- The German offensive plan was predictable, assuming the execution of a classical rounding maneuver and the demolition of respective russian armies that were coming into the Kursk arch area to strengthen its defence
- On July 13, Hitler summoned von Klugi and von Manstein to tell them that the operation would be completed
- Operation Zitadelle has come to an end due to the fact that it has not achieved its first objectives. The defeats were completed by a russian counter-offensive, which Germany did not foresee
- In the exhaustion battles that followed in July and August 1943, The Germans lost 203 1000 people, almost a 3rd of the forces with which they started the offensive on the Kursk bow, and 1030 aircraft
- More crucial information can be found on the Onetu homepage
Below we present a fragment of the book with the approval of the publisher:
The kurska bow became the site of 1 of the most crucial battles of planet War II. After the defeat at Stalingrad, Hitler was not certain how to respond to the fresh situation on the front. In December 1942, staff from the OCC suggested that try again to get Caucasian oil fields and thus regain a strategical initiative, but by February 1943 Hitler concluded that they were only dreams.
On February 18, he told the commanders, "I cannot undertake major operations this year", but after von Manstein's success under Kharkiv accepted the proposition of a Field Marshal to have the Army Group troops "Medium" and "South" effort to destruct the Kursk arch. In this way it was possible to shorten the front line and at the same time ask the Red Army a severe defeat that would let Germany to regain any of the prestige lost under Stalingrad. It was not an offensive to measurement those conducted in 1941 and 1942, but it was to halt the russian side from further offensive action in 1943 and to do as much harm as possible. Smaller ancillary operations to the south of Kharkiv, bearing the code names ‘Habicht’ (Jaszrząb) and ‘Panther’ (Pantera), were besides envisaged.
In mid-April, however, Hitler issued Operational Order No. 6 in favour of Operation “Zitadelle”, a storm on the base of the Kursk arch, in the north of the Eagle region and in the south of the late recovered Belgorod. By then, the primary russian command had already concluded that after the spring floods, the Germans would become the arc of the kurska, and this assessment confirmed the regularly conducted diagnosis.
On April 12, Stalin met with Zhukov and Vasilevsky to discuss with them plans to respond to the expected German offensive. Stalin was not satisfied with the thought of a defensive battle, but he was convinced that solid defensive positions around Kursk would weaken the German strike, after which it would be possible to immediately remove a powerful counterattack utilizing forces remaining in the detachment to decision the front line towards Dniepru. The troops of the Rokossovsky Central Front and Voroneski Front of General Nikolai Watutin received orders to anticipate a German offensive after 10 May. By the end of April, these commanders confirmed that their troops had taken positions and were ready to defend themselves.
In early May, most of the essential equipment and additional human resources were already in place. Inside the bow nearly 300 000 civilians were mobilised to aid build 8 fortification rings of more than 4,500 kilometres in total. They were created by trenches and anti-tank ditches, and thousands of earth-wood artillery positions covered by wide barbed wire meshes and 942,000 anti-tank and anti-personnel mines.
The German offensive plan was predictable, assuming the execution of a classical rounding maneuver and the demolition of respective russian armies that had entered the Kursk arch area to strengthen its defence. The northern arm of the German ticks was to be 9. The Army of Colonel General Walter Model and the confederate – 4th Armoured Army Hotha supported by the Operation Group "Kempf" (from the name of its commander General Werner Kempf). It was Hitler's time to attack. Von Manstein and Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, in command of the confederate and mediate Army Group respectively, wanted to start the attack as shortly as possible, hoping not to prepare the russian side.
Public domain/wikimediaGerman attack plan
However, the model insisted that after dense winter fights and springing his forces needed more time to supplement the losses in men and armored equipment. On 4 May, Hitler moved the word “Zitadelle” to 12 June, but the activity of the russian guerrilla at the rear of the Army Group “Medium” made it so hard to deliver reinforcements to the front that the Model was forced to carry out a criminal operation under the codename “Zigeunerbaron” (Gypsy Baron), which resulted in a further postponement of the offensive word – to 19 June.
During this period, Hitler was afraid that after the defeat in Tunisia Italy would not retreat from the war, but erstwhile these fears proved unreasonable, Operation Zitadelle did not seem so risky. However, its result was uncertain, and both General Inspector of Armoured Forces General Guderian and Head of German Military Intelligence in the East Reinhard Gehlen advised her to appeal. Hitler moved the offensive again, this time due to the fact that he wanted more of the latest models of Panzerkampfwagen V Panther and Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger to be delivered to front units.
To start operations on 5 July However, only 328 of them were reached, of which 251 were found in attacking troops. Most of the tanks active in the Kursk arch offensive were weaker models of Panzerkampfwagen III (309 pieces) and Panzerkampfwagen IV (245), and the average number of tanks in the German armored division was only 73, or about half of the staff status.
It was much harder to foretell the reaction of the russian side in the upcoming operation. The Red Army dug for the first time with the defence conflict in head alternatively of starting a "preemptive offensive", as Stalin wanted. Conducting operations in deep defence was not a natural choice for an army trained for offensive actions, and ignorance of defensive combat tactics explains any of the problems encountered by russian troops erstwhile the conflict yet began. The long postponement of the offensive by the Germans was unexpected and caused uncertainty, but besides gave the russian side the chance to strengthen troops, whose states were almost completely completed by June.
As a result, nearly 40 percent of Red Army forces and 75 percent of russian tanks were pushed into the Kursk arch. Stalin was impatient and in June he began to think again to inform the Germans and decision on to the offensive, but yet prevailed the conviction of Zhukov. Combat alarms were regularly declared in russian units, but the attack inactive did not occur. At the end of June, intercepted radio messages and interrogations of German soldiers captured by russian patrols indicated that the minute of the offensive's launch was imminent, which is why the Red Army was on full alert as of 2 July. On 4 July, another captured soldier confirmed that Operation Zitadelle would begin the next morning.
After midnight, Zhukov ordered a massed fire of German positions with the usage of barrel and rocket artillery and a bomb raid, which led the Germans to believe for a minute that the russian offensive had begun, which they seemingly did not foresee. But erstwhile it became clear that this storm was only a preemptive attack, at half 5 o’clock in the morning, they began an attack.
CTK / PAPconflict of Kursk
There were immense forces active in this conflict on both sides. On the first line of defense, russian armed forces threw nearly 1,336 000 men into the fight (including many women), 3444 tanks and self-propelled guns, about 19,000 cannons and mortars, and 2650 aircraft (together with spare long-range units were nearly 3700). Additionally, in the back of the Kursk arch, General Ivan Koniev's Step Front troops were deployed with 573,000 men, 1551 tanks and self-propelled guns, and 7401 cannons and mortars.
Meanwhile, 2 German army groups had a full of about 900,000 people (although only 625 271 served in combat units), 2699 armored vehicles, 9467 division, and 1372 aircraft. The German side had a qualitative advantage in armored weapons and aviation, while the russian side had a crucial numerical advantage.
The battle, which on the Kursk arch itself yet lasted more than 10 days, ended in the failure of the German army, which is worth highlighting here. Despite all the tactical skill of the German land and air forces, Operation "Zitadelle" was not a "lost victory", as von Manstein lamented in his post-war memories, but a confirmation of the assumptions of Zukov's first plan.
In the north of the 9th Model Army in the first 2 days moved forward 11 kilometres and reached the village of Ponyry, nevertheless it encountered a powerful russian artillery firewall fire that forced the German infantry to fight for all reinforced defensive point. On July 7, the attack was stuck on a heavy defended hill close the village of Olchowatka, where 13. The russian Army supported better coordinated assault aircraft operations. The model failed to grow the break-in and on July 9, his assault stopped.
Zukov signaled to Stalin that it was time to launch the first counterattack, and on July 12, troops of the West Front, Briansk and Central began operation "Kutuzov", after which they shortly broke the front and threatened the lap of the German 2nd Armoured Army, which, contrary to its name, did not have any tanks. The model began to retreat its 9. The army through desolate areas, trying to someway patch up the breach in the front, but this part of the German offensive under Kursk came to an end.
CTK / PAPconflict of Kursk
Meanwhile, in the south, German forces made more progress, partially due to the fact that russian intelligence mistakenly assumed that the northern arm of the offensive would be stronger, and Rokossowski was assigned greater detachments. On the confederate wing, Hoth could have sent 9 armored divisions to fight, with 2 weaker, forming the XXIV Armored Corps, he held in reserve. After 2 days of fighting, the Watutina front was rejected by 30 kilometres towards the main road of Obojań‒Kursk, however, on 7 July German tanks encountered the first of the main lines of defence occupied by the russian 1st Armour Army.
After fierce battles, the Germans managed to breach the Pisces River, the last natural obstacle on the road to Kursk, but a bridgehead captured there by 3. The SS “Totenkopf” Panzer Division was to be the farthest point captured by the Germans. Meanwhile, Hoth pushed the Second SS Armored Corps towards a tiny railway junction close Prochorovka.
The battle, which then warmed up there, for many years was portrayed as the largest armored clash in the full war, completed by russian triumph and demolition of hundreds of tanks. But the fact proved far more prosaic. The task of stopping 2 divisions of the SS Armoured Corps from attacking this section was awarded the 5th Armoured Army of the defender of General Paul Rotmitrov, part of the detachments collected by the Red Army.
In haste, she was sent to the first line, and on July 12 were thrown into conflict without planning and sufficiently recognizing the forces of the opponent. Rotmistrow seemingly mistakenly assumed that his attack was part of a larger counteroffensive on Belgorod, and pushed a mass of his tanks into 2 SS armored divisions – "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler" and "Das Reich" – about 500 machines against 204 German. As a consequence of his Tankers entered an unrecognized anti-tank ditch and were decimated by more fire-powered German tanks, mainly kind Panzerkampfwagen IV with an improved section.
Within 2 days the 5th Armoured defender Army lost 359 tanks and self-propelled guns (of which 208 unreturned), while the losses of the 2 SS armored divisions in this clash were only 3 vehicles. This was a major tactical triumph by the Germans, but contrary to von Manstein's hopes, it did not in any way bring the success of the full operation "Zitadelle". The russian defence on the confederate section of the Kursk arch did not break down, and moreover, it inactive managed to bring out counterattacks. Even the decimated 5th Armoured defender Army already had 419 tanks and 25 self-propelled guns available on July 16.
In addition, the Red Army's launch of the aforementioned operation “Kutuzov” forced von Manstein to send parts of the division and aircraft north to support von Kluge, although German air support in the south had already weakened heavy due to continuous fighting, and German infantry casualties made it hard to keep the site even if the armoured weapons were inactive successful. Indeed, the over-emphasis on the armoured nature of the conflict of Kursk sends the real nature of this clash as a conflict of infantry, artillery and aircraft, which is very akin to the final battles of the First planet War.
Meanwhile, Hoth continued to attack south of Prochorovka with little confidence, trying to break the russian resistance. On 14 July, he started Operation Roland, but with exhausted troops and without the evidence he was incapable to break through the defence line. "I saw the exhausted soldiers make all kinds of basic mistakes," noted a German soldier, due to the fact that they could no longer focus on their tasks."
Finally, July 23rd You had to halt the attack in the confederate part of the Kursk arch, as the fresh russian offensives over the Mius and Donet rivers on the confederate edge of the east front forced von Manstein to send further forces active in Operation Zitadelle into those areas.
On 13 July, Hitler called on von Klugi and von Manstein to tell them that the operation would be completed – not due to the Allied landing in Sicily, as it was frequently suggested later, although it was 1 of the crucial factors, but mainly due to the abrupt crisis caused by the breaking of the front on the section commanded by the Model. Hitler slow reacted to the critical situation in Italy and only 1 of the 3 divisions of the SS Second Armoured Corps, namely "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler", was sent to Italy on 17 July.
Operation Zitadelle has come to an end due to the fact that it has not achieved its first objectives. The defeats were completed by a russian counter-offensive which Germany did not foresee. In the exhaustion battles that followed in July and August 1943, The Germans lost 203 1000 men, almost 1 3rd of the forces with which they began the offensive on the Kursk bow, and 1030 aircraft. On the full east Front, they lost as many as 1331 tanks and assault guns during this period. russian losses were much higher – only under Kursk alone amounted to 70,000 dead or missing, 1,600 tanks and 400 aircraft – but in the summertime of 1943 they could be replenished much easier than in Germany, as russian factories focused on primitive mass production.
Fragments come from the book “Blood and Destroys. The large War of Empires 1931-1945. Volume 1” which was published by Rebis Publishing House. The author is Richard Overy.
REBIS Publishing House
