JUL 21, 2013  

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the 70th anniversary:

the Battle of Kursk

For the last two weeks we remember the Battle of Kursk, from 5th to 23rd of July, 1943. While the Battle of Stalingrad was military and psychological turning point in the supreme Russian-German confrontation in an ambiance of extinction aimed at one big nation, the Battle of Kursk was a definite military re-normalization of the most formi- dable fighting force of the Second World War: from the battle on, it was the Russian War Machine, the Red Army. Once they had defeated the Germans at Kursk, the Red Army never looked back.

Both sides were well prepared for the battle, operation Citadel by German code name. It could be that "leaks" about the German military massing around the Kursk Salient were staged. Namely, the opposite massing of Russian forces was in German interest because the main goal of Hitler and his generals was not the liquidation of the salient itself but the attrition of Russian War Machine, an attrition up to the point where Germans might once more gain the initiative lost after the Battle of Stalingrad.

The German plan was very simplistic: II Panzer Army from the Army Group Center, north of the salient, was to attack south- ward toward Kursk while IV Panzer Army from the Army Group South was to attack northward, meeting with the II Army some- where around Kursk. Although initially planned for May, the German attack was postponed to July 5, in massing of more heavy armor, Tigers and Panthers. By its intensity, the northern attack was more like a diversion - the battle was decided on the south where, in an opening blow Germans launched 1300 tanks. In the battle of colossal intensity from 5th to 12th July, with heavy losses in men and arms on both sides, German losses in heavy armor and fighter planes even heavier, German initial advances were driven into complete stop by the evening of July 11. The next morning, Russians counter-attacked in the area of Prokhorov ka, in the ‘greatest tank battle of history’  (more than 1500 tanks), and Germans were thrown into a retreat. By July 23, German defensive lines were overrun.

The commander of the German Army Group South during the operation Citadel was Field Marshal Erich von Manstein. So, he could not but to include the Battle of Kursk into his Lost Victories. Of course, he claims that Hitler was wrong calling off the operation Cidatel on July 13, that there were ways and means to continue. It’s almost tragi- comic - neither Hitler was so stupid nor von Manstein was so smart as described in the Lost Victories. Von Manstein lost the Battle of Kursk, it’s that simple. One can see that from the fact that, in the Lost Vistories, the Battle of Kursk is described by mere six and a half pages while the battles lost by other German generals are described by fifty and more pages. Von Manstein lost the Battle of Kursk.

the battle of Kursk

            see also:   THE DEFENSE OF SOVIET ARMY AT KURSK, JULY 5-23, 1943

   (Russian maps)  COUNTERATTACK OF SOVIET ARMY AT KURSK, JUL 12 - AUG 23, 1943

 

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