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THESIS: Operational CITADEL (Zitadelle) was not only the greatest tank battle ever fought but it was also the last important German offensive in the East and the lost of the battle sounded the death knell for the German war effort on the Eastern Front.
The town of Kursk held a prewar population of 120,000 and was of little meaning in and of itself, except as a reference point. However, it was the land around Kursk that mattered to the Germans. The land consisted of a mixture of valleys, small copses, villages, small brooks, and the River Pena, which possessed steep banks and a fast moving current which made a very good defensive position. The roads were impassable in the winter and the wet muddy spring and the cornfields made visibility very poor. It was the high ground in the north that attracted the Germans, Colonel Mellenthin specifically, which favored the defender and could only help the embryonic German mobile defense system. It was, as Colonel Mellethin put it, not good tank ground but this did not necessarily make it tankproof.
Thus, as the planning for Operation Zitadelle began, the German line in south centra
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The final fight in the north came on July 8th when Model committed the 4th Panzer Division, the final division that he was holding in reserve. , from mechanical failure or track damage), the crew will continue to give fire support from a static position. The battle erupted as the armored forces met on the narrow Prokhorovka passageway, at full speed. The attacks from the north under Model and the south under Kluge erupted in the early morning of the 5th and they were vicious and prolonged.
The Soviets also had a great deal of intelligence help in the form of LUCY, a German veteran of World War One, whose real name was Rudolf Rossler, who was an ardent anti-Nazi. ”3
The Germans had to know that the Soviets were lying in wait for them and still they persisted in attacking a well-fortified position with men and materials that they could ill afford to lose. Model fought there for four more days and nights in a viscous fight that sometimes degenerated into hand-to-hand combat and, at the height of the battle, up to 1,200 tanks and SPs were involved as well as approximately 3,000 artillery pieces. And, as freshly trained troops (green) took a higher amount of casualties than did veterans, the commanders had to call up the replacements faster and faster, thus draining off Germany’s manpower at a rapidly increasing rate. 2mm AT guns, grouped under one commander, who selected the target and called for a single volley of fire against one target at a time.
The men who curried favor from him or who were to command the army groups (Manstein and Kluge) were all in favor of the offensive no matter the cost while men like Guderian (now out of favor) and Jodl were against it. They planned to link up with the 2d SS Panzer Corps who had slashed their way through the Soviet Sixth Guards defenses and took Luchki I, a full TWENTY miles inside the Russian salient. 4
Thus, the Germans still had not perceived the concept of the value of their trained crews.
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