Evening star., 1944-12-31
Russian
Continued From First Page.

Danube at noon, December 80, in
writing brought by your representa-
tives, who must ride in automobiles
bearing a white flag"
If you reject ." it concluded.
''the troops of the Red Army and
Air Force will begin operations for
the annihilation of your encircled
troops, and all responsibility for
their annihilation and also for the
destruction of Budapest and the
ruin of its inhabitants will rest on
YOU"
One Soviet officer, Moscow said,
''in spite of his clearly visible white
flag was riddled by German rifle
and machine gun fire as he drove
through the suburb of Kispest Fri
daM
simultaneously. another Russian
officer with an interpreter set off
toward the German lines from the
west bank of the Danube, also bear
ing a white flag. This officer was
taken to German headquarters, told
tilde llAo WdS lSJtCltQ
and that there would be no negotia-
tions.
Nazis Open Fire.
while this officer was on his way
back the Germans opened fire on
him and he was shot dead in the
back" Moscow said, charging the
enemy with "premediated murder
and violation of the rules of war"
The interpreter got back to Soviet
positions through sheer luck" the
announcement said.
In offering the Germans a choice
other than death the ultimatum
pointed out that the German army
was nailed down or retreating every
where on the eastern front and that
in the west the German offensive
so widely acclaimed by the Hitlerites
is flzzling out and can change
nothing in the course of the war"
Now inside the heart of the raw
aged city, once one of Europes most
beautiful capitals, the savage war
of attritjon had resumed with the
Germans battling the Russians in an
effort to delay the steady westward
movement of two Red armies toward
Austria.
Soviet front dispatches said the
fighting was extremely fierce in the
Royal Park, in Northeastern Buda-
pest, less than two miles from the
Danube and the city's center.
One German commentator, 1t.
Col. Alfred Won Olberg, admitted
that Budapest, as battle, was lost
and that the Germans only hope
"in this hell" was to take the biggest
possible toll of Russians and delay
the sweep westward toward the
southern part of the Reich.
Soviet troops, the Moscow COM
munique disclosed, already had
completed the liquidation of a
smaller German Hungarian force,
trapped in the Danube loop north
and northwest of Budapest, thus re-
leasing powerful formations for the
swelling offensive which has rolled
to within go miles of Vienna.
Both Marshals Feodor I. Tolbuk-
hin and Rodion Y. MalinovSky, COM
manders of the third and second
Ukraine Armies, signed the surren-
der ultimatum to the Germans
During the day the Russians killed
$500 Axis Troops and captured 10
factories in the western part of the
city as they dug the enemy out of
cellars and buildings, midnight
Soviet bulletin said. They captured
20 German tanks and self-propelled
guns and destroyed six and also
captured six locomotives and much
other booty, it said.
Dead Choke Streets.
Fighting over streets choked with
German dead and smashed tanks
and guns, the Russians were bay
onetting their way through walls of
Germans ordered to hold out as
long as possible.
In the southern quarter of the
city. the Russians overran Buda-
pests vital dock sectors on and
nearby Csepel Island and the Ger
mans now did not even have a single
airfield with which to supply their
dying forces, Soviet front dispatches
said.
On the Pest side of Budapest, east
of the Danube, the Russians were
fighting through the fiat, most pop
ulous sections of the capital, but in
the Buda section on the west side
of the river the going appeared to
be more difficult.
There the entrenched enemy had
the advantage of 770-foot bluffs, and
natural defensive terrain, and ap-
parently the fighting flowed around