Goal: Berlin; Time: Spring

Joseph Stalin had decided, probably months before it started, that the goal of his winter offensive was Berlin, with an end to the German war by spring. To that task the Red Army labored long, carefully building the tremendous weight of arms that this week was grinding over the enemy.

There had never been such a concentration of Soviet might. The Red Army --from northern East Prussia to the Carpathians -- had (by German estimate) 200 divisions, an average of one for each two miles. In immediate reserve there were another estimated 100 divisions -- a total force of probably more than 4,000,000 men.

To synchronize the three main attacks, Marshal Stalin had shuffled his armies' commands. To his deputy commander in chief, stocky, aggressive Marshal Zhukov, he had given the Red Army's elite troops, the First White Russian Army. Zhukov was Stalin's conqueror-designate, his job to strike through from Warsaw to Poznan, thence to Germany's capital.

Zhukov had doubtless planned much of the offensive's detail--he is one of the Red Army's most brilliant strategists. Stalin has fullest confidence in him. Zhukov had been his chief of staff, in charge of Moscow's defense, during the first awful months of the Wehrmacht's invasion. He had been the shaper and adviser of the Stalingrad counteroffensive, engineer of the Red Army's sweep through the Ukraine.

Voice of Stalin. A devout Communist, 50-year-old Zhukov has been Stalin's political confidant, now to be entrusted with Berlin and the delicate business of speaking for Stalin in whatever Allied councils might govern a beaten Germany.

Broad-faced, wide-mouthed Marshal Zhukov was called to Moscow when the Red Army's summer offensive at Warsaw began to slow. Perhaps even then he and Stalin foresaw the months of work ahead of the huge offensive--the marshaling of overwhelming superiority in men & machines, the strategic moves to keep the Germans busy in the Balkans.

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.

Speed and Power. The German defense was in the hands of Colonel General Heinz Guderian (TIME, Aug. 7). He had been made commander in chief of the eastern front in anticipation of the Russian blow. Guderian must have realized that at best he could hope only to delay such a tide of power as Zhukov could unloose. The Russians heard reports that Guderian had threatened to resign unless he was permitted to withdraw westward to a line he believed would stop Zhukov: from Danzig through Poznan to Breslau.

But Zhukov's speed--his forces averaged about 20 miles a day last week--and his great weight could wreck Guderian's plan. The hard fact facing the Germans was that there is no formidable natural defense line east of the Oder River (see map). Back of Poznan there was the lightly fortified 1939 line along the Reich's prewar border. But there again Zhukov's weight and speed would tell. The great battle might come on the rolling plain between the border and the Oder. Once on its banks, opposite Berlin. Zhukov would be only 50 miles from his goal.

No offensive can roll indefinitely, and all the Germans have to give will be given to halt this one. But if the Red Armies could keep their drive going without serious slowdown in the next month, the chance seemed good that Georgy Zhukov could become Berlin's conqueror on Stalin's schedule.

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