Evening star., 1945-04-10
Red Forces Head
For Linkup With
Allies in West
Ey the Asss ciated Press.

day for Munich and Prague and
a linkup with the Allies in the
west as Soviet storm units within
the Austrian capital battled the
Germans for the last few blocks
of the city.
Moscow radio sail "the fall of
Vienna is imminent
Far to the north. other Russian
troops along the Baltic coast had
captured the East Prussian capital
of Koenigsberg after massive 33-
hour barrage had softened three
lines of Notifications surrounding
that cradle of Prussian militarism
The seizure of Koenigsberg was
hailed in the Russian press as one
Of the great victories of the war,
comparable to the preaching of the
Siegfried Line in the west.
A Moscow dispatch said Marshal
Feodor I. Tolbukhin's Sd Ukrainian
Army was making startling prog
ress" in IT'S drive west of Vienna
toward Linz and Munich. The
army's exact position was not given,
however, since the Germans in many
sectors were unaware of the scope
of the Russian advance.
Below Vienna another wing of
Tolbukhins army had thrust within
1873 miles of Adolf Hitler's mountain
retreat at Berchtesgaden.
Danube Crossings Reported.
Moscow dispatches reported that
Tolbukhin's forces had crossed the
Danube Immediately northwest of
Vienna near NuzSdorf and were be-
lieved to have gotten across about
II miles farther up stream in the
vicinity Of Tulln. Neither crossing
has been officially confirmed by the
Soviet high command.
The one at Nuzsdorf constitutes
part of the operation by the I'd and
Sd Ukrainian Armies to close the
l7-mile escape avenue out of the
Austrian capital The crossing at
Tulln apparently was aimed at
Prague, l39 miles away.
While the Berlin radio claimed
the Germans still were opposing the
Russians with wild stubbornness"
in Vienna. Moscow dispatches pic
tured the carved-up Nazi garrison
as a "disorganized mob fighting to
escape from the city,
BY enemy account the Russians
now have entered the world-famed
Prater, the big amusement park
which lies in the southeastern part
of the smoking city between the
Danube River and the Danube
Canal
Heart of Vienna Overrun.
Moscow announced that the inner
heart of the Austrian capital had
been overrun. Soviet infantry and
tanks, driving from the west, broke
across the famous Ringstrasse in
Vienna's 2,000-year-old center late
last night and captured such struc-
lures as the Town Hall, Parliament
buildings, Opera House and Central
Police Headquarters.
Marshal Rodion Y. Malinovsky's
I'd Ukrainian Army swarmed across
the battered Aspern Airport,
on the north side of the Danube,
thus denying the Germans any hope
of escape by air.
Malinovsky's columns then turned
north and battled German tanks
and self-propelled guns in Vienna S
suburbs of Flordisdorf and Jedlersee
through which runs the highway to
the Czechoslovak city of Bruenn.
The right wing of the I'd Ukrainian
Army was 38 miles southeast of
Bruenn.
The Germans fought to the death
behind street barricades in Vienna.
Only 1,700 Nazis surrendered in
night and daylong fighting.
Panic swept the city, Moscow &C
counts said.
A Soviet front dispatch said Nazi
Storm Troopers, seeking to quell a
disorder, had fired on throngs of
hungry housewives.
KOenigsberg Victory Hailed.
Referring to the Koenigsberg VIC
tory, the Russian Army newspaper
Red Star declared editorially:
For almost seven centuries this
bandit town has stood on the Baltic
ravaging and running the tribes of
Lithuania.
From now on and forever, East
Prussia, the birthplace of the arro-
CANT aggressors and would-be en-
slavers of the Slavs, has been sep
arated from German SOIL"
The German communique said
that Marshal Ivan S. Konev's 1st
Ukrainian Army had launched an
assault against besieged Breslau in
Silesle.
More than $4,000 prisoners were
taken at Koenigsberg in two days,
o~d tho toto1 opro rortl,y cfil1 MO