By Matija Šerić
After the Battle of Stalingrad in early 1943, the situation on the Eastern Front changed fundamentally. In 1942, the Soviet Union had been on the brink of defeat as its most advanced western regions were under German occupation, depriving the Soviets of key resources, while Soviet citizens suffered from severe shortages. It seemed that the Germans were winning and were relentlessly advancing toward the Caucasus and further south, but the catastrophe at Stalingrad changed everything.
In the spring of 1943, the German-Soviet war was far from over, and both sides had to make plans. The Germans still held the strategic initiative. After the snow began to melt with the arrival of the first rains in March 1943, both the Germans and Soviets reduced the intensity of fighting so that their planners could work out strategic options for the year 1943. Adolf Hitler was more irritable than a year earlier, and like Joseph Stalin, he granted his military commanders greater freedom and scope in planning operations.
Political and military circumstances before the clash at Kursk
Hitler was aware that achieving a complete military victory against the Soviet Union was impossible. However, he wanted to launch one more major offensive, partly to convince his allies of the strength of German arms, and partly to continue diplomatic negotiations. German agents approached Russian representatives in Sweden as they wanted to discuss a possible separate peace with the USSR, and they also contacted the British and Americans. The first half of 1943 was filled with diplomatic tensions. In April, the Germans announced that they had found mass graves of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest, which disrupted Moscow’s relations with the Polish government-in-exile in London, as well as with London and Washington.
As early as February, right after Stalingrad, Hitler had declared that it was essential for the German army to “recover in the summer what it had lost in the winter.” This was not easy, as the Germans and their Axis allies had lost over half a million men. According to German sources, despite total mobilization in Germany, by the start of the summer battles, they were able to replace only about half of the losses. Hitler’s reputation had been shaken due to Stalingrad, and the recapture of Kharkov in March 1943 did not help him. The defeat of the Germans and Italians in North Africa and the prospects of an imminent Allied invasion of Italy, with unpredictable political consequences, only worsened Hitler’s increasingly dire position in the war. The war in Russia could no longer be won. Hitler needed a spectacular military victory similar to the Russian victory at Stalingrad.
The appeal of the Kursk region
The Kursk salient, between Orel in the north and Belgorod in the south, seemed the most suitable place to inflict a sensational defeat on the Russians. The Russians viewed the Kursk salient as a springboard for the recapture of the Orel and Bryansk areas in western Russia and eastern Ukraine. Since March, Soviet authorities had been fortifying the Kursk salient with thousands of kilometers of trenches and obstacles. According to German sources, in the spring of 1943, Hitler decided, for political and economic reasons, to hold the front from the Gulf of Finland to the Sea of Azov, and to deal the Soviets a spectacular defeat at the Kursk salient through Operation Citadel. Trapping a large number of Russians there would significantly shift the strategic situation in favor of the Germans, potentially enabling a new offensive toward Moscow.
Operation Citadel
Field Marshal Erich von Manstein formulated a plan with the code name Citadel. The operation targeted the large Soviet salient around the city of Kursk in western Russia. The Kursk salient was 190 km deep and 96 km wide. The main forces of the Red Army were concentrated there. Manstein planned to close the salient using armored pincers that would cut it off from the north and south. The goal was to encircle and destroy a large part of the Red Army’s formations at a critical point on the front, allowing the Wehrmacht either to regain control of the southern region or to advance northeast toward Moscow.
Manstein wanted to attack in April or May before the Soviet troops had time to regroup and dig in, but Hitler was worried and wanted to avoid another risky campaign, insisting on waiting until June, when new tank formations would be ready. Later, he postponed the launch of the offensive until the beginning of July to ensure victory and to keep Fascist Italy in the war. The Führer stated that victory at Kursk would capture the imagination of the world.
How Will the Soviets Respond?
The Soviet commanders faced a critical challenge. In 1941 and 1942, they had misjudged where the main German attack would fall. This time, their assessment had to be correct. The Red Army’s High Command put itself in Hitler’s position. From available secret intelligence, they could see that the German army was not yet ready for a major offensive. Because of the heavy concentration of German troops around the city of Orel to the north of the Kursk salient and Kharkov to the south, it seemed likely that the main direction of attack would be at those locations. The Soviets correctly assumed that the attack would come in the form of two heavily armored thrusts aiming to cut off the salient from the rear and encircle the Soviet armies bogged down around Kursk. Georgy Zhukov believed that Moscow was the ultimate objective of the German offensive. No one voiced disagreement with this assessment. For the first time, the Soviet High Command got it right.
A much harder decision was how to respond. Stalin followed his intuition and called for a preemptive strike. Zhukov, using his military experience and theoretical knowledge, advocated defense in depth, “absorbing” the German attacks from the left and right, wearing down the enemy’s strength before launching a final blow that would deliver a “knock-out” using large reserve forces from the rear. Some senior commanders had advocated this kind of strategy back in the fateful year of 1941. The consequences of their disagreements back then had shown a very different Stalin.
A New Stalin
On April 8, 1943, the dictator was with his High Command when a report arrived from Zhukov, rejecting Stalin’s proposals for a “preemptive offensive” and confirming intelligence reports that the Kursk salient was the German target. Stalin did not voice an opinion, nor did he resort to his usual accusations that the intelligence reports were disinformation, as he had in 1941 and 1942. Instead, he called a military conference for April 12. At the conference, he carefully listened to the analyses of German intentions, took into account the reports from frontline commanders, all of whom supported Zhukov’s plan. The dictator only became agitated when it was mentioned that the likely goal of the German attack was to encircle Moscow. Stalin ordered Zhukov to create an impenetrable defense along the central front around Kursk.
Fortifying the Kursk Salient
Stalin’s unusual willingness to accept the experts’ views undoubtedly saved the Red Army from another disastrous summer. Zhukov succeeded in his goal. As with the Stalingrad counteroffensive, questions remain over who exactly created the concept that served as the basis for the Battle of Kursk. The important point is that Zhukov managed to convince Stalin, despite the dictator’s personal preferences, that deep defense was the correct choice. The plan returned to Russian traditions with the concept of “deep battle.” The defensive battlefield was prepared in detail and with determination, something that had previously been forbidden. It was designed to maximize Soviet firepower and allow the defensive forces to maneuver effectively in response to German breakthroughs. Concentrating reserves in the rear for counterattack required the High Command to overcome serious challenges of coordination and timing. The entire operation depended on precise management of the largest battlefield in history.
Preparations began. The main burden of the defense fell on the Central and Voronezh Fronts, which held the north and south of the salient. The Central Front was commanded by General Konstantin Rokossovsky, and the Voronezh Front by General Nikolai Vatutin. In the salient around Kursk, Vatutin and Rokossovsky packed in seven armies. To the north and south of the salient, the Bryansk and Southwestern Fronts were reinforced to provide a springboard for the counterattack. More than 240 kilometers behind the front lines, reserve troops were concentrated within the Steppe Front—a tank army, two infantry armies, and the 5th Air Army under the command of General Konev, whom Zhukov had saved from Stalin’s wrath in 1941. The defensive zone consisted of six defensive lines within the salient, with an additional two defensive belts in front of the reserve armies. The local population was ordered to stay where they were. The people were needed to help the troops dig around 5,000 kilometers of trenches, which were built in a cross-pattern to allow defenders to move more easily from one firing position to another. The salient was dotted with anti-tank traps made from local timber. Artillery and anti-tank guns were positioned so that German armor would be exposed to a fierce “curtain of fire.”
A Battle of Gigantic Proportions
More than 400,000 mines were laid. Streams were dammed to create potential floods that could hinder enemy tanks if necessary. Gigantic obstacles stretched for kilometers across rich farmland and orchards. Nearby, 150 airfields were positioned, and 50 fake air bases were built to deceive the enemy. When everything was ready, 1.3 million soldiers, 3,444 tanks, 2,900 aircraft, and 19,000 guns stood prepared. “It was a huge, truly titanic task,” Marshal Vasilevsky recalled. Along the front lines, the Soviets faced 900,000 German troops organized into 50 divisions with 2,700 tanks, 2,000 aircraft, and over 10,000 guns. The Russians and Germans were about to fight the largest, most carefully planned battle in history.
