By Matija Šerić
Both the Germans and the Russians felt that the battle would be decisive. The Red Army put 40% of its manpower and 75% of its armored forces into the combat zone. Losing these forces would have caused a catastrophe. As for Hitler, the success of Operation Citadel was important to him, so he postponed its start to ensure German strength. The Nazi dictator was now forced to balance the war efforts on the Eastern Front with the broader needs of World War II.
From the summer of 1943, Germany was subjected to heavy bombardment by British and American air fleets, which tied down a large number of men for anti-aircraft defense who would otherwise have been sent to the Eastern Front. The gamble in North Africa had failed, and the Axis powers were finally defeated in May in Tunisia with the surrender of 150,000 German and Italian soldiers. While Operation Citadel was being prepared, German leaders were aware that the Western Allies could use North Africa as a springboard to open a southern front in Italy or the Balkans. German troops on the Eastern Front still held the strategic initiative, but they would lose it if they suffered a defeat in the summer.
The calm before the storm
Soviet intelligence needed to find out when the German attack would begin. As early as May, there were indications that the attack could happen at any moment. The defensive lines had not yet been fortified as planned, but a state of alert was declared. However, Hitler postponed the attack, originally planned for May 3, to June 12. This decision was not correct. The longer the Germans waited, the more tense and distracted they became. For the Russian soldiers in the Kursk salient, the calm meant weeks and weeks of oscillation between tense anticipation of the attack and daily military routine. Waiting for over two months strained the morale of the troops, who knew the storm was coming and that many would not survive it.
In the last week of June, the Soviet army noticed sudden changes. From intercepted German messages, it was clear that the enemy was preparing to launch the attack. A state of alert was declared. The offensive was expected between July 3 and 6. On July 2, Soviet troops went into full alert. Suddenly, on July 4, all activity on the battlefield stopped, and silence fell. A captured German soldier on the southern part of the salient testified that the German offensive would begin on the morning of July 5. The Voronezh Front under General Vatutin, holding the lines opposite Belgorod and Kharkov, received orders to start artillery fire to disrupt German positions. Zhukov was at the Red Army headquarters to coordinate the battle.
The first day of battle
Around 2 a.m. on July 5, news arrived from a captured German infantry engineer providing the exact time of the attack. The Germans planned to attack at 3 a.m. Without waiting for Stalin’s approval, Zhukov ordered air and artillery strikes. No one could rest; action was required. Stalin’s irritation in Moscow was obvious when Zhukov called him on the phone. At 2:30 a.m., a terrible rumble could be heard. The sounds of cannons, rockets, and bombs mixed, and to Zhukov’s ears, it sounded like a “symphony from hell.” German commanders were completely surprised. For a while, they thought they were victims of a Soviet offensive of which they had no warning.
When it became evident that it was nothing more than an attack aimed at disrupting German preparations, the order was given to continue the attack as planned. Field Marshal Walter Model’s 9th Panzer Army, supported by Tiger tanks and new Ferdinand self-propelled guns, advanced to find a passage through Zhukov’s fortress on the narrow battlefield. This was the attack on the northern part of the salient towards Ponyri and Olkhovatka. They were faced with a network of defensive fire unlike anything the Germans had previously experienced. They advanced only a few meters at a time.
Hundreds of Soviet obstacles were reinforced with mobile anti-tank commandos who launched suicidal attacks on enemy tanks with gasoline bombs and crude devices to disable the German tanks before soldiers with anti-tank grenades arrived. Soviet soldiers hid in trenches and threw grenades in front of advancing tanks. The heavy armor of the German tanks and guns forced Soviet units to engage them at very close range. After the first day, the Germans had captured 6.5 km of territory.
The Germans try to advance with all their might
The next day, July 6, Model brought in more tanks. A force of 3,000 guns and 1,000 tanks attacked a front only 10 km wide. The transfer of armed reserves from the interior of the Kursk salient to the front line stalled the attack and inflicted heavy losses on the attackers. The following day proved to be decisive. On July 7, advancing over 11 kilometers, German tanks were redirected toward the village of Ponyri. The battle was constant. The thunder of guns, bombs, and thick smoke soon made it impossible to see anything. German armor faced the strongest defensive line and had to stop. The next day, another village, Olkhovatka, was chosen for the German breakthrough. A large concentration of tanks on the narrow approaches to the village made them easy targets for Soviet heavy bombers, anti-tank launchers, and heavy artillery.
The failure of the attack on the northern salient
On July 9, the German troops in the north reached their limit. Zhukov told Stalin that the long-awaited moment had arrived. A counteroffensive in the north was planned for July 12, and it happened as planned. When it began, the German attack was “crushed.” Rokossovsky’s divisions, reinforced by a “flood” of supplies and manpower brought in through newly constructed rail lines specifically for the Battle of Kursk, forced the attackers to retreat across the trenches and fortifications they had broken through in the previous week, marking the inglorious failure of the German attack in the north.
Operations on the southern part of the salient
On the southern part of the Kursk salient, the situation for the Soviets was less encouraging. Although Soviet intelligence on German intentions was more accurate than in previous years, the deployment of German troops was misjudged. The main weight of the attack was expected in the north, and Soviet defensive strongholds were stronger there than in the south. General Hermann Hoth’s 4th Panzer Army advanced into the less defended part of the battlefield. The Red Army fought to halt the Wehrmacht’s advance with fierce energy as in the north, but General Vatutin lacked the heavy armor and density of artillery fire that Rokossovsky used to trap Model.
Hoth had nine Panzer divisions, the cream of the German armored forces, led by the three most powerful formations of the German army: the SS Panzer Division “Totenkopf,” SS “Das Reich,” and SS “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.” These fanatical divisions struck so hard in the first two days of brutal fighting that they captured nearly 32 kilometers of territory towards the key Oboyan-Kursk road. In the German headquarters, Manstein waited with great confidence that the Soviet front would collapse, as it so often had in the past.
The Soviets stop the SS advance
This time, the Soviets held their ground. On July 7, the SS divisions reached the main defensive line after exhausting attacks against the initial obstacles. Now, a strong force stood in their way—the 1st Tank Army. The pace of the attack began to slow down. On July 9, the Panzer divisions regrouped into a powerful armored “fist” and struck together to break a hole in the Soviet defenses. They crossed the small Psel River, the last natural barrier between the Germans and the city of Kursk. The forward units of the SS “Totenkopf” Division created a small bridgehead. This was the furthest point the Germans advanced during the battle. Unable to make further progress, Hoth redirected the focus of the attack northeast toward the small railway junction in the village of Prokhorovka.
The five days starting from July 9, 1943, were the most crucial in the entire Battle of Kursk. The SS Armored Corps regrouped and prepared for what was believed to be the decisive maneuver against Soviet forces, whose heavy losses of men and equipment could be seen in the charred bodies and burned-out cannons blackening the landscape. More than 500 heavy tanks, many of them the powerful Tiger and Panther models that could outmatch the Soviet T-34s, rolled forward. The Soviet command responded by calling in some of its precious reserves, which had been kept far behind the front lines in readiness for a counterattack.
