From "Hitler´s commander" by Steven H Newton

Model and Zitadelle

" When Model reluctantly agreed to set aside major offensive action on 9 July in favor of reorganising the spearhead divisions in both the XLI and XLVII Panzer Corps sectors, he recognized that this decision was nearly tantamount to calling off the entire northern segment of Operation Zitadelle. At AGC, von Kluge instantly reached the same conclusion, but both men knew that neither Hitler not Zeitzler would countenance such a unilateral decision, especially since the southern prong of the offensive had broken through Voronezh Front´s defences and continued to push north toward Oboyan and Kursk.

Von Kluge instructed Model to meet him the following morning. It was not an optimistic meeting. Model acknowledged formally to von Kluge that the Ninth Army could not reasonably expect to create the necessary breakthrough, a position he maintained even when the Field Marshal offered him not just the 10th Panzergrenadier and 12th Panzer divisions but the 36th Infantry Division as well.All that Model would promise was a series of tactical attacks, designed as " a rolling battle of attrition " that might at least continue to attract Soviet reserves away from the southern half of the Kursk salient.To this von Kluge immediately agreed.

Given that both Model and von Kluge expected a Soviet counteroffensive any day against the weakly held northern and eastern section of the Orel salient, there are strong indications that the two men were knowingly engaged in misleading OKH and Hitler. No message left AGC for East Prussia that morning detailing the fact that the Ninth Army´s participation in Operation Citadel had effectively ended,instead, von Kluge portrayed 9 July as a brief moment of respite before a renewal of the breakthrough effort. Yet General Schmidt´s 10th Panzergrenadier division moved up to the front so slowly that it did not reach the battlefield until the morning of 12 July, while General von Bodenhausen´s 12th Panzer and General Gollnik´s 36th Infantry lagged 24 hours behind.Moreover, when the Russians did attack east of Orel on 12 July, both the Ninth and AGC reoriented themselves with suspicious rapidity.

Historian Franz Kurowski suggests that all of this was the work of Model: " Without consulting von Kluge, Model called a halt to all attack operations."

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