WW1 style human wave attacks repulsed by the 268th ID at Yelnia. A SURVIVOR'S ACCOUNT

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Episode 176

Today we’re following a diary entry from a front line infantry soldier serving with the 268. ID during the decisive battle for Yelnia in August of 1941.

Our group can claim to have been the forward most boot of the German Wehrmacht for approximately 14 days. Since the end of last month we have been an irritating thorn in the pelt of the Russian bear, which he has been trying to attack with all his might. Despite all of his artillery, he doesn’t succeed in removing this thorn, and his bloody infantry losses are unimaginable. The town El’nia, which we surrounded will one day be an important name in the history of the campaign.

Yes, these battles are tough, and in our ranks, too, death tears a hole in the ranks of our best every day. But in these battles, the soldiers have learned to become tough, too, and shown that he is also equal to “storms of steel,” just like his fathers in the World War. The grandeur of many an expression from that time now becomes clear. The incessant metallic hammering off the artillery, the crashing explosions of the shells, and the yipping and humming of shrapnel makes its own music. And when that can be heard constantly from morning till night in any sector of the front, unending, without any indication that they are having to pause for breath over there, then you can put yourself in the position of the fighter in the World War.

But our guys have become tough in all this and have an admirable level of self-confidence, and if the Russian comes with infantry and tanks, then a bloody reception awaits him. And it matters not at all if one or two tanks break through the lines, because one of our Paks was destroyed and no other weapon can stop it. For then the infantryman leaps from his foxhole with hand grenade, Molotov cocktail, and a concentrated charge, and finishes it off as matter-of-factly as if he were conducting a peacetime demonstration.

Our Ostmarkers have particularly proved themselves here, defending a commanding elevation (125.6), which the Russian attacks again and again. And here is laid bare the spirit of the fighter in the current war, he who knows for what he fights and, if necessary, dies, in contrast to the stupid cannon fodder which is only whipped forward over and again by the Reds’ pack of lies and a pistol or machine gun.