there may be some sub-humans among you who see their big chance in the reign of Bolshevism. Hit these people over the head, or bump them off. Put them against wails without bothering about trials.” The British United Press Moscow correspondent says that the bare hulks of great buildings which somehow managed to survive the Allied bombings are now being crumpled to fragments by Russian gunfire, burying suicide defenders pledged to hold the city to the last man. The Russians spreading lire and desruction have levelled the eastern outskirts, blasting a path for infantrymen storming towards Alexander-Platz. German positions at the main eastern entrances of the city were manned by S.S. men and police units, who were a poor match for crack tank-borne infantry, self-propelled guns and Cossack cavl airy, now ending the race started at the Volga in February, 1943. The Russians have cut six railways and six highways radiating from Berlin to the north-east and south, the last one with Marshal Kornev's occupation of Luckow, south of the capital. The Berlin garrison is effectively trapped with virtually ail the escape routes to the south cut, and those still open lying in a narrow corridor in the Dresden-Leipzig area, where a link-up between the Russian and American forces is expected at I any moment, if it has not taken place. Only a negligible corridor sepal ates I Marshal Koniev’s forces storming into | Dresden from General Pation’s spearheads in the Chemnitz area, which will slice the German remnants .militarily be ides geographically, into two. • A second junction beween the east [and west fronts is expected north of Beilin between Stendant and Oranienburg, which would isolate the whole of northern Germany. The Russians in this area are driving,a wedge 18 miles broad into the German lines and have already smashed across Ihe main railway from Berlin to Stettin. Marshal Mannovsky’s men, far to the south, are pressing along both sides of the Austro-Czech frontier and are within 30 miles of the big motor road leading to Prague. I RUSSIAN COMMUNIQUE. A Russian supplementary communique says: “The German High Command in the Berlin rector, in an attempt to bar the Red Army’s advance, has thrown in all available troops. M*#tary schools in Berlin are suspended and students and staff .ent 'to Ihe front. Anti-aircraft guns in the capital are being used as anti-tank guns. “The Russians, after clearing a tram depot pnd power station in the suburb