I'm posting here to see if anybody has ever heard of this. I'm reading Eastern Inferno, which is a collection of 3 journals written by Hans Roth, a German soldier in WW2. In the first journal, when they are advancing on Kiev, he makes several comments about "spiral mines". The German spiralminen is indicated in parenthesis next to it, indicating that was what he wrote in German. Does anyone know what he was talking about? Was he mistaken and misheard some other nickname? Or was this a common nickname known to others on this part of the front?
I'm going to attach a quote from the book, please don't sue me.
Artillery fire has been ordered, and just minutes later, scores of heavy shells hiss and howl over our heads. A wall of black smoke stands before us. The smoke is at times white, and occasionally holes are torn into it from the shrapnel. The entire valley swills from the impact of the shelling. We are able to reach the first buildings in Babicze under the cover of the well positioned fire. The damn spiral mines [spiralminen] explode one after another in angry thunder right before us and over our heads. That sound—that nasty and poisonous sound from the swarms of artillery shelling. With our faces contorted by anger, we jump into the Reds’ shrapnel trenches. Anti-tank grenades hammer into their fortifications. All goes crazy now and chaos erupts. The shelling from the Reds spews forth clouds of shrapnel which blow over us.… And from these swirls of fire rain down showers of metal into the small pond right in front of us.
I'm going to attach a quote from the book, please don't sue me.
Artillery fire has been ordered, and just minutes later, scores of heavy shells hiss and howl over our heads. A wall of black smoke stands before us. The smoke is at times white, and occasionally holes are torn into it from the shrapnel. The entire valley swills from the impact of the shelling. We are able to reach the first buildings in Babicze under the cover of the well positioned fire. The damn spiral mines [spiralminen] explode one after another in angry thunder right before us and over our heads. That sound—that nasty and poisonous sound from the swarms of artillery shelling. With our faces contorted by anger, we jump into the Reds’ shrapnel trenches. Anti-tank grenades hammer into their fortifications. All goes crazy now and chaos erupts. The shelling from the Reds spews forth clouds of shrapnel which blow over us.… And from these swirls of fire rain down showers of metal into the small pond right in front of us.