Word: silesia
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...German people heard that industrial Silesia was lost; that the "Bolsheviks" had pierced Brandenburg, Berlin's home province; that the enemy had cut off East Prussia (see below). The lowly Volkssturm was called out to help stem the tide. The westward flood of refugees hampered the movement of army units to the front, forcing Heinrich Himmler to use his SS men as traffic controllers...
...ugly Dabrowa district of hilly southern Silesia, the Russians scored a vast victory this week. Beuthen, Katowice, Hindenburg, Gleiwitz, Sosnowiec-the complex of mining, refining, steelmaking, oil-synthesizing cities-were in Russian hands...
...Germans were staggered. It was a cruel blow. At Gleiwitz was a synthetic fuel plant that employed 38,000. It had been moved to "safe" Silesia from the air-vulnerable Ruhr. Near by was a great new engine works, also built far from the Allied bomber fields. At Beuthen was the biggest zinc mine in Europe. Out of Katowice had poured automobiles, chemicals, machine tools. Out of the basin had gone much of the coal for the industries and railroads of the eastern Reich and Czechoslovakia...
Zhukov's forces, heading straight for Poznan, had already covered about half the distance from Warsaw to the defense line the Germans have built along their 1939 border. Konev's army was already on German soil in Silesia, was within 28 miles of Breslau and pressed close upon Oppeln, both on the Oder and key points in the Reich's second most important , coal and steel area. Crossings there would set up a flank for future development of a strike to the inner Reich...
Zhukov's field command of the First Ukrainian Army was then taken over by Marshal Ivan Konev. Now it is the left arm of the offensive, striking at Silesia. When Zhukov returned to the field, he took over from tall (6 ft. 4 in.) Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, who moved to command the Second White Russian Army, now the right arm of assault aimed at lopping off East Prussia...