Prokhorovka: The Deciding Battle of Kursk

The Critical Moment

It seems now that the battle of Kursk was really inevitable. It had to come to this. The two opposing sides had been hammering at one another for two years. The pendulum swung one way and then the other. Sooner or later, there would be a decisive battle that would decide the final course of the war. It would take place in southern Russia in an uneven circle of some 75 miles with the town of Kursk at its center. Though the fighting never reached it, Kursk would be the infamous name attached to this mighty series of battles.

Kursk was in essence a show of strength. The German army would stand toe to toe with the Russian bear in a slugfest to the bitter end. It was not a contest of courage or will. If it had been it would have ended in a draw. Both forces demonstrated clearly that they had the will and the desire to win. Ultimately it was a conflict in which skilled warriors with high-tech equipment would fight a larger swarming horde of lesser-trained, but equally motivated soldiers, tankers, and airmen in a fight to the finish.

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Oh the war would go on, of course, but this would be the last great offensive action of the German army in the East. From Kursk on to the end, the Wehrmacht began a bloody trek back to whence they had come two years earlier.

The Massive Effort

The path that had led both forces to this point was marked with danger signs for Germany from the start. The first winter in Russia was for the Wehrmacht a nightmare. The second winter, a calamity of major proportions. In a battle that lasted for six months, one tenth of the entire Germany army was lost.

That meant one soldier in ten had disappeared from the German ranks. The vaunted German 6th army and entire divisions of allies were simply sucked off the face of the Motherland as with a giant brown vacuum cleaner. They were gone. The only remains were the blackened hulks and torn bodies that littered both the city and the surrounding countryside. Nature mercifully covered the entire grim spectacle with a blanket of white as if to give the combatants a moment of peace.

Now it was 1943. General von Manstein, in a masterstroke that compensated somewhat for the horrendous losses suffered in the fighting for Stalingrad with the recapture of Kharkov in March. The spring thaw then slowed movement to a crawl and halted any advantages to the Germans to capitalize on the opportunity. Army Group South with its victory had given new impetus to Hitler and the OKW.

The new plan that was generated was Manstein’s “backhand stroke.” He would allow the Russians to enter the Donetz basin and then begin a sweeping movement north from Kharkov that would place the Soviets in the same peril that his fellow soldiers had fallen into at Stalingrad. When OKW got wind of the idea, it was felt that such a move could be much more significant, perhaps changing the course of the war to that point in favor of the Wehrmacht. Another plan quickly arose that seemed to the higher command to be much more effective and final.

German forces on the move on the Eastern Front

Since there now existed a salient or bulge of Russian forces that had protruded itself into the German front lines, why not cut it off? Instead of a sweep from the south by one Army Group, two would participate and form giant pincers at both extremes of that bulge.

Well equipped and with the newer weapons and tanks, the German army would deal the Bolsheviks such a blow that the whole Russian offensive would stall. Then either Hitler could negotiate a peace of sorts with Stalin or time would be bought to bring more devastating weapons to the table of war.

The Fuhrer’s Concern

Hitler, on this occasion, vacillated. When speaking of Operation Citadel he told those closest to him that the very thought of this battle caused his stomach to churn. Perhaps the Fuhrer realized that this was the “do or die” battle for Germany. Win it, and the campaign for conquering the western half of Russia would be kept alive. Lose it, and the loss would be the harbinger of an ultimate total defeat of the Third Reich. No one will ever know what he thought.

What was known was that Hitler had reservations. The loss at Stalingrad seemed to have taken the blind assurance for which he had been known away from him. He wanted to be absolutely sure that victory would be his. The losses suffered in and around Stalingrad at the end of the previous year had so weakened the offensive punch of the Wehrmacht that it would be some months into 1943 before anything like the earlier German offensives could be executed.

So in order to be certain of a victory, he would need time to prepare his attacking forces. This period of preparation was first designated to end in May. It was then postponed for another month. The newest tank in the German inventory, the Mark V Panther was in production, but would enough of them be ready in time? There was also the new self-propelled tank killer called the Ferdinand that Hitler wanted to be involved in the fighting in some quantity.

The introduction of the Tiger a few months earlier had startled the Russians, much as the T-34 had startled the German tankers in 1941. The coming of the Panther would enhance the use of the Tiger and give the tankers of the Panzerwaffe a vehicle specifically designed to kill the T-34 or any other piece of Soviet armor then on the field. The first use of the Panther at Kursk was less than impressive but this was due to a lack of testing and fine tuning the tank before sending it into combat. More Panthers were lost to mechanical malfunction than to Soviet fire. Eventually, however, it would become the best medium tank of World War Two. The initial rush to get it off the assembly lines and into action would be the source of much grief to German armored commanders as the battle got under way.

The Germans had amassed a powerful force. To the north, under von Kluge (the 9th Army) were poised six armored and five infantry divisions with all their support units. In the south, the brilliant General von Manstein would provide two armies, the Fourth Armored and Detachment Kempf. Together they mustered eleven armored and five infantry divisions.

Some of the most intricate and deadly defenses ever imagined were prepared and in great depth. The Russians wanted the Germans to attack. They wanted to bleed and kill the German army. This was a showdown that would please the Soviets.

There was intense debate over the outcome of such a titanic battle among the high command in the German army. As previously noted, even Hitler admitted to his staff that his stomach churned at the thought of such a gamble. He apparently recognized that the fate of the war in Russia would hinge on this momentous conflict.

Still, there seemed to be no other choice. The Fuhrer despised retreat and desperately wanted to go back to the offensive. This was the ideal place. April had been the ideal time. But it was July, and it was too late. Like a giant machine set in motion, the plans and preparations had come too far to stop now. The battle for Kursk would take place.

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