The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-02-02
Germans F ear Big Three May Offer People New Demand For Surrender
BY UNITED PRESS

Berlin braced for a death stand against the onrushing Red Army today as Nazi spokesmen speculated un- easily that the Allied Big Three" would go over their heads to the German people with a new surrender de- mand similar to President Wilson's historic IA points.
 With Russian tank col- umns barely an hours ride away, the German capital was reported gripped by ter- TOT and a rising note of hys- teria was evident even in of- ficial propaganda broadcastS over the Berlin radio.
 Party leaders were struggling by means of threats and caJolery to hold their people in line against the dual menace of the Red Army and the surrender proclamation which they frankly expected to emerge from the forthcoming Roosevelt" Churchill-Stalin meeting.
 The NaAs carefully refrained from mention of the new "A points" In their domestic propaganda, but broadcastS directed to foreign coun- tries and intercepted by EGG morai- tors predicted that the Big Three" would amplify or modify their un- conditional surrender program in an effort to split the German peo- pie from their leaders.
 Tnformation has reached the German foreign office to the effect that at the meeting of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill political ac- ton is to be taken which resembles that effected in 1918 by President Wilson, when he announced his IA points," one broadcast said.
 The DNB News Agency. branding the expected proposals as "G Wil- son farce" declared that what ever the Three-P Power conferences may have to procliam. the attitude of the German people will nos change"
 Speaking to the German people and army, other Nazi spokesmen warned grimly that no weakening will be tolerated in this critical hour of the war.
 Big Barrier Ahead
 The Germans reported that pow erful Russian forces maSSing along the Oder east of Berlin were trying to smash across that last big bar rier before the capital, in the streets of which the terrified civilians were throwing up barricades.
 A Nazl military spokesman said the Russian drive had reached "a major part of the course of the Oder" and this river line "in the broadcast meaning has become the belt and barrier front which is going to halt the Russian armies"
 The German high command said strong Red Army units had reached the Oder on either side of Frank furt, 38 miles due east of Berlin. and northwest of Kustrin, where the Oder elbow points down within 30 miles of the city.
 A Nazi military commentator re- ported that the first effort by Mar shal Gregory K. Zhukov's First White Russian Army to force the Oder was made at KuStrin, 42 miles of Berlin.
 "The courageous citizens of Kust- rIn chased back & Soviet tank de- tachment which was trying to cross the Oder destroying six of the tanks and damaging otherS," the commen- tator, Wilfrcd von Often, said in a German Home Service pep talk.
 Moscow dispatches said Zhukov'S armor and mobile infantry were flooding across a broad reach of the German border east of Berlin and now were closing In on Frankfurt and Kustrin to exploit the gains of armored spearheads blazing the 6o- vlet trail to Germany's Rhine of the east"
 Massed on Oder
 Both Hanks of the Red Army which had raced from the Vistula to the Oder in three weeks were flaming out in strength as the forces at the center of zhukov's offensive front massed on the Oder.
 The German Transocean News Agency reported that new and Ire. battles" were imminent in the Oder -Warthe bend northeast of Berlin and in Silesia, where both sides were throwing in fresh forces