Kursk, battle of

Kursk, battle of. In the Soviet view, Kursk was the decisive turning-point of the German–Soviet war, the point after which the Soviet forces permanently held the initiative. In fact the battle confirmed but did not decide that: Hitler and his generals knew it beforehand. The most they expected was to extract psychological leverage from a precarious, strategically insignificant advantage, as Hitler put it, to ‘light a bonfire’ that would impress the world and possibly intimidate the Soviet Command.

The 1942–3 winter campaign left a westward bulge 190 km. (118 mi.) wide and 120 km. (75 mi.) deep in the front around Kursk, an important rail junction some 800 km. (500 mi.) to the south of Moscow. Inside were five Soviet armies. On the north, von Kluge had shortened the German Army Group Centre's front and had an army, Ninth Army, to spare. On the south, Manstein's Army Group South had acquired three almost new SS panzer divisions. In Germany, Panther and Tiger tanks, somewhat superior to the Soviet T34/85 and KV85, were coming into quantity production. On 15 April, Hitler ordered Kluge and Manstein to be ready by 4 May to start an operation (CITADEL) that would pinch off the bulge. On 6 May, he postponed the offensive until mid-June, later telling his tank expert, Guderian, that thinking about CITADEL made his stomach turn over.

Stalin, his deputy as Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Marshal Zhukov, and Chief of the General Staff, Marshal Vasilevsky, regarded the bulge as an entering wedge for their first summer offensive but were not certain Hitler could not still contrive a surprise as he had in the two previous summers. They decided to reinforce the fronts (army groups) holding the bulge, Rokossovsky's Central front on the north and Vatutin's Voronezh front in the south, and let Hitler have the first move.

Hitler finally let CITADEL start on 5 July. The forces—in the north Ninth Army under Model, in the south Fourth Panzer Army under General Hoth and Army Detachment ‘Kempf’ under Lt-General Werner Kempf—numbered about 700,000 troops, 2,400 tanks, and assault guns, and 1,800 aircraft. Rokossovsky and Vatutin had a total of 1.3 million troops, 3,400 tanks and assault guns, and 2,100 aircraft. The 105-day interlude since the winter fighting ended had given them time to ring the bulge with six belts of three to five trench lines; and, to the east, there were six armies in a Stavka reserve. By 1 August they were all deployed against the Belgorod–Kharkov Salient where, Konev's Steppe front having taken over on Vatutin's left, an offensive (RUMYANTSEV) was launched on 3 August.

Model's three panzer corps had the village of Olkhovatka, about a third of the way to Kursk, as their first objective. By nightfall on the second day, they had covered 21 km. (13 mi.) and were approaching Olkhovatka. Rokossovsky then committed his reserves, Second Tank Army and a tank corps, forcing the panzer corps into a battle of attrition reminiscent of the First World War. On 9 July, Model told Kluge that a breakthrough to Kursk was hardly any longer to be expected.

Hoth made his northward attack west of the River Donets with two panzer corps and Kempf his east of the river, thereby achieving the only element of surprise in the entire operation. Vatutin had his heaviest deployment east of the river, while Hoth was conducting the main effort with 48th and 2nd SS Panzer Corps, the best equipped in the German Army at that time. Vatutin still had Hoth outnumbered in tanks, but he entered the battle on the wrong foot.

Hoth's initial objective was Oboyan, halfway to Kursk and just inside Vatutin's last trench line. In two days, Hoth's attack gained 20 km. (12 mi.) on a 40 km. (25 mi.) front. Although Vatutin committed the First Tank Army and a tank corps from the Stavka reserve, Hoth went another 15 km. (9 mi.) by 11 July. The next day, 2nd SS Panzer Corps crossed the last trench line and at Prokhorovka, 35 km. (22 mi.) south-east of Oboyan, encountered the Fifth Guards Tank Army, which had been part of the Stavka reserve. The ensuing mêlée involving some 1,200 tanks, three-quarters of them Soviet, became the largest tank battle of the war.

The events of 12 July around Kursk combined with Anglo-American landings on Sicily two days earlier (see Sicilian campaign) to extinguish Hitler's bonfire. The 2nd SS Panzer Corps inflicted more damage than it received, but the relative Soviet advantage increased. Kluge had to take two panzer divisions plus artillery and rocket launchers from Model to counter a Soviet attack that threatened the Ninth Army's rear. And the Americans and British advanced out of their beachheads on Sicily. Insisting that he had to have 2nd SS Panzer Corps, which he rated as the equivalent of 20 Italian divisions, to deal with an invasion of Italy, Hitler cancelled CITADEL on 13 July; and what was left of the initiative passed to the Soviet Command.

Soviet histories treat the battle as including also the subsequent elimination of the Orel and Kharkov salients in late July and August 1943. Since the total forces then committed numbered 4 million men, 13,000 armoured vehicles, and 12,000 aircraft (three-quarters of them Soviet), the Kursk battle thereby becomes one of the largest of the whole war.

Earl Ziemke

Bibliography

Manstein, E. von , Lost Victories (Chicago, 1958).
Zhukov, G. K. , Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov (London, 1971).
Ziemke, E. F. , Stalingrad to Berlin (Washington, DC, 1968).