Victory or Siberia

Vanguard tanks of the Red Army were less than 40 miles from Berlin. But chicken-counting optimists got a sober reminder at week's end from smart Paul Winterton, Moscow correspondent of the London News Chronicle, who cabled:

". . . There is a temptation to imagine the Red Army will be inside the German capital in a matter of days. . . . It is a temptation that should be resisted. . . . We should ask ourselves whether it is a very attractive military proposition for an army to thrust forward in a narrow spear across a wide, defended river line and make a frontal attack on one of the greatest single built-up areas in the world. Unless the Germans are really on their last legs, it would seem to be asking for trouble to do that, and I don't believe the Russians will try."

The question was: are the Germans on their last legs? If Marshal Georgy K. Zhukov's First White Russian Army suddenly threw caution to the winds and dashed for Berlin, the answer would be yes. Best guess: he would not. Although his frontal thrust toward the heart of the Reich made heartening headlines, military analysts watched his northern wing with increasing interest. That wing had probed to within 20 miles of Stettin. Paradoxically it was a greater threat to Berlin than the shorter thrust through the twin Oder River fortresses of Frankfurt and Kuestrin, where the Germans had chosen to make an armored stand.

Stettin's fall would mean that the Germans were failing to do what the U.S. and British troops had done in the Ardennes bulge: hold the shoulders of the salient and prevent the attacking tide from spreading beyond control. Stettin's capture would widen Zhukov's Berlin salient to safe proportions.

The Russian drive slowed as it approached the Oder. An unseasonal thaw made the going tougher for Red Army vehicles. Magnificent Autobahnen (express highways) enabled the Nazis to switch reserves quickly from one threatened spot to another. But the respite was only temporary. All along the Oder's east banks tremendous Russian forces were gathering like water behind a dam. German propagandists demanded a last-ditch stand, coined a slogan, "Victory or Siberia." Best bet: Siberia.

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