Evening star., 1945-03-21
Reds Mass Artillery
AtStettin S Edge, Peril
To Berlin Increases
Zhukov Probing Along
Oder Preparatory for
Drive Toword Capitol
BY the Associated Press.

MOSCOW, Mar. 21.-The LIST
White Russian Army, now in pos
session of virtually the entire
east bank of the Oder from the
Baltic to its confluence with the
Neisse, today crowded siege ar
tillery to the very edge of Stettin
after wiping out the enemy'S
Altdamm bridgehead.
The menace to Berlin grew hourly
as Marshal Gregory K. Zhukov
probed many places along the river,
seeking springboards for his next
big attack east and northeast of
Berlin.
Marshal Ivan S. Konev still is en-
gagged in liquidating trapped garri-
sons in Breslau and Glogau on the
Upper Oder, but has moved addi-
tional units of his 1st Ukraine Army
Group to the Neisse line southeast
of Berlin.
Nazi Pocket Collapsing.
In East Prussia, Marshal Alexan-
der NJ Vasilevsky, for two years
chief of staff of the Red Army, was
staging the final kill in a dwindling
German pocket along the coast
southwest of Koenigsberg.
Disclosure that Marshal Vasilev-
sky had taken over the Sd White
Russian Army front after the battle
death of Gen. Ivan Cherniakhovsky
was made in Premier Stains order
of the day yesterday saluting the
capture of Braunsberg, one of two
German bastions in the pocket.
Marshal Vasilevsky's seizure OF
Braunsberg gathered 1000 prisoners
into the bag. That figure is eX-
pected to be more than duplicated
when the nest of resistance in near
by Heiligenbeil is crushed.
Marshal Zhukov took Altdamm
with one fierce lunge after a series
of hard actions had reached this
suburb, less than miles from Stet-
tin proper. Front dispatches said
an aviation engine factory with
more than 1000 new engines intact,
an airplane assembly plant and a
torpedo factory were among the
booty
Poor Fighters Executed.
AS in Kolberg last week, Russian
storm units found German dead
hanging from makeshift gallows in
Altdamm An Izvestia dispatch said
an order from Hitler had been found
saying that troops leaving positions
voluntarily should be shot on the
spot. On bodies in army uniform
were signs reading hanged because
1 fought badly" The corpses of
executed civilians had a sign saying
Il was hanged because evacuated
Several enemy divisions were rout-
ed at Altdamm, but the number OF
prisoners has not yet been given.
Far to the south at the lower enc
of the eastern front, two or more
Russian Army groups were reported
by Berlin to be driving toward the
mountainous area of Southern Ger.
many and Austria where the Nazis
| according to some reports, may
make a final stand after defeat or
the Reich's northern plains.
Berlin said Marshal Feodor I
Tolbukhin has hurled zoo, 900 of hi.
Bird Ukraine Army troops and sup.
porting armor into an offensive
through Northwestern Hungary
with advance forces already plung.
ing beyond Tata, 10 miles south.
east of the big Danube River strong.
hold OF Komarom. This is the di
rect route toward Vienna.
In another Russian drive, which
Berlin has been reporting for mos
of the week but which still has n.
Russian confirmation, the Is
Ukraine Army, clearing up Uppe
Silesia below Breslau, was said t,
have thrust to ziegenhals on tn,
Czechoslovak border. Ziegenhals i
50 miles northwest of Moravska
Ostrava, Czechoslovakia's S third cit,
and the gateway to the Moravial
Gap route to Vienna and Prague. I
is 8 miles west of Neustadt. wher
street fighting was reported Monday