January 20, 1945; Soviets Threaten German Boarder:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, JANUARY 20,1945:

KINGSPORT, TENN./SAT./.JAN. 20, 1945

Lodz Seized,

Pinzer Grip

East Prussia

Sweeping Soviet

Drive Threatens

Germany's Border

By W. W. Kercher _ . _

London, Saturday —AP—

The Red Army, opening two more massive offensives, reached the German Sileasian frontier 225-miles from Berlin Friday in a sensational surge through Poland, captured the bastions of Lodz and Krakow, and clamped a huge pincers on East Prussia in. a. great new breaks through into that ancient Reich province.

The Red Army's first contact with the. border of the main body of Germany, from which Adolf  Hitler's legions invaded Poland to start  “the"second World War Sept. 1, 1939”'as announced officially in the midnight Moscow communique.

The Nazis' beleaguered homeland unofficial reports said the Russians already- had plunged across the frontier, and were fighting on the Nazis' beleaguered homeland.

It 'was the ,First" Ukraine Army one of five 'powerful Soviet' armies estimated at 3,000,000 or more men had reached the frontier of industrially-rich Silesia with the capture of Praszka,' 50 miles" east of the capital at Breslau. These troops also crippled the six-way road junction of  Wielund, 12 miles northeast of Prazka, and also 225 miles southeast of  Berlin.

Red Armies

Seize Krakow

German Troops Collapse Along Entire

Eastern Front; Stalin Issues Four

Orders of the Day to Announce Gains

LONDON, Jan. 19.—(/P)—

The Russians rolled through broken German defenses all along the eastern front today, Capturing Krakow and driving into East, Prussia to a depth of 30 miles in their greatest penetration of the Reich.

Marshal Stalin announced the loosing of two more offensives in East Prussia and in the Carpathians of Southern Poland. Developments' were:

1-The Russians have captured Lodz, 70 miles west of Warsaw and 250 miles from

Berlin, Stalin announced in his fifth order of the day.

Lodz, with a population of 600.000, is the second city of Poland. Also captured by Marshal Gregory Zhukov's First White Russian Army in the central Polish front was the city of Kutno. 65 miles due west of Warsaw and 245 miles from Berlin.

2—Complete liberation of Budapest was foreshadowed by withdrawal of the German garrison to the west side of the Danube in the Hungarian capital.

NEW OFFENSIVE

3—Stalin, in an order of the day, disclosed that a new offensive, the fourth of the series of gigantic Winter operations, had lanced forward 50 miles on a front of 38

miles in the Carpathians. It seized Gorlice. 65 miles southeast of Krakow: Jaslow, 15 miles northeast of Gorlice and 400 other towns and forced the Wisloka and Dunajec Rivers.

Yanks Strike

 At Nazi Push

Along Rhine

Germans Broaden

River Bridgehead

Near Strasbourg

By Austin Bealmear

 Paris — (AP)—

The U. S. Seventh Army struck back Friday at German forces north of imperiled Strasbourg, where the enemy earlier in the day massed 10,000 troops jbrokc from the Rhine bridgehead, joined up with other forces farther north on a solid 75-milefront

The Fighter bombers ripped into enemy armor and doughboys drove the Germans back across the Zorn river some nine miles north of the Austrian capital. Other American blows showered down on the front in a. grim attempt to keep the Ger-

mans from outflanking all American positions in northeastern France.

Virtually all the 300-mile western front was aflame. Allied and German. armies raced to see which could get their stalled offensives rolling first in these critical winter months when Germany is faced with crushing blows from east and west.