Hello and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast episode 473

Gudarian approaches. Last time on August 8, 1941 the commanders of the Soviet 6th and 12th armies had surrendered.

The Battle of Umin was over now.

It was the Battle of Kiev.

But now that Umin and its defenders were neutralized, Von Rundsted

ordered the German 70th Army to keep pushing the Soviet defenders ever eastward

all the way back to the Neeper River.

And in this endeavor they would eventually be joined by the Eleventh Army.

Meanwhile the Pansers of Panser Group 1 kept going south to destroy all before it so all that territory west of the

NEaper would belong to the access and the Germans would succeed in this

clearing of the enemy.

But they would lose more men and pansers than planned for,

as the fighting around Uman had given the defenders enough time

to bury hundreds of thousands of mines along their current line.

So again, yes, the area would eventually be cleared out, but the Germans paid a heavy price for it.

The forces of Army Group South continued to drive east and south slowly,

but they were successful.

During all this fighting south of Kiev, Kirponos, the defender in the area, believed that the enemy was

sufficiently diverted or distracted, so he would launch his own surprise attack.

Of course it would be risky, as he only had 36 tanks still operational

and the Germans probably guessed at something like this. Still he would use them and some of the

precious defenders of Kiev to launch his attack.

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