Manstein inherited responsibility for the massive breach in the German lines. Directly to the north, Army Group B was dissolved, with its forces and areas of responsibility divided between Army Group South and Army Group Centre. To the south, Army Group Don was renamed Army Group South and placed under Manstein's command. On 12 February 1943, the remaining German forces were reorganised. He received an approval from Hitler for a counteroffensive against the Soviet forces advancing in the Donbass region. On 6 February 1943, Manstein met with Hitler at the headquarters in Rastenburg to discuss the proposals he had previously sent. Since December 1942 Field Marshal Erich von Manstein had been strongly requesting "unrestricted operational freedom" to allow him to use his forces in a fluid manner. By February 1943 the southern sector of the German front was in strategic crisis. The Soviet Bryansk, Western, and newly created Central Fronts prepared for an offensive which envisioned the encirclement of Army Group Centre between Bryansk and Smolensk. Kursk was retaken by the Soviets on 8 February 1943, and Rostov on 14 February. Army Group Center came under significant pressure as well. By January 1943, a 160-to-300-kilometre-wide (99 to 186 mi) gap had opened between German Army Group B and Army Group Don, and the advancing Soviet armies threatened to cut off all German forces south of the Don River, including Army Group A operating in the Caucasus. 6 Soviet Kursk Strategic Offensive OperationĪs the Battle of Stalingrad slowly ground to its conclusion, the Red Army moved to a general offensive in the south, in Operation Little Saturn.Though the Red Army had succeeded in winter offensives previously, their counter-offensives after the German attack at Kursk were their first successful summer offensives of the war. The Battle of Kursk was the first time in the Second World War that a German strategic offensive was halted before it could break through enemy defences and penetrate to its strategic depths. Germany's extensive losses of men and tanks ensured that the victorious Soviet Red Army enjoyed the strategic initiative for the remainder of the war.
Hitler canceled the offensive at Kursk after only a week, in part to divert forces to Italy. Because the Allied invasion of Sicily began during the battle, Adolf Hitler was forced to divert troops training in France to meet the Allied threat in the Mediterranean, rather than using them as a strategic reserve for the Eastern Front.
The battle was the final strategic offensive that the Germans were able to launch on the Eastern Front.
Battle group kursk series#
The Germans delayed the offensive while they tried to build up their forces and waited for new weapons, giving the Red Army time to construct a series of deep defensive belts and establish a large reserve force for counter-offensives. Aware months in advance that the attack would fall on the neck of the Kursk salient, the Soviets built a defence in depth designed to wear down the German armoured spearhead. The Soviet government had foreknowledge of the German intentions, provided in part by British intelligence's Tunny intercepts. It was also hoped that large numbers of Soviet prisoners would be captured to be used as slave labour in the German armaments industry. Hitler believed that a victory here would reassert German strength and improve his prestige with his allies, whom he thought were considering withdrawing from the war. The Germans hoped to weaken the Soviet offensive potential for the summer of 1943 by cutting off and enveloping the forces that they anticipated would be in the Kursk salient. On 3 August, the Soviets began the second phase of the Kursk Strategic Offensive Operation with the launch of Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev ( Russian: Полководец Румянцев) against the German forces on the southern side of the salient. On the southern side, the Soviets also launched powerful counterattacks the same day, one of which led to a large armoured clash, the Battle of Prokhorovka.
After the German offensive stalled on the northern side of the salient, on 12 July the Soviets commenced their Kursk Strategic Offensive Operation with the launch of Operation Kutuzov ( Russian: Кутузов) against the rear of the German forces on the same side. The battle began with the launch of the German offensive Operation Citadel ( German: Unternehmen Zitadelle), on 5 July, which had the objective of pinching off the Kursk salient with attacks on the base of the salient from north and south simultaneously. The Battle of Kursk was a major World War II Eastern Front engagement between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in the southwestern USSR during late summer 1943 it ultimately became the largest tank battle in history.
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