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.