Legends of the biggest tank battle of all time. Steel against steel (memoirs of participants in the Battle of Kursk)

One of the bloodiest and most decisive battles of the Great Patriotic War — Battle of Kursk(from July 5 to July 23, 1943), which marked the beginning of the final defeat of the enemy, is associated with the tank battle near Prokhorovka, unprecedented in scope and fierceness. This is not entirely true. AT post-war years a meeting of tankers of the opposing sides took place, at which german tanks Thousands declared that they won this battle. The statement caused confusion. They explained: there were more burnt and wrecked Soviet tanks left on the battlefield than German ones ...

Earnestly. Unfortunately it's true. Involuntarily, the battle of Borodino is recalled, the victory in which for almost two hundred years has been attributed to both sides ... Let's try to figure it out. Despite our powerful preemptive strike, the German command could not cancel the prepared offensive. It only postponed it for two hours: the "point of no return" was passed.

Military historians operate with a figure of 700 tanks, allegedly advancing near Prokhorovka. But the fact of the matter is that Manstein had only 700 tanks in the southern section of the Kursk Bulge, and the 2nd Panzer Corps was advancing in the Prokhorovka area, in three divisions of which: Totenkopf, Leibstandarte and Reich there were 211 tanks and 124 self-propelled guns, i.e. a total of 335 armored vehicles, including 42 "tigers" (of which 15 are combat-ready).

This tank wedge was opposed by the 5th tank army of General Rotmistrov, numbering about six hundred tanks and self-propelled guns (597 for accuracy). Losses on both sides amounted to: the enemy has 70 tanks and self-propelled guns, we have -343, five times more, i.e. more than half of the entire tank fleet of the 5th army ...

On July 14, Vasilevsky reported to Stalin that “the Germans were not stopped near Prokhorovka” - the Totenkopf division advanced several kilometers (which made it possible for them to calculate the losses of the parties), and the Reich division advanced into the depths of our defense until July 16.

Alarmed by the success of the enemy in this direction, the commander of the Voronezh Front, Vatutin, gave the order to go over to the defensive. Enraged, Stalin established a special commission to review the actions of the 5th Panzer Army, which reported to the leader that "the battle of Prokhorovka was an example of an unsuccessful operation" - the end of the quote.

These figures, as well as the conclusions of the commission, were classified until recently. In his memoirs, General Rotmistrov writes that in the battle of Prokhorovka, his army destroyed 500 tanks, including 42 "tigers", despite the fact that the enemy had only 335 of them, and out of 42 "tigers" only 15 took part in the battle.

How not to recall the German military theorist and historian Clausewitz, who almost two hundred years ago said: “Nowhere else do they lie so much as in war and hunting” ... In parentheses, I note that it is Clausewitz who owns the thesis “usurped” by Marx: war is a continuation of politics by others means.

The failure in the southern sector of the Kursk Bulge did not affect the overall success of the battle. Northern group of our troops: Western Front- Commander V. Sokolovsky and Bryansky - Commander M. Popov broke through the enemy defenses, developed success and predetermined the general defeat of the German group, burying last hope Hitler.

With a fair degree of certainty, it can be assumed that since Khrushchev was a member of the Military Council of the Voronezh Front, there were well-wishers who "moved" the victory from north to south. Or maybe he himself. Truly: the darkness of low truths is dearer to us than the uplifting deception.

But the losses were great. We lost 860,000 soldiers and officers and about 6,000 tanks and self-propelled guns in this battle. The Germans, respectively, 500 thousand and 1500 armored vehicles (for one German tank - four of ours).

The miscalculations and failures of our command should not cast a shadow on the unparalleled courage and heroism of our tankers. Despite the fact that the "tiger" hit the target at a distance of one and a half kilometers, and ours at 500-600 meters, the tankers showed miracles of courage and ... cunning.

Yefim Holbreich

74 years ago on the Eastern Front, the Wehrmacht began offensive operation on the Kursk Bulge. However, it did not turn out to be unexpected - the Red Army had been preparing for defense for several months. The military historian, retired Colonel Karl-Heinz Friser, who worked for many years in the military history department of the Bundeswehr, is considered the best specialist on events on the Eastern Front. He studied both German and Russian documents in detail.

Die Welt: The Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943 is considered "the biggest battle of all time". Is this statement correct?

Karl-Heinz Freezer: Yes, superlative in this case is quite appropriate. Four million soldiers, 69,000 guns, 13,000 tanks and 12,000 aircraft took part on both sides in the Battle of Kursk in August 1943.

“Usually, the attacking side is outnumbered. However, near Kursk the situation was different. The Wehrmacht had three times less forces than Stalin's army. Why did Hitler decide to attack?

- In the summer of 1943 in Germany in last time managed to unite all their forces on the Eastern Front, because at that time the troops of the anti-Hitler coalition began their operation in Italy. In addition, the German command feared that the Soviet offensive in the summer of 1943, which was supposed to begin with the Battle of Kursk, would increase, like snow avalanche. Therefore, a decision was made on a preventive strike, while this avalanche has not yet moved.

- Hitler, a few weeks before the start of this offensive, decided that it would be interrupted if the Allies attacked Italy. Was it a strategically right or wrong decision?

- Hitler was very ambivalent about this offensive. High Command ground forces was in favor, the High Command of the Wehrmacht was against. In the end, at Kursk it was about tactical and operational, and in Italy about strategic goals, namely the prevention of a war on several fronts. Therefore, Hitler decided to compromise: the offensive was to begin, but immediately stop if the situation in Italy became critical.

– The most famous part of Operation Citadel was the tank battle near Prokhorovka on July 12, 1943. Did two “steel avalanches” really collide then?

- Some people claim that 850 Soviet and 800 German tanks took part in the battle. Prokhorovka, where 400 Wehrmacht tanks were allegedly destroyed, is considered the "cemetery of the German tank forces." However, in fact, 186 German and 672 Soviet tanks took part in this battle. At the same time, the Red Army lost 235 tanks, and the German troops - only three!

– How could this be?

The Soviet generals did everything wrong that could be done, because Stalin, mistaken in his calculations, pressed them very hard on the timing of the operation. Thus, the “kamikaze attack” by the 29th Panzer Corps ended in an unnoticed trap set up earlier by the Soviet troops, behind which were German tanks. The Russians lost 172 out of 219 tanks. 118 of them were completely destroyed. On the evening of that day, German soldiers towed their damaged tanks for repairs, and all the damaged Russian tanks were blown up.

- Did the Battle of Prokhorovka end with the victory of the Soviet or German forces?

“It all depends on how you look at the situation. FROM tactical point view, the German troops defeated, and for the Soviet this battle turned into hell. From an operational point of view, this was a Russian success, because the German advance was stopped for a while. But actually, the Red Army initially planned to destroy two enemy tank corps. Therefore, strategically, this was also a failure of the Russians, since it was planned to deploy the Fifth Guards near Prokhorovka tank army, which was later to play leading role in the summer offensive.

- After the landing of British and American troops in Sicily, Hitler withdrew the Second SS Panzer Corps from the front, although it was impossible to quickly transfer it to Sicily. From the point of view of combat, this was completely pointless, because the redeployment of tanks to southern Italy would take several weeks. Why did Hitler do it anyway?

“It was not a military, but a political decision. Hitler feared the collapse of his Italian allies.

- Did the Battle of Kursk really become a turning point in World War II?

- Why not?

- Neither Kursk nor Stalingrad became turning points. Everything was decided back in the winter of 1941 in the battle near Moscow, which ended in the collapse of the blitzkrieg. In a protracted war, the Third Reich, which experienced, in particular, a shortage of fuel, had no chance against Soviet Union, which also received support from the US and the UK. Even if Germany had won the Battle of Kursk, it would not have been able to prevent its own defeat in the entire war.

– With your research, you have already dispelled several myths about the Battle of Kursk that dominated the former Soviet Union. Why were there so many legends about this battle?

- In Soviet historiography, the Battle of Kursk, “the greatest battle of all time”, was initially assigned a surprisingly insignificant role. Because the mistakes made by the Soviet command during it were simply shameful, and the losses were horrendous. For this reason, the truth was subsequently replaced by myths.

– How do your Russian colleagues evaluate the Battle of Kursk today? Is it still dominated by legends on this subject in Russia? And has anything changed in the perception of this issue in the Putin era compared to the Yeltsin era?

- AT last years several critical publications have appeared. The author of one of them, Valery Zamulin, confirmed the huge losses Soviet forces near Prokhorovka. Another author, Boris Sokolov, pointed out that official casualty figures were grossly underreported. Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded, however, that Russian historians created a positive image of the Red Army. Since then, these colleagues, as sources in Moscow told me, have been forced to “divide” between “truth and honor.”

© Sven Felix Kellerhoff for Die Welt (Germany)

July 12, 1943 Soviet troops repulsed the attack of the Nazi troops. In a wide field, near the village of Prokhorovka, two huge tank armies met, total strength tanks exceeded 1,200 units. The battle lasted from morning to evening, and the Soviet troops won a hard but confident victory.

This is how this battle is usually described in Soviet textbooks, from there the description migrated to many Russian textbooks. What is most interesting, in the description itself there is not a word of falsehood. And what is even more interesting, if we take not individual words, the meaning, then we will not find a word of truth. Yes, the Soviet troops won, yes, the battle was in the field, yes, the number of tanks exceeded 1,200 units, yes, all this is true, but ... The Kursk salient was a section of the front curved towards the fascist troops, in fact, a foothold of the Soviet army. Now let's see what a springboard is from the point of view of military science. The enemy can attack from 3 sides, defending a foothold is always very difficult, often impossible at all. That is, statically, strategically, the side that has a foothold is at a disadvantage. But dynamically, tactically, it has a big advantage. It lies in the fact that several points of enemy defense can be attacked from the bridgehead, some even from the rear. In addition, the enemy must reorganize his formations in order to capture a bridgehead, since he cannot be ignored.


So, we came to the correct and logical conclusion: the side that has a bridgehead must either attack or mine the bridgehead and leave. The Soviet troops did neither. They decided to defend the Kursk Bulge, and, having exhausted the advancing German troops, to defeat the enemy armies with a powerful counterattack, freeing a large territory from occupation. Wehrmacht attack plan in general terms, was known to the Soviet troops: the partisans intercepted it and handed it over to the Soviet leadership.

The Soviet defense consisted of three lines of trenches, bunkers and bunkers (long-term camouflaged firing points). The Germans were to advance from the south and from the north. However, on July 4, the day before the offensive, an order followed from Berlin: immediately send two panzer divisions (tank divisions) to Italy, where Mussolini's troops suffered defeat after defeat from local Italian Resistance units. A light tank division was withdrawn from the northern direction of the attack, reinforced by a repair brigade (the path to Italy is long, and after 3-4 days a repair brigade from another front was supposed to approach the attacking troops) and a tank division (mainly PZ-IV) from the south direction attacks. On the night of the 5th, Soviet troops shelled German positions. They fired mainly at the bushes, the losses of the fascist troops were minimal, but the German officers realized that the Soviet troops were aware of the upcoming offensive. With this in mind, as well as the dispatch of two Panzer divisions to Italy, many were inclined to postpone the offensive. However, early in the morning an order was received: to begin the offensive according to a plan approved in advance (known to the Soviet troops).

The Germans assembled a little more than a thousand tanks on the Kursk Bulge (PZ-III, PZ-IV, PZ-V "Panther" and PZ-VI "Tiger"). PZ-I and PZ-II, which the Germans themselves called "cardboard boxes", can not be taken into account. There were cases when a bullet from a machine gun, fired at close range, pierced the frontal armor of this tank, killed a tanker, pierced the armor of a tank from behind and killed a German infantryman running after the tank. After sending two divisions to Italy, the Germans were left with about 1,000 tanks. All "panthers", numbering 250 units, were assembled in the northern direction in a separate tank corps. "Tigers", numbering 150, stood in a southerly direction. About 600 PZ-III and PZ-IV and 50 "Elephants", or, as they were called in another way, "Ferdinands" were concentrated in approximately equal numbers on both directions of the offensive. It was assumed that the medium tanks of the northern corps would attack first. Three hours later, the southern corps is attacked, also by the forces of medium tanks PZ-III and PZ-IV. "Panthers" at this time march around the positions of the Soviet troops and hit them in the flank. And when the Soviet command decides that the main offensive is coming from the north, and the southern direction is just a diversionary maneuver, the SS panzer divisions will appear on the scene. In total, Germany had 4 Panzer-SS divisions, three of them stood in the southern direction of the Kursk Bulge.

As a result of the fact that two panzer divisions left for Italy, the offensive was later than planned and the northern and southern corps hit at the same time. Many of the "panthers" assembled near Kursk recently left the assembly line and they had certain flaws. Since the repair team left, and most of the tankers had not driven such vehicles before, about 40 Panthers could not take part in the battle for technical reasons. Light tanks were supposed to go in front of the Panther corps, they had to reconnoiter the road for the main striking force of the northern direction. The light tank division was also sent to Italy, there were not enough forces for the initial strike, not to mention reconnaissance. As a result, the "panthers" stumbled upon a minefield, from 50 to 70 vehicles were disabled. After about 150 out of 250 vehicles remained, the command decided to abandon the plan to bypass and attack from the flank with the Panthers, they were forced to attack the Soviet positions in the forehead. As a result, in the northern direction, the Germans did not even take the first line of defense out of three. What happened in the south?

Since the division, consisting of PZ-IVs, was sent to Italy, the Panzer-SS divisions had not to wait for the decisive moment, but to advance in the open from the very first day of the operation. Attack to the south German troops was extremely successful, two lines of Soviet defense were broken, albeit with fierce battles, albeit with heavy losses, but they were broken. The third line was still on the defensive. If it fell, the panzer divisions would literally roll out the northern lines of defense, attacking them from the rear. The troops of the neighboring Soviet fronts, in particular the Steppe, were noticeably weaker than the armies defending the Kursk salient, in addition, if successful here, the Germans were ready to attack along the entire front, it can be argued that a victory in the Battle of Kursk would put the Soviet troops in front of a difficult task . The Germans could advance on Moscow, attack Stalingrad, or simply move straight to Voronezh and Saratov in order to cut the Volga there and create a defensive position behind Soviet lines.

On July 10, the Germans reached the third line of defense of the Soviet troops. The units protecting the third line of the northern defense were removed and hastily thrown to the south. The Germans in the south initially attacked in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe town of Oboyan, then transferred the main blow to the Soviet defense section passing through the Psel River. It is here that on July 12 two Soviet armies, 5th Tank and 5th Combined Arms Guards, attacked three German Panzer-SS divisions. The Soviet tank army, according to the state, consisted of 4 divisions. Each division has 200 tanks. The combined arms army also had a tank division. In total, taking into account the forces defending the area near Prokhorovka, the USSR concentrated about 1200 tanks on this section of the front. That is why it is written in all textbooks that MORE THAN 1200 units of equipment participated in the battle - 1200 from the Soviet Union plus tanks from the Wehrmacht. Let's see how many tanks the Germans had.

The German Panzer division according to the state consists of 10 companies, which are combined into 3 battalions (three companies each) and a separate company. The first battalion consisted of light PZ-I and PZ-II and performed mainly reconnaissance functions. The second and third battalions formed the main striking force(PZ-III and PZ-IV). 10th separate company equipped with "panthers" and "tigers". Each company in the state had 10 pieces of equipment, for a total of 120 tanks per division. Panzer-SS divisions consisted of 150 tanks. According to the reports of German officers, by July 12, on the eighth day of the offensive, from 30% to 50% of the personnel and equipment remained in the troops. In total, by the time the battle near Prokhorovka began, the Panzer-SS corps consisted of about 180 tanks. This is about 6.5 times less than there were Soviet tanks.

If the Great Tank Battle had taken place in an open field, then the fully equipped Panzer-SS divisions would not have survived the number of Soviet tanks, but the fact is that the place of the battle that took place between the village of Prokhorovka and the collective farm "Drummer" was limited, on the one hand, to the bend river Psel, and with another railway embankment. The width of the field was from 6 to 8 kilometers. According to military science, the distance between advancing tanks should be about 100 meters. With a halving, the effectiveness of the offensive increases by one and a half times, and losses by three. The battlefield was not only narrow, but also rugged with ravines and streams. Therefore, we can safely say that no more than 150 pieces of equipment took part in the battle at the same time. Despite the huge numerical superiority of the Soviet troops, the battle was fought almost "one on one". The difference was that the reserves of the Wehrmacht, unlike the reserves of the Stavka, were severely limited.

From the German side, only three Panzer-SS divisions participated in the battle (there were 4 such divisions in total): “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler”, “Das Reich” and “Totencopf” (“Dead Head”). The battle lasted from morning to evening, the Soviet troops lost about 900 tanks, the Panzer-SS Corps about 150, 6 times less. In the evening, the 30 remaining German tanks, seeing the hopelessness of further fighting, retreated. 300 Soviet tanks did not dare to pursue them.

Thus ended the Great Tank Battle.

Traditionally Second World War is a place of fierce, in many ways even ideological discussions. The Battle of Kursk, the 70th anniversary we are celebrating these days, was no exception. It is known that this battle for the Red Army began in early July 1943 with a defensive operation on the so-called Kursk ledge, which, as part of Operation Citadel, sought to “cut off” the tank pincers of the German army, advancing from two sides at once. But the Germans "bogged down" in our defense. Already in mid-July, they were forced to stop the offensive, and then their rapid retreat to the west began, periodically turning into a stampede. It is not for nothing that the Battle of Kursk became a truly turning point in the course of the war - it was from it that the liberation of our country, and indeed the whole of Europe, from the Nazis began ...

Nevertheless, the Western press (especially German publications) today is literally filled with materials from local historians that the German Wehrmacht became the real winner in this battle?! Moreover, they are echoed with might and main by our home-grown revisionists, like the one who hit military history Doctor of Philosophy Boris Sokolov, who claims that the monuments to our victory, erected where the terrible battles on the Kursk Bulge were in full swing, do not correspond to reality - they say that the side that actually won was different!

On what are such assertions based?

Dreamer in the uniform of a field marshal

First of all, on the supposedly gigantic losses of the Red Army, which simply cannot be considered a victory. Here is what the well-known site “Tales about War” writes about this, dedicated to exposing all kinds of historical falsifications:

“The situation with the statistics is really complicated, the loss figures cited by the parties differ, which, in principle, is not surprising. The only thing that surprises is the tendency to take only the data on German losses declared by the Germans themselves. As a result of such a calculation, “the ratio of losses of the Soviet and German sides is here 4.95: 1. "To say that accounting for losses in the German army is a confusing thing is to say nothing, it doesn’t even smell of the notorious German pedantry. What and how were considered losses in the Wehrmacht, in general, is little clear. But the Germans were not modest in the assessment Soviet losses. I will quote the data given by the Germans during the events, according to the Air Force: July 5 - 432 Soviet aircraft destroyed against 26 from the German side, July 7 - 205 against July 15 and 15 - 212 against 23 German propaganda also proclaimed that during the first 6 days of the Citadel, 1269 owls. aircraft were shot down against 62 by the Luftwaffe! "

Even worse is the ratio of losses in tanks. So, according to German historians, on July 12, 1943, the Germans allegedly irretrievably lost only "5 tanks, and another 43 tanks and 12 assault guns were damaged", and Soviet irretrievable losses amounted to ... at least 334 tanks and self-propelled guns! And the German field marshal Erich von Manstein, who, in fact, commanded the Germans near Kursk, self-confidently declares as many as 1800 destroyed Russian tanks - however, during the entire battle. On this occasion, the authors of the site "Tales about the War" correctly noted:

“I would like to ask a simple question: how did it happen that the German troops, having relatively “small losses”, did not enter Kursk? How did it happen that, having allegedly lost only 8-10% of the personnel out of 800 thousand groups and less than 300 tanks and self-propelled guns out of 2500, the Wehrmacht not only did not encircle the Soviet troops on the Kursk ledge, but also turned into a "run to the Dnieper"? Is there a logical explanation for this phenomenon?

Of course there is. All German "studies" of the Battle of Kursk are built mainly on the memoirs of the same Manstein, the famous "Baron Munchausen" of the Second World War. All of his frankly false memories are built precisely on the allegations that the Russians beat him repeatedly only because they crushed him with their mass, at the cost of their own monstrous losses, preventing the poor Fritz from taking advantage of the already "victories won." This is how he evaluates his own failures not only at Kursk, but also at Stalingrad in December 1942, and in Ukraine in early 1944. Probably a clear evidence of the wild fantasies of the field marshal, which are not related to real life, was his resignation - in the midst of the war. Apparently, the field marshal lied not only in his memoirs, but also in reports to Hitler, who was already tired of listening to stories about "victories stolen by Russian barbarians." So the price of Manstein's memoirs turns out to be very insignificant ...

The words of General Heinz Guderian cannot testify to the real state of affairs in the Wehrmacht on the Kursk Bulge:

“As a result of the failure of the Citadel Offensive, we suffered a decisive defeat. Armored troops, replenished with such great difficulty, due to large losses in equipment on for a long time were put out of action ... Needless to say, the Russians were quick to exploit their success. And there were no quiet days on the Eastern Front. The initiative has completely passed to the enemy.

And another general of the German army, Walter Wenck, directly writes that by July 7, 1943, only one 3rd German tank division had lost over 67% of its tanks. By the end of the German offensive, according to the operational reports of the Germans themselves, the loss of tanks in different parts Wehrmacht reached 70-80%! It was for these reasons that the Germans were forced to stop, ending their offensive operation ...

Sicilian Defense

However, the counterfeiters do not stop there. They explain the retreat of the Wehrmacht that began next, not at all by the fighting qualities of the Red Army, but by the fact that the landing of the Anglo-Americans began in Italian Sicily. Like, this landing in Europe frightened Hitler so much that he decided to urgently curtail all operations on the Kursk Bulge in order to transfer his almost most combat-ready strike units to Sicily. And if not for this "fatal decision", then undoubtedly the Soviet troops would have been utterly defeated.

This assessment caused the natural surprise of the authors of the site "Tales about War":

“Let's start with the fact that the transfer of Wehrmacht divisions from the Eastern Front to the West is a rare, even unique phenomenon. But the sending of divisions from the West to the Soviet-German front is a typical phenomenon. When the Wehrmacht suffered crushing defeats near Moscow, Rostov, Tikhvin and Stalingrad, from the end of 1941 to 1943 the Germans transferred 39 divisions and six brigades from the West. Among them are 18 divisions from France. Even on January 15, 1945, to prevent the collapse of the Eastern Front, Hitler ordered more than 40 divisions from the West to be transferred there. Those. sending 3 tank divisions SS to Italy is a unique event!”

It is noteworthy that all the allegations about such a "transfer" are based mainly again on Manstein's assurances. Here is what he writes:

“The July 13th meeting began with Hitler's statement that the situation in Sicily, where the Western powers landed on July 10th, had become serious. The Italians did not fight at all. We will probably lose the island. The next step of the enemy could be a landing in the Balkans or in southern Italy. New armies must be formed in Italy and the western Balkans. The Eastern Front must give up part of its forces, and therefore Operation Citadel cannot continue any longer.

It is curious, but the transcripts of this meeting dated 07/13/1943 ... have not been preserved! That is, we are offered to take the Field Marshal's word for it. But if we take into account his frank and proven falsity... In a word, in order to understand, we must look at the real, and not invented by "Baron Munghausen" state of affairs.

So, according to the historians of the magazine " Military review"The alignment of forces in Sicily looked like this:

“In total, there were 300,000 Italians and 40,000 Italians in Sicily. German soldiers, 147 tanks, 220 guns and about 600 aircraft. Plus, the Italian troops soon received additional reinforcements in the amount of 12 thousand people. and 91 tanks. For the Allied landing in Sicily, the two armies of the 15th Army Group had 13 divisions, 3 tank brigades, 3 Commando squads and 3 Rangers battalions. The grouping of allied troops numbered 470,000 men and 600 tanks... After the end of the operation, the situation looked as follows. The losses of the German and Italian troops amounted to 29 thousand people killed, 140 thousand (mostly Italians) were captured. American losses were 2,237 killed and 6,544 wounded or captured. 2,721 British soldiers died, 10,122 were wounded or captured. Canadian troops lost 562 killed and 1,848 wounded or taken prisoner.

And now compare these data with the number of Soviet-German troops operating on the Kursk Bulge, where over a million people fought with thousands of tanks and aircraft! Against this background, Sicily looks like only an insignificant episode. It seems that Hitler was well aware of this ratio. This time. And secondly, his main task was the defeat of Russia. And therefore, he would hardly have begun to divert his strike units to the territory of Italy. However, our Western allies themselves assessed their Sicilian operation in exactly the same way. According to the authors of the Military Review:

“For the American troops, the landing in Sicily was the first serious test in the European theater of operations, however, the opening of a second front in Europe, the landing in Sicily is not considered either by us, or, more importantly, by them, the Anglo-Americans. Churchill and Roosevelt at the beginning of 1943 came to the conclusion that this year a full-scale landing in Europe was not yet possible, but it was already quite possible to hit the soft southern underbelly of the enemy, in Italy, which they successfully did.

But what real decisions were made then by the German command. Contrary to the statements of the falsifiers that three SS Panzer divisions were transferred to Italy, "which were not enough for the victory of Germany near Kursk", in fact the situation with the divisions looked different. Neither the SS division "Das Reich" nor the SS division "Totenkopf" went to Italy. The Germans used them as a kind of "fire brigade" to repel another Soviet offensive in the Donbass, on the Mius River, which began at the end of July 1943. Only the SS division "Leibstandarte" got into Italy. However, as many military historians point out, leaving the Eastern Front, the "Leibstandarte" transferred all its tanks and self-propelled artillery installations to the "Das Reich" division. That is, all available armored vehicles were left in Russia !

From this it turns out that only personnel divisions. Moreover, Hitler did not throw these SS men against the Allied forces. And this was not required - the Anglo-Americans were successfully held back by the paratroopers of General Kesselring, and the Italian units that retained their combat capability, which continuously counterattacked the enemy. In addition, the Germans were transferred to Sicily two more infantry divisions, but from Russia, and one from southern France, the other from the same Italy.

As for the "Leibstandarte", the soldiers of the division, located in northern Italy, in fact, rested after heavy battles with the Russians. And they were also periodically involved in the fight against the partisan movement that had begun in these places. However, the SS did not cool off for long. Already in November 1943, the Leibstandarte was urgently returned to the Eastern Front, as the Red Army began to cross the Dnieper ...

In a word, the situation in Sicily had practically no effect on the outcome of the greatest tank battle on the Kursk Bulge. The German aggressor was broken solely by the courage and combat skill of the Red Army units, its soldiers, officers and generals. Here is how conscientious researchers, who are alien to any falsifications, evaluate the Battle of Kursk:

“In the course of the Kursk defensive operation, the troops of the Central, Voronezh and Steppe Fronts thwarted the plan of the Nazi command to encircle and defeat more than a million Soviet troops. The enemy's attempt to take revenge for Stalingrad and wrest the strategic initiative from the Red Army completely failed. In the course of a fierce defensive battle near Kursk, Soviet troops inflicted a heavy defeat on the enemy and created favorable conditions for a decisive counteroffensive.

The success of the defensive operation was due to the fact that the Soviet command not only unraveled the plans of the enemy, but also quite accurately determined the place and time of his strikes. By concentrating large forces in the areas of forthcoming operations, it achieved significant superiority over the enemy, which made it possible not only to successfully defend, but also to attack. Resisting the temptation to go on the offensive before the enemy, the Soviet command decided to stick to the campaign plan, the basis of which was a deliberate defense with the simultaneous preparation of a counteroffensive.

In order to achieve the goals of the defensive operation, the strongest defense in the entire war was built on the Kursk Bulge. This defense was designed primarily to repulse massive tank attacks, it was unprecedented in depth, in the engineering equipment of positions and lanes, in the density of forces and means.

The offensive of the Nazi troops failed also because the enemy aircraft failed to gain air supremacy. During the defensive battle, Soviet pilots destroyed more than 1.5 thousand German aircraft, while their own losses amounted to about 460 aircraft. In the Battle of Kursk, the enemy finally fully experienced the full power of the strikes of the Soviet ground attack and bomber aircraft. The defense near Kursk turned out to be insurmountable for the enemy thanks to unparalleled courage and heroism. Soviet soldiers who stood to death on the occupied lines, defending them to the last drop of blood, to the last breath.

The blow of the enemy was of terrible force, without exaggeration all-destroying, so it was not so easy to withstand it. It is unlikely that any other army could do this. But soviet soldier survived. And not only survived, but also repulsed the enemy, and then drove him to the west. True, the victory over the enemy was given at a high price. In defensive battles on the Kursk Bulge, Soviet troops lost about 180 thousand people, more than 1.6 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, about 4 thousand guns and mortars. But the enemy also suffered huge losses ... ".

Glory to our fathers and grandfathers, who managed in such a terrible battle not only to defend their defensive lines, but also to break the back of the best parts of Nazi Germany! From that moment on, our future Victory in that war was only a matter of time ...

Vadim Andryukhin, editor-in-chief

The position of the German troops at the time of 1943 was difficult in terms of weapons and the number of tank divisions. On May 10, Guderian was summoned to a regular meeting with Hitler on the production of the Panther tank. After which he asked Hitler to give him the floor. Hitler gave his consent and Guderian began to convincingly dissuade him from advancing on the Eastern Front. He explained that the German troops in given time difficulties and first you need to overcome them, and only then implement such large operations. Guderian asked: "Why do you want to launch an offensive in the east this year?" Here Keitel intervened: "We must launch an offensive for political reasons." I objected: "Do you think people know where Kursk is? The world is completely indifferent to whether Kursk is in our hands or not. I repeat my question: "Why do you even want to launch an offensive in the east this particular year?" Hitler replied to this literally the following: "You are absolutely right. The thought of this offensive makes my stomach ache.” I replied, “You have the right reaction to the situation. Abandon this idea. "Hitler did not answer. The conversation was over.

After this meeting, Guderian again dealt with the production of tanks, the formation of tank divisions, met with the commanders of tank battalions, visited factories that produced tanks for Germany. And on one of these trips, get acquainted with negative sides tanks "Panther", then to report to Hitler. Guderian discovered a lot of malfunctions in the Panthers, and the people driving these tanks were little acquainted with their management and sometimes had practically no front-line experience. Guderian, having reached the Fuhrer, immediately reported on all the nuances, but, unfortunately, Hitler did not change his plan to carry out the ill-fated offensive called the Citadel.

Guderian recalls that Hitler launched his offensive in the east. In the south, ten tank divisions, seven infantry and one motorized division advanced from Belgorod. During the offensive, all ground forces German troops. Hitler said that it could not fail. Guderian was surprised at how Hitler nevertheless decided on this operation.

Guderian writes that on July 5, 1943, the offensive began. It was organized according to a scheme that had long been calculated by the Russians. Hitler, in turn, decided to abandon the offensive through Sevsk and through Kharkov. He supported Zeitzler's plan, which was to capture the Russian troops advanced in the form of an arc and thereby retake the Eastern Front.

Guderian visited both offensive front Germany in order to identify problems in technology and tactics, as well as to talk with tankers. Guderian had warned Hitler about the ineffectiveness of the Panther tanks, and now he was convinced in practice that they were not sufficiently prepared for combat operations. Also, the "tiger" tanks were not adapted for combat, it turned out that they did not even have the required amount of ammunition. Also Guderian, talking about the shortcomings of weapons german army, mentioned that the Germans did not have machine guns "... and therefore, when they broke into the enemy's defensive positions, they literally had to fire cannons at sparrows." Guderian was upset that his fears were confirmed and angry at Hitler for not listening to him. The Germans could not even destroy the infantry firing points, and thus the infantry could not move forward. Guderian recalls that the German tanks reached the Russian artillery positions already without infantry. Huge casualties, the exceptional courage of the German fighters, but, unfortunately, the infantry was never able to participate in hostilities. In the south, meanwhile, the situation unfolded more prosperously, but the troops stationed there could not fully block the Russian arc. The Russians launched a counteroffensive on July 15 against Orel, which had to be abandoned on August 4. Following Orel, Belgorod fell.

Guderian writes that in the Orel region, where until that day the Germans had repulsed all the attacks of the Russian troops, he wanted to concentrate his 2nd Panzer Army. And just because of this area, Guderian had a conflict with Field Marshal von Kluge, after which Guderian was removed from his post.

Operation Citadel failed. This dealt a crushing blow to the German army. Guderian notes that tank and armored troops due to heavy losses and lack of people, they were put out of action for a long time. Their restoration was called into question to continue operations on the Eastern Front. The Russians were euphoric about their success, and after that the Eastern Front saw a lot of blood. "The initiative has passed to the enemy."

Again, Guderian's warnings were rejected, and only after a while, Hitler told him: "You were right! You told me about this 9 months ago. Unfortunately, I did not listen to you."