BATTLE FOR KIEV, first hand account 9.1941, 299th ID, 6th Army, Army Group South, Panzerjäger Pt. 1

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Episode 165

23.9.41: Gefreiter Hans Roth (299th Infantry Division, Sixth Army, Army Group South)

Early on September 19 we penetrated the heavily armed outer ring of the city. The enemy, by far not as strong as we had assumed, was defeated in bloody, close combat, and by 0900 hours we had already reached the western part of the city. The Reds have quite their attempts at heavy street fighting. At the same time strong assault parities attacked the citadel from the direction of Lysa-Hora, and by 1100 hours Nazi swastikas were raised there.

By noon we are in the center of the city, no shots are heard; the wide streets and squares are abandoned. It is eerie. The silence is making us nervous, because it’s hardly believable that such a large city has fallen into our hands in such a short amount of time. . . What does this western defense line, which Budenny depended upon just like the French did with the Maginot Line, look like? It’s not a common line of bunkers; no, it’s a collection of diabolic resources, which can only be conceived by the brain of a paranoiac. I will try and describe some of these horrific death zones that we passed through while intensely fighting on September 17, 18 and 19:

To the rear of Gatnoje, there are fields of cooperatives, vast vegetable farms. They lie there harmlessly in the sum. Who would believe that hiding among those plants is the most horrific death: a high voltage current! Atop the vegetation is a webbing of fine calibre wire the length of several kilometers. This rests on thin, isolated metal poles, which are all painted green; a deadly net of high current, which is run by a power plant in a bunker. It is so well camouflaged that we recognize it unfortunately much too late, only after a continued accumulation of losses.

Then there are the devil’s ditches, lined up in great depth, several hundred meters long. They are mined, and when a single land mine is tripped, entire fields, which are connected underground by detonation channels, explode. At the same time, water pipes explode and rapidly flood the area two meters deep. There are even a few more goodies that happen to be just lying around, seeming random objects that are interesting to every soldier: watches, packs of cigarettes, pieces of soap, etc. Each of these objects is connected to a hidden detonator. If the soldier picks any of these objects up, he starts the ignition and detonates a mine or an entire minefield.

In this category also belong well-hidden trip wires, which cause contact mines to explode. These monsters jump up ¾ of a meter and explode. . . There are other areas where hidden among trip wires are thousands of knife-sharp steel spikes, which are poisoned and cause the injured to die a horrible death ten minutes later. All of the defensive belts are littered with automatic