Word: breslau
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...Germans, while massing most of their strength in front of Berlin, guessed rightly that Marshal Ivan Konev would try to complete his envelopment of Breslau and widen his bridgeheads in the Steinau area. But they guessed wrong about Konev's power. When the blow came it was in huge force-enough to carry through Steinau and on to Liegnitz, 35 miles west of Breslau...
Konev had plunged into the second phase of his offensive, had widened his front west of the Oder to 100 miles. He had broken across the Breslau-Berlin Autobahn, stood within 75 miles of Dresden. Konev matched his power with daring. In a snowstorm naked troops had plunged into the icy Oder, had pushed ahead of them doors, benches, barrels, anything that would float and keep uniforms and weapons dry. Many a Russian died with his boots off, but many more got across...
Berlin would be defended stone by stone: "We cannot let Breslau and Königsberg put us to shame, much less Warsaw, Leningrad and Moscow...
...Russians made for Gleiwitz frontally-where the defense belt was deepest. Near it they veered a dozen miles to the north, found the weakness, came up on the main Katowice-Berlin highway. A fast run up the Autostrasse to important Breslau was the reasonable thing for the Germans to expect. Instead, Konev's tanks turned left, cut cross-country to a road that entered Gleiwitz from the southwest...
Over the River. While Konev was spearing into the Dabrowa, he had also fanned out northward, bypassed and besieged Breslau, spread his tanks along the upper "Rhine of the East." By this week (by German account) he was across it at more than a dozen places. One crossing was reported 50 miles northwest of Breslau. At this point he was within 125 miles of Berlin...