Word: strin
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...lost to the Russians was about half again as large in area as what she got from the Germans. But the new Polish territory ripped from Germany, stretching to within 35 miles of Berlin, included coal and iron in German Silesia, the transportation centers of Breslau and Küstrin and some 200 miles of Baltic seacoast, with the great port of Danzig and Berlin's seaport, Stettin. In industrial value, at least, Poland was the gainer; what Russia had taken from her was largely agricultural...
Thus, in a 70-mile arc of flame and steel, had the soldiers of Red Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov, Stalin's designated conqueror of Berlin, come up to the outskirts of the Nazi capital. They had left behind, on the roads and fields back to Küstrin and Schwedt, thousands of dead German soldiers, more thousands of prisoners, hills of wreckage. In five days they had fought through five defense belts, smashing down a great concentration of enemy tanks in what may have been the war's biggest battle of armor. Now they could pierce the heart...
...only a beginning. The Germans, who seemed to want to speed the last few minutes before the hour of doom in the north, told of the Russian strokes. One had breached the German lines only 24 miles from Berlin. Another had won the Seelow heights west of Küstrin. A great concentration of Cossack horsemen and tankmen was ready to gallop and clatter upon Berlin. An order of the day issued over Adolf Hitler's name shrilled that this was the last great attack...
...tempo of Russian attack east of Berlin hung at a sullen, persistent roar. After a week's bitter fighting the Germans claimed that: 1) they still held the essential battlements of Küstrin, which Marshal Joseph Stalin had declared captured; 2) the battered keystones of their Oder River defense line still stood...
First objective was Küstrin, fortress town guarding Berlin's eastern approaches. The Germans said one column had cut south of the town and driven to within 26 miles of Berlin, then had been stopped and hurled back seven miles. A second column stood northwest of Küstrin within 29 miles of Berlin. Other Russians fought their way into the town in house-to-house combat. For six days the battle raged. Then came Marshal Joseph Stalin's order of the day: Küstrin had fallen, the German capital's outer gate was unlatched...