Students of military history know that the Battle of Kursk in 1943 was the largest panzer clash in history. It marked a key turning point in the defeat of Nazi Germany. It depleted the German military and demonstrated the growing strength of the Red Army and the maturity of its General Staff.
The fighting began on 5 July 1943, with the Germans launching their first offensive south of Moscow, seeking to regain the initiative they had lost after their disastrous defeat at Stalingrad earlier that year.
However, the German offensive was quickly blunted by the Soviet defensive tactics, followed by a Russian counter-offensive that pushed a weakened and demoralized enemy further west, clearing the way to Berlin and defeating Hitler's Nazi regime.
As another major offensive unfolds in 2024 in Russia's western Kursk Oblast, commentators are wondering about parallels to the past and how this operation may affect the outcome of Russia's current war with Ukraine.
The purpose of the Ukrainian attack has generated much speculation, other than a chance to change the course of the conflict and provide a much-needed morale boost.
Is the aim to seize territory and take Russians prisoner, giving Kiev leverage at the negotiating table, or is it to draw Russian forces away from the front lines in eastern Ukraine, where Russian troops are steadily advancing?
Make a plan
The objectives of the German offensive in 1943 were similarly unclear.
Ostensibly the aim was to press a great spur in the Russian front on the eastern front, stretching 160 miles from north to south, with the city of Kursk at its centre providing a base for the German panzer spearheads, who would drive like scalpels to the base of the spur.
On the one hand, this made defensive sense: the Germans had lost over 200,000 men in the defeat at Stalingrad, and a straight front would be easier to defend.
However, some hoped that the introduction of the latest generation of tanks, such as the Tiger and Panther tanks, would enable Germany to return to the victorious path of the Blitzkrieg that had defeated France in six weeks in 1940 and led its forces to the outskirts of Moscow in 1941.
It was hoped that victory at Kursk would rouse the Germans to action again and restore faith in ultimate victory that had been so badly shaken by Stalingrad.
The Battle of Kursk unfolded: July-August 1943. Map: Tank Museum
The plan was for a two-pronged offensive: one in the north, led by the 9th Army, would advance south to link up with the 4th Panzer Army and cut off a northern route from the Belgorod area to cut off the Soviet forces in the salient.
Hitler committed 777,000 men, over 2,400 tanks, and 2,000 aircraft, but these were not resources committed lightly. At this point in the war, Hitler's forces were under pressure in the Mediterranean, attacked from the air by British and American air forces, threatened with invasion from the West, and outnumbered by Russian forces in the East. Thus, these were not resources Germany could replenish.
In other words, Kursk was a big gamble for Hitler, but the German high command must have thought it was better to take it than to accept a defensive stalemate or slow defeat on the eastern front as the Russians' overwhelming forces pushed the Germans back kilometre by kilometre.
German Delay and Russian Defense
The German buildup took several months after initial plans for the offensive were made in March, and Russia used the time to build up the kind of defense in depth that has become one of the hallmarks of its military and is believed to have blunted the much-publicized 2023 Ukrainian summer offensive recently.
Long before the 1943 offensive began, senior German commanders were convinced that the time for an offensive had passed. By the time the offensive began on July 5, Russian forces had long been prepared and firmly entrenched.
Russian Spies: John Cairncross leaked German battle plans to Russian spies.
This was also thanks to a Russian spy: John Cairncross, stationed at Bletchley Park in England, the Allied code-breaking center, passed along code reads showing the German attack plans to his Russian counterparts.
The resulting defenses severely hampered German panzer attacks. By 10 July, it was clear that the offensive from the north had stalled, and a week later the offensive in the south was terminated as concerns about the Allied landings in Sicily distracted Hitler's attention elsewhere.
By 12 July, the Russians had launched a counterattack in the north that was expected to push back the German lines, albeit at great cost.
By 4 August, the city of Orel, in the centre of the German-occupied zone, had been liberated, and by 18 August the Germans had established defensive positions east of Bryansk. The Germans had lost 30 of their 50 divisions, with 500,000 soldiers killed, wounded or missing.
A decisive defeat
The battle was a turning point in the conflict in the East: Russian losses were many times greater than German ones, but the Red Army, with a fully operational military-industrial complex, quickly recovered, while Germany was never again able to try to seize the strategic initiative against Russia.
At Kursk, the road to Stalingrad became the road to Berlin. It remains to be seen whether the Ukrainian Kursk counteroffensive will be equally decisive for Kiev or Moscow, but for now at least, it seems that Kiev has the advantage.
Harry Bennett is Associate Professor (Lecturer) in History at the University of Plymouth.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
