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Triumph at Kursk


Chapter I: Victory Snatched from the Jaws of Defeat, May-September 1943.


It was 1943 and Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler had conquered Europe. The dictator controlled Germany by 1939 after having used demagoguery and propaganda to arouse popular sentiment against the Jews and the hated Treaty of Versailles which Hitler had relegated to the dustbin by rebuilding Germany’s armies. Austria and Czechoslovakia had been annexed without French or British responses, same for the remilitarization of the Rhineland. The invasion of Poland, however, had crossed a line. Poland had been crushed in weeks and as per the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop Pact the Soviet Union had occupied the eastern part of Poland. Denmark and Norway had then fallen in swift paratrooper and naval action. France had been subjected to the so-called Sickelschnitt plan in which a brilliant move through the Ardennes had cut Allied forces in half. The legendary panzers with massive air support had then crushed the French army, destroying its image as the strongest army in the world. Britain stood alone. This changed with the invasion of Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union on June 22nd 1941 which had met great initial successes until Case Blue to take the Caucasus. The Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/’43, resulting from Soviet general Zhukov’s counteroffensive code-named Operation Uranus, had inflicted devastating losses and US entry in December 1941 promised little good in the longer term.

After the failure to take Stalingrad, Hitler uncharacteristically left the initiative for decision making with the German Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, OKH) and made Guderian prominent again by making him Inspector of the Panzer Troops. General Von Manstein wanted to trap the Red Army’s southern wing in the Donets Basin by tricking them into pursuing the desperately reforming Sixth Army, but the OKH dismissed the idea, and instead focused on the enormous and obvious bulge in the frontlines between Orel and Kharkov 200 kilometres wide and 120 kilometres deep. Success would pinch off an enormous bulge with nearly a fifth of the Red Army’s manpower in it, straighten and shorten the line, and also take the strategically useful railroad of Kursk located on the main north-south line between Moscow and Rostov on the Black Sea coast. The plan reached its rough final form in March 1943: the Ninth Army under Walter Model would attack south from the Orel salient while Hermann Hoth’s Fourth Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf would attack north from the Kharkov salient. And now it was that differences surfaced between German generals about the start date. Model argued for postponement so that the upcoming Panther and heavy Tiger tanks could be used while Von Kluge and Von Manstein argued against it so that the element of surprise wouldn’t be lost, and they pointed to the fact that both tanks still had children’s diseases and that the most recent version of the Panzer IV could take the T-34. Von Manstein and Kluge managed to convince Guderian, who was altogether opposed to the offensive but saw no way to convince the majority of the general staff, to side with them and convince Hitler to launch on the planned launch date of May 4th. Guderian, Von Kluge and Von Manstein together went to convince Hitler and succeeded even if the latter wasn’t enthusiastic about Operation Citadel at all.

The operation went ahead on May 4th as planned with the Ninth Army redeployed from the Rzhev to the Orel salient, the Fourth Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf attacking all-out against the Soviet Central and Voronezh Fronts. The Ninth Army reached Olkhovatka, the first objective after an advance of eight kilometres, on the first day with little trouble expect for some sparse minefields which were suppose to have become a major defensive line in two months time. They thereby took the only highland natural barrier before the flat tank land all the way to Kursk and by late May these troops had taken Maloarkhangelsk just 60 kilometres north-north-east of Kursk. The southern pincer spearheaded by the Fourth Panzer Army followed by the II SS Panzer Corps and the Grossdeutschland Panzergrenadier divisions had advanced to Prokhorovka by May 20th despite moving over high terrain facing strong resistance. They managed to take Oboyan about two weeks later on June 5th, again facing high ground, and again an organized Soviet defence as Stalin did not authorize a retreat seeing how that had worked out well at Stalingrad. Around that same time the northern Ninth Army took the important train station at Ponyri by virtue of their control of Maloarkhangelsk and Olkhovatka to the east and west of the town.

By June 28th the Ninth Army had taken Svoboda about 20 kilometres from Kursk, the end goal of the entire operation, and German forces threatened to encircle two Soviet Fronts. Similarly the southern pincer had marched to within miles of Ryshkovo, itself a mere few miles of Kursk, and morale was up high among German troops, higher than ever after the deep low following Stalingrad. Von Manstein, who was in overall command, told Hitler the good news himself and Hitler was elated after fits of rage, apathy, depression and pessimism over the past few months. A few days later after their meeting in the Wolf’s Lair in Rastenburg, East Prussia, the two German pincers closed the gap on July 4th and cut off two the Central and Voronezh Fronts to the delight of German commanders. German forces advanced to within Kursk itself and fought fierce street-to-street battles, and also moved to shrink the so-called “Kursk Pocket”. They used mostly superior aerial support against Soviet troops who suffered heavy losses in armour and vehicles and lost ground daily despite relief efforts from the Red Air Force. While Germany suffered serious losses too, they regained a little of their winning streak that they’d had before Stalingrad and shrunk the Kursk Pocket.

The Soviet XIX Cavalry Corps, the XI and XXX Ural Volunteer Tank Corps, and VI Guard Mechanised Corps, amassing east of Kursk, tried to break the encirclement but could not and on August 12th the Central and Voronezh Fronts capitulated to German forces. One million Red Army soldiers were either dead or had been captured, two thousand tanks had been lost to the Germans, and 1.900 aircraft had been lost as well on the Soviet side. The Germans had lost about 190.000 men, 800 tanks, and 750 aircraft. All in all, the Germans had successfully shortened the line, even if at some losses, and they had just about crippled the Red Army’s ability to launch an offensive until the next year, in other words into at least early 1944. A small follow-up offensive launched by Von Manstein was also successful and Germany retook Rostov in early September. Another follow-up offensive against the resource and food starved Leningrad was also successful with reinforcements from both Army Group Centre and South made possible by the shortened front namely the 6th and 7th Panzer Divisions, and the 24th Panzer Division and 76th Infantry Division. It would be the last major German offensive on the eastern front for the rest of the war.

This freed up troops for the defence of Italy which was necessary at this point since the Africa Corps under Hans-Jürgen von Arnim, Rommel’s replacement, had surrendered in May 1943 and therefore an invasion of Italy from North Africa seemed imminent. Hitler initially believed the invasion would come at Sardinia, but given the fact that the OKH had launched a successful offensive without his interference, he allowed the OKH and OKW a lot of leeway in organising the defence of Germany’s southern flank, including General Albert Kesselring who had recently been promoted to commander of the southern theatre. The latter believed that despite captured Allied plans (in reality part of a deception campaign) the landings would take place on Sicily and he would be proven right as Operation Husky was launched on July 10th. The 15th Panzergrenadier division and the 1st Paratroop Panzer Division Hermann Goering (in reality a Panzer Corps) were already based on Sicily, and Kesselring was promised reinforcements in the shape of the 29th Panzergrenadier division, the II SS Panzer Corps, the Panzergrenadier division Grossdeutschland and the 26th Panzer Division plus some elite tank battalions with Tiger Is, Panthers and Elefant tank destroyers which all had mechanical problems although that was less of an issue in defensive warfare. All of these units were battle hardened veteran units from the eastern front who would prove their worth against the Allied invaders, but it would take time for them to be transferred from the eastern front to Sicily and would ultimately arrive too late to prevent the fall of Sicily.

In the meantime the first landings took place with paratroopers of the US 505th Parachute Infantry Division, part of the 82nd Airborne Division, landing in the night of July 9th to July 10th. They were supposed to have landed five miles inland from Gela to block routes to the US 1st Infantry Division, but due to confused friendly fire from Allied ships they were scattered over a large area and nowhere near their drop zone which was worsened by strong winds blowing the gliders off course. The British 21st Independent Parachute Company fared little better as they seized the Ponte Grande bridge across the river Anape near Syracuse and tried to fight off counterattacks. They were eventually forced to surrender to the Italian 75th Infantry Regiment. By July 14th Allied paratroopers, mainly the US ones, had more or less regrouped and caused confusion among Axis troops by attacking their patrols. The paratroopers were followed by amphibious landings across the southern and eastern coastlines on 26 beaches between Licata and Cassibile with some element of surprise since local commanders believed no one would undertake a landing in such windy conditions. After the initial shock, Axis commanders formulated a response by attacking with the Infantry Division Livorno and the Hermann Goering Division and reached the outskirts of Gela, but gunfire from destroyers USS Boise and USS Shubrick destroyed several tanks and drove the counterattacking forces back inland. Italian SM. 79 torpedo bombers, and German Junkers Ju-88 bombers and Ju-87 dive bombers coordinated their attacks, damaging or sinking a number of warships, transport vessels and landing vessels. 8.000 tonnes of shipping was sunk and thirty enemy aircraft were reported as being downed, but this did not stop the Allied landing. By nightfall July 10th seven divisions had landed. They advanced from the beachheads and by around July 25th they had advanced to the arching Catania-Agira-Santo Stefano line relatively easy since Kesselring had abandoned western Sicily to shorten the line.

Reinforcements arrived on August 5th and Kesselring recognised that Sicily could not be held and in a magnificent evacuation operation he succeeded in moving a lot of troops and equipment to southern Italy to prepare the defence of mainland Italy against the expected invasion. Allied intelligence of course knew of the logistics train coming from the eastern front, but anticipated that reinforcements would arrive too late to be able to change the strategic situation on Sicily and they were proven right.

Kesselring had the following forces directly available to defend the “toe” of Italy: the Hermann Goering Panzer Division, the 15th Panzergrenadier division, the 29th Panzergrenadier Division, the II SS Panzer Corps, the 26th Panzer Division and the Panzergrenadier Division Grossdeutschland evacuated from Sicily, as well as the 16th Panzer Division, the LXXVI Panzer Corps and the 1st Parachute Division already in southern Italy. This made for a total of thirteen divisions directly available for the defence of southern Italy which had air support in the shape of fighter and dive-bomber squadrons piloted by experienced eastern front veterans amounting to nearly 2.300 planes complemented by the Regia Aeronautica. To further support the effort, large amounts of flak guns were concentrated very densely in southern Italy. General Kesselring and his commander on the ground in southern Italy, Erwin Rommel, planned a defence which amounted to the main effort being slightly more inland to avoid being exposed to enemy naval guns.

In the meantime, the German air forces in anticipation of the landing attacked enemy shipping whenever they could while Kesselring attempted to hide the massing troops in southern Italy by conducting it all in radio silence with handwritten orders only. While the Allies had an idea of what was happening, they were unsure of the where, when and how of German troop deployments and were also confident after the successful Sicilian campaign. Moreover, Kesselring sent out false information about his troop concentrations to confuse his enemies in a deception campaign which even fooled the Lucy Spy Ring in Switzerland that had so far reported many enemy movements.

British troops in the shape of the British Eighth Army’s XIII Corps landed on the toe of Italy on September 3rd and encountered fierce resistance from the Grossdeutschland Division and the II SS Panzer Corps and were also subjected to aerial attack from Stuka dive bombers, mainly against the transports, but also against the escort vessels. German eastern front veterans proved to be capable of challenging the Allies, a lot. Calabria itself is very mountainous which was excellent for the defenders and the mountains also shielded them from naval gun fire which was complemented by the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica sinking a quite significant amount of enemy vessels using Ju-87 Stukas and S.M. 79 torpedo bombers. The Allies had already lost a significant amount of transports and smaller warships at Sicily. On September 8th the 231st brigade landed at Pizzo to the German rear, but found themselves under attack from three sides from the Kruger Battle Group, the 29th Panzergrenadier Division and the 15th Panzergrenadier Division amassed near Castrovillari and they were forced to surrender before they could link up with the British XIII Corps. In the meantime, Kesselring released the 3rd Panzergrenadier Division and the Tenth Army from the north to reinforce southern Italy. The Calabria landings were contained and treated to intense aerial and artillery bombardment while also encountering heavy Tiger and Panther tanks as well as Elefant tank destroyers. German troops took up positions close to the British which inhibited the threat of enemy naval guns since British and US battleships couldn’t risk hitting their own troops.

British forces barely maintained their cohesion as the Germans heightened the pressure, retaking control over the important port of Bagnara while digging in into the mountainous landscape and destroying bridges that the Allies could use. The British tried to seize the town of Taurianova with an important road junction, but the SS using its heavy tanks inflicted heavy casualties and all but destroyed the 7th Armoured Division as a cohesive fighting force.

At Salerno, US forces did not achieve the element of surprise despite the initial of lack naval and aerial bombardment. While they established a beachhead using fire from naval guns, fierce defensive efforts prevented them from obtaining their mountain pass objectives on the route to Naples. The US Fifth Army was forced to concentrate its efforts and therefore failed to link up with British forces to the south. The Americans remained stuck on the beaches while the LXXVI Panzer Corps, the 16th Panzer Division, the Hermann Goering Panzer Division and the 3rd Panzergrenadier Division prepared for a counterattack. The Regia Marina supported the counteroffensive in what in hindsight was a suicide mission: battleships Vittorio Veneto, Littorio, Andrea Doria and Caio Duilio attacked the Allied support fleet and both Andrea Doria and Caio Duilio ended on the ocean floor while the other two fell back heavily damaged, but it distracted Allied attention long enough for Axis troops stationed a few miles from Salerno at Battipaglia to the south and Scafati to the north to counterattack against the Americans against their left and right flanks. They attacked after nightfall so enemy ships couldn’t see them and they intermeshed with US troops so that the naval component could not risk bombarding blindly since they could hit their own troops. The Fifth Army lost its cohesion as German panzers wedged their way into the X and VI Corps and pocketed part of them. They were pushed back into the sea with heavy casualties. Allied military leaders decided to evacuate the British troops stuck in Calabria seeing how the situation seemed hopeless, and so the first attempt to break into Fortress Europe had failed.

Hitler used this breather to prepare a defence on the eastern for the expected winter or spring offensive of the Red Army expected to begin somewhere between February and May 1944, seeing how Stalin had refused to bow down after the defeat at Kursk and because Hitler himself once again believed that victory might still be possible thanks to his “saving genius” that had led to Kursk. He aimed to construct a defensive line from just west of Smolensk along the Dnieper river, except in the south where it diverged eastward in order to protect the Crimean Peninsula. This line would become known as the Panther-Wotan Line. The northern part of the line would be constructed from Vitebsk to Pskov from where it would then follow the west coast of Lake Peipus and its river delta to Narva on the Finnish Gulf. Like with the Hindenburg Line in World War I, Hitler hoped to shorten his front, release divisions for duties elsewhere and bleed the Red Army dry in a stalemate while defeating the western allies (and making a compromise peace with them in the vain hope of an anti-Bolshevik alliance) and then turning back to deal with the Soviet Union once and for all.

The order for its construction was given on August 11th and soon hundreds of thousands of Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Jews and political dissidents were put to work as slave labour under SS supervision. They dug trenches, laid minefields, laid barbed wire and constructed numerous anti-tank obstacles, casemates and pillboxes while thousands of artillery and mortar positions were being prepared and tanks were dug in as casemates to create a system of defences 30 kilometres deep, the same depth as the Maginot Line. Germany prepared for the final clash of titans that would determine the course of the war.
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