The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-01-03
|Demoiolixed Troops Flee
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the village of PoyaslEi, on the Kiev- Warsaw railroad 12 miles from the pre?war Polish frontier. An equal gain in another 24 hours would put the Red Army pace-setters over the line.
 With captured Zhitomir Nas a turntahle, Soviet armored and motorized units bolstered by cavalry and ski troops were radiating northwesterward, westward, and southwesterward in encirclement maneuvers placing the Germans in their most critical position since Stalingrad.
 With the most important rail- roads and highways under Russian control or itnminently menaced by the onsurging troops of Vatdtin, the Nazis faced the necessity of falling back to the Bug river or the Dniester, the sole alternative being annihliation.
 German COmmunlque
 GA German conmunique said that south and southeast of Ahitomir strong Russian attacks were repulS- ed in bitter fighting and Soviet at- tempts to encircle German units west of the city were frustrated.)
 The almost complete collapse of Nazi resistance under the impact of the greatest Soviet offensive of the war indicated that Olevsk, six miles west of Poyaski and last sta ton on the iKev-Warsaw railway east of the old Polish border, al- ready was in Russian hands.
 GA Moscow broadcast reported by the federal communications conn., mission said Gen. Alfred Jodl, Adolf Hitler'S personal chief of staff, and Gen. Kurt Zeitzler, chief of the German general staff, had arrived at the headquarters of headquarters of Marshal Mannstein, commander of the Ukrainian front. The broadcast said Hitler had em- powered Jodl to remove army com- manderS from their posts if he deemed it necessary. Hitler was said to have planned to visit the front himself, but the defeat at Zhitomir made him decide to stay at home")
 Front dispatches said Soviet van guards were advancing so rapidly on the heels of the fleeing enemy that they found hot, untouched meals on tables and ovens alight in military quarters in some of the 15O towns and villages engulfed west and southwest of Kiev yesterday. Poyaski fell after a Emile Soviet advance in 24 hours.
 German demolition squads had no time to blow up bridges or fire will lages to cover their retreat and many units were abandoning all arms mad equipment, as well as their wounded, in an effort to escape the advancing Russians.
 German Marshal Fritz Erich Won MannStein rushed reserves to some points, but after a brief stand they joined their comradS in panicky flight along a 62-mile from running south from Poyaski before Poland.
 Stubborn German resistance at Berdichev, junction of the Lenin- grad -Odesss and Warsaw-O Odessa railways, temporarily slowed Soviet progress southwest toward Rumania, but an outflanking column already had captured OSyaniki, only 20 miles northeast of the Bug river and 85 miles above the former Rumanian border.
 Thrusting across the southern highway from Berdichev, the Rus sians all but isolated the garrison, leaving highways and lone railroad to the west the only routes of es- cape, and the towns fall was expect ed confidently within the next sev- eral days.
 Capture of Berdichev would re- lease substantial Soviet forces for a surge toward Rumania matching that toward Poland in striking power.
 More than 4,OO0 Germans were killed yesterday around 200-mile front west an dSouthwest of Kiev and the semi-official newspaper Pravda said German corpses liter ally were reaped along the zhitomir highway and by-roads, where one of the fiercest knots of German re- sistance was broken.
 Sixty-eight German tanks and 29 field guns destroyed and 14 tanks 12 armored caterpillar trucks, 60 guns, 58O trucks, 400 railway cars and four trains captured. A considerable number" of prisoners was taken, a communique announced.
 The Soviets also gained new ground in their four -day-old offen- Sive west and northwest of Nevel, capturing 40 additional localities some of them within 50 miles of Latvia. More than 3.0O0 Germans were killed.