A Bear Hug For History

Through the smoke the Russians could see the great Gothic tower of Koenigsberg's Schloss. For nearly seven centuries the Schloss (castle) had stood as a symbol of Prussianism. There the Teutonic Order had been nurtured. The tower reared 277 feet, a monument to the Junker caste that was the heart and mind of German militarism.

Last week the Third White Russian Army of young (37) General Ivan Chernyakhovsky rolled up to Koenigsberg's suburbs on two sides. From four miles out the Russians could hear the blasts as the Germans set off demolition charges, destroyed whole sections of the city (normal pop. 320,000).

In less than two weeks General Chernyakhovsky and Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky had done what Russian armies in 1914 failed to do: clamp a bear hug on the province of East Prussia. Chernyakhovsky had struck from the east and north, Rokossovsky from the southeast. They ripped through historic forests, the hunting grounds of the Kaisers, through cities rich in Prussian military lore--Tilsit, Gumbinnen, Tannenberg, Allenstein.

By the measure of its speed, the Russian victory seemed easy. It had not been. East Prussians fought with Teutonic fury. There, if anywhere, the Germans had girded well for a last-ditch battle. Every settlement was a little fortress, every house a gun post. The Germans threw in everything: crack troops, Volksstuermer, trainees, inhabitants of towns, the largest number of buzz bombs yet rocketed against the Russians.

Shortening the Line. But Russian power would not be denied. By this week the Red Armies had accomplished what no Junker could have believed possible. Rokossovsky, striking swiftly, enveloped the Germans with the bear's left arm. It reached the Baltic 43 miles southwest of Koenigsberg, enfolded Elbing, created a pocket 85 miles deep. The Russians had done another impossible: they had broken through the "impregnable" German defenses in the Masurian Lakes area, had narrowed the pocket to an average width of 40 miles. Inside was what remained of a Wehrmacht force of some 200,000 men.

The Germans fought on, tried to break out in furious counterattacks. There was little future for them if they succeeded. The arm that enclosed them was an inner envelopment by this week. Rokossovsky had developed a similar encircling sweep, aimed at Danzig and the German Baltic coast.

By sealing off the East Prussian flank to their main drives toward the Reich proper, the Russians already had a victory of the first magnitude. If they could complete the liquidation of the pocket as speedily, the victory would be even greater. It would shorten the Russian line by some 300 miles, release thousands of Red Army troops, might provide first-rate ports for Russian supplies.

None of this would be easy. There was every indication that the Germans would try to hold Koenigsberg, Elbing, Danzig, Gdynia from the Russians--as they were denying Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, Bordeaux to the Allies in the west.

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