World Battlefronts: EASTERN FRONT: Berlin--and Beyond

Patient, blunt-featured Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov had waited. Now his northern flank was anchored on the sea, his southern flank secure. The time was at hand to resume the westward march—to Berlin, the north German plains, an eventual linking with Russia's allies.

Red guns thundered out along the Oder. The Marshal's tested team of Army commanders—Colonel Generals Katukov and Bogdanov of the tanks; Belov, the cavalry leader; Chuikov. who led the 62nd Russian Army at Stalingrad; Popov, Kolpakchi, Tsvetayev—moved their men forward.

First objective was Küstrin, fortress town guarding Berlin's eastern approaches. The Germans said one column had cut south of...