Evening star., 1945-04-06
Two Red Armies
Closing In 10
Cut Off Vienna
Tunk-Led Units Push
To Within Az Miles
Of City's Heart
Ey the Associated Press.


LONDON, April 6.-Two Rus
sian armies today sought to close
a giant pincers around Vienna
as tank-led Soviet storm units,
knitting through a Nazi defense
belt at the southern city limits,
drove within Az miles of the
center of the Austrian capital.
Deployed along an 83-mile siege
arc, the Russians were within as
miles of completely encircling
Vienna. One Russian wing seized
positions 13 miles south of the DAN
ube River town of Tulln, 10 miles
northwest of Vienna. The capture
of Tulln would sever all Vienna S
westward communications along the
south bank of the Danube and also
the main Vienna-Prague railroad.
Breaking across the Schwechat
and Liesing Rivers, a canal and a
network of suburban railroads and
constituting highly for
titled defense belt, units of Marshal
Feodor 1. Tolbukhin's Sd Ukrainian
Army battled to Vienna's southern
city limits.
Violent Nazi Artillery Fire.
The suburbs of Ober-Laa and Un-
ter-Laa, adjacent to the boundary
and Az miles southeast of famed ST.
Church in the center of
the city, were captured in the face
of violent German artillery fire from
the capitals parks. Two of Vienna s
vital supply links with the war arse
mails Of Germany and Czechoslo-
vakia were cut.
The Russians also battled into the
outskirts of the industrial suburb of
Schwechat, site of a big aircraft
plant, captured Laxenburg and
thrust a 2-to-3-mile-w wide wedge
through the famed Vienna Woods.
The old imperial Austrian castle is
located in Laxenburg, 6 miles south
of Vienna.
Southeast, east and northeast of
Vienna, Marshal Rodion Y. Malinov-
sky's I'd Ukrainian Army surged for
ward in gains of miles along both
banks of the Danube.
On the south bank, his troops top
pied the key defense bastion of
Bruck, II miles southeast of Vienna,
after hurdling the Leitha River and
breaking the defenses of the Brati-
slava Gap. They also took Hahn
burg, opposite the confluence of the
Danube and Drava Rivers.
High-Speed Highway Cut.
Marshal Malinovsky's units on the
north bank pushed within miles
of the meeting point of the two riv-
ers by taking Lamac, miles north
west of captured Bratislava.
While Marshal Tolbukhin's forces
cut the high-speed highway linking
Vienna with Linz and Munich, Mar
shall Malinovsky's troops severed a
emile stretch of the railroad along
the Morava Rivers east bank link
ing the Austrian capital with Mo-
ravska Ostrava, Czechoslovakia S
third city, and Bruenn (Brno), so
miles northwest of Soviet spear
heads. The railroad was severed
at Malacky and Zohor, % and q
miles northeast of Vienna.
Elsewhere along the eastern front
Soviet troops partially flattened a
German bulge that had extended
deep into Eastern Slovakia, captured
industrial Zywiec in Southwestern
Poland and seized Dolnja -Lendava,
Sc miles north-noTtheast of the Cro-
attain puppet capital of Zagreb in
Northern Yugoslavia. Capturing
$500 prisoners in Yugoslavia, the
jumped to $500 the num-
ber of enemy troops taken in that
sector and in Southwestern Hungary
in the last five days.
Far to the north other Russian
forces hurled enemy remnants back
into Danzig Bay in. cleanup of
coastal territory north of the cap
tured port of Gdynia.
Premier Stain revealed that Gen.
Andrei I. Yeremenko, former COM
mander of the I'd Baltic Army, had
succeeded Gen. Ivan I. Petrov as
commander of the 4th Ukrainian
Army now fighting across the west
ern Beskides Range on a 43-mile
front in Poland and Czechoslovakia.