Very interesting thread you've got here Kai [img]smile.gif[/img] !

Just some additional information:
After Op. Zitadelle II.SS-Pz.Korps was sent south, to Mius, along with the 3rd (Heer) Pz.Div., this division was then attached to the Corps while the 1st SS left for Italy (N Italy/Slovenia/Croatia). 2nd and 3rd SS Pz.Gren.Divs suffered horrible losses (especially panzers) in three day fighting and just barely managed to destroy the Russian bridgehead. Afterwards the II.SS.Pz.Korps (only Corps stab that is) was also sent to Italy while the two divisions back to Charkow, where they managed to stop two Russian Tank Armies (for a while).

Maybe someone could post all Op.Zitadelle RKT

to start just some SS RKTs: two big boys - Wisliceny and Webber, the RK driver - Thaler, the Slovene RKT - Grascher, the adjutant of the Devil's adjutant - Wolff, foreign secretary's son - v.Ribbentrop and so on.

Doppelkopf

Thanx Guys!

and BTW, I don´t want to take the credit for myself the thread´s for all of us to learn and understand of this great battle.



From the interesting book by Frankson-Zetterling that I have mentioned a couple of times before, it is actually claimed that Hitler had already BEFORE the beginning of the operation Zitadelle decided that the Waffen-SS troops would be sent to Italy if there was an invasion ( read when ) and possibly fall of Mussolini ( later on ). So it may be that Hitler did not invent the withdrawal of troops from the battle as he heard of the invasion in Sicily ( invaded on 10 July 1943 ).I think Hitler cancelled Zitadelle on 13th. Yet as the Russians made breakthroughs only LAH could be sent.

http://www.geocities.com/wolfram55/russia43.html

And:

Although Manstein still had hopes of victory as late as the 12th, Hitler ordered a withdrawal on the 13th in order, he said, to transfer troops to the Mediterranean to deal with the Anglo-American invasion of Sicily. Dunn comments, "Although Hitler mentioned Sicily as one reason for the termination of the offensive, Manstein also noted other reasons were given including the threat to the Mius River front and the Soviet attack north of Orel that began on July 12".

http://www.skalman.nu/history/books-review-kursk.htm

I guess the reason why it is also seen that taking the Waffen-SS troops away from the battle caused failure is that von Manstein has so forcefully claimed that he could have continued and maybe win with the troops he had but could not continue without the Waffen-SS.

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This was what I meant, Erich. The 200 panthers attached to 'Großdeutschland' Panzer division.

Brat, the battle was lost by the time.

The pincer movement had failed. The northern flank had advanced 17 kiloemtres at an enormous costs. By the 13th, ALL of marshal Von Kluge's forces were engaged and the Red Army was already attacking the III Panzer Army - to the north of the IX Army in the northern part of the salient. So, the northern pincer not only was not advancing, but was being treathened from its flank.

In the south, however, Von Manstein's troops were inflicting heavy casualties to the Red Army and were gaining ground - 35 kilometres inside enemy lines - and several bridgeheads. Von Manstein's troops - the WSS Panzer divisions - still had enough forces to go on with the fighting and he still had some 10 divisions in reserve. However, there were also signs of Soviet attacks in his southern flank along the Mius. Then Hitler transferred the SS Panzerkorps from Kursk and Von Manstein lost his opportunity of squeezing the salient from the south - which in any case, would have been useless, since the northern pincer was halted.

I am not sure of this. I have never read of such level of co-operation in WWII as there was in WWI, but I guess the Allies - thanks to ULTRA - knew when the German offensive in Kursk was going to take place.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

guess if you guys really want to know about the IInd SS Pz Korps during this time frame then you nedd some copies of

Weidingers 2nd SS Das Reich 43-44
G. Nipes book on the River Mius
S. Stadler's book on Kursk

who knows what would of happened if the 3rd and 2nd SS had not stopped where they did.... during the battle ?

Actually from what I gather (and i did read two books Erich mentioned), there wasn't much chance of a victory in the south. The Russians gained enough time with the battle at Prokhorovka to establish new defensive positions and await the Germans. On 13th the offensive was called off but Hitler allowed Manstein to continue with operations in the south till the 17th when the forces were transferred to Mius. The Germans lost the momentum and with it the tactical victory in the south (SS-Grupf. Krüger analysis this in a document composed after the battles at Mius)

Manstein sole reserve (by this I mean Army group's sole reserve) was Nehring's 24.Pz.Korps with three under-equipped panzer division's (17., 23. and 5.SS-Pz.Gren.Div.), but this was on 15th or 16th already sent to Izyum.

The Red Army had a huge tank army at the time in reserves as well...

Just look at the losses after Zitadelle in the Orel sector alone:

when employed in its AT role Ferdinand proved to be a powerful defensive platform, capable of knocking out a T-34 on a 4,710 meters range. A Wehrmacht communicate on August 6th told that the two battalions had been credited for the destruction of 502 enemy tanks in the Orel sector!


http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Qu...nt/elefant.htm

And according to the book I mentioned above the Germans credited an enemy tank destroyed only if it was in flames by 1943!

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Frankson/Zetterling "Kursk" facts:

All in all the battle in Kursk meant for both sides 2-3% losses of all the losses in 1943 battles.

In the southern sector of Zitadelle on 4th July the Germans had 330,000 men and 1,500 tanks. The Russians had over 625,000 men and 1,700 tanks. During the German offensive phase the Red Army got 300,000 men and 1,200 tanks more and altogether Red Army had over 900,000 men and 2,900 tanks against the southern pincer...

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Now I have spent a little more time reading this long thread. Question about this statement:

Why do you think it is overrated? It was not the turning point in a sense that before the Germans might have won, after they were lost. But at least it was the turning point that the Wehrmacht never got the initiative again in the east... and it meant that the Russians would achieve their victory even without western help, sooner or later, which before Kursk was not sure at all.

[ 21. November 2003, 02:05 AM: Message edited by: KnightMove ]

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If someone tries to remove the speck in your right eye, will you turn to him the other also?

Quite right KnightMove, the Kursk battle was without a doubt the turning point in the East and the Germans also suffered heavy casualties, though considerable less then for example at Stalingrad, but then again the battle didn't last that long.

As for the Russian tank reserves all except one or two corps were already engaged in the south and north.

Cheers
Doppelkopf

I have read in recent years that John Cairncross passed vital information to the Soviets which assisted the Kursk victory - I believe this included German aircraft disposition info helping Russians attack German aircraft on the ground prior to the battle.

I searched the internet for info to support this and found the following book review which may be of interest:


SERVING THE KGB

By Shale Dworan, Reply by Noel Annan

In response to The Fabulous Five (January 12, 1995)

To the Editors:

In his anecdotically fascinating review of three books on the life of Kim Philby and the Cambridge University spy ring ["The Fabulous Five," NYR, January 12] Noel Annan leaves the impression that if it were not for John Cairncross (one of the "faithful servants" of the KGB) and his access to Ultra at Bletchley, England, the "rout" of German tanks by the Russians at Kursk could have gone the other way. According to Annan, it was Cairncross who supplied the Russians with "two pieces of information that enabled them to win the decisive battle of the war."

Without meaning to detract one iota from John Cairncross's achievements as a spy for the Russians, long before his Ultra information was in their hands a distinguished anti-Nazi German journalist, Rudolf Roessler, had been supplying the Russians with volumes of detailed intelligence as to the strengths and dispositions of all the major Wermacht units and their attack plans even prior to their invasion of the Soviet Union. These included even the number of Tiger tanks (about 2000) that would be engaged in the Kursk salient, as it came to be called by historians of the battle.

As early as the late 1930s, Rudolf Roessler had been cultivating a cadre of young, mostly of aristocratic background officers in the Abwehr (Germany's intelligence department) who were to have unrestricted access to Hitler's top-secret plans for his invasion of the Soviet Union. From his cover as a rare book and documents dealer in Lucerne, Switzerland (with the code name Lucy) Roessler and his Swiss radio operator used a constantly moving van in the transmissions by wireless of the virtual tons of intelligence that he received from Berlin prior to, and throughout the war. Had Stalin not initially rejected Roessler's reams of infallible intelligence on Hitler's blitzkrieg plans for the Ukraine (he distrusted and disdained spies who did not demand money) the German campaign in the early stages of the invasion could have turned out disastrously for Hitler long before Stalingrad. Rudolf Roessler is virtually unknown in the literature of anti-Nazi espionage. Yet he was the greatest spy of them all.

Shale Dworan
New York City

Well, I have not heard that much on Cairncross but I´ll have a look in the net later on. Roessler is well known and more on him in the "spies like us" thread. You can make a search with this thread name if you want to know more of him.

Maybe so but that was not a good day for Red army pilots. The Russians did try to surprise the Luftwaffe but Germans got their planes up early enough and really blasted the Russians out of the skies that day..I think there´s more of that in this thread.

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Here's another go at keeping this thread alive [img]smile.gif[/img] It's too damned good to simply let it go!

I say, that seems an enormous number of kills for two batallions, even Ferdinands. Is this figure substantiated? Of the 90 Fs. built, how many were operational at Kursk, and how many returned from battle?

Per what I've been reading on this thread and elsewhere, it's beginning to appear to me that the general impression some people wish to leave is that Kursk was more of a German victory than otherwise. I'm surprised von Manstein wasn't taking his supper in the Kremlin after Prokhorovka when in fact what happened was something else entirely! In fact, by mid September the Russians had reached the Dniepr and by the end of same month were going across it.

Are we simply being too focused in one German success, while forgetting about the big picture? Was this a Lost Victory, not because Hitler decided not to pursue it, as V.Manstein says, but because what was happening around it was so momentous that this Lost Victory simply was of not as much consequence as some may have wished? Are we looking too close at a particular tree and forgetting the forest?

I am reminded of von Mellenthin's memories of his feats with Gen. Balck on the attempted relief of Stalingrad. They fought brilliantly, but at the same time were entirely oblivious of the general disaster occuring around them.

Cheers,

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No Rest for the Wicked!

somebody has mentioned in another forum the following...before I reply him with a post full of lols what do you all think of this?

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Der große Stoß Büstenhalter auf Ihrem Kopf!!

Za Rodina, Bratwurst..

this is just my opinion:

In Kursk and the plater phases of the Zitadelle battles we must think more of the Russian planning:

1. Stop the attack by defensive actions

2. Attack from both sides and drive the enemy away!

So for Germans the Zitadelle was main phase of all action, for Russians only the beginning...As Germans were losing momentum the Russians were starting their counter-attacks on both sides of the salient. So I´d really think that the attack was doomed to failure, only by not doing it the Germans could have gained more, or doing it by May 1943 when the Russians were not prepared by the huge forces.

I´d call it getting a grip of the tongue before the Bear´s mouth got a grip of the hand;the Prokhorovka.

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Bratwurst,

I'd agree with the poster. Prokoravka was, at the least, a tactical German victory.

Ok I'll keep my mouth shut then, you guys are far more forgiving than the other forum.

What about the claim that the ramming was not true, or at the very least, made just for propaganda? Did any german tankers attest to this strategy ever being used?

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Der große Stoß Büstenhalter auf Ihrem Kopf!!

Brat, just out of interest what Kursk book references do you have ? Just curious as this will give you a better light than visiting any forum

~E if I may recommend a book by George Nipe covering more of the German viewpoint.... "Decision in the Ukraine, summer 1943 II.SS Panzerkorps and III. Panzerkorps"

~E

I don't remember which book either but Have read about Russians "ramming" tanks.Women drivers,too.The T-34s got in close to mix it up with the Tigers etc. and with the dust and smoke,visibility was limited.So "ramming" could have been unintentional.I also heard one about snipers trying to shoot the "optics" off German tanks so'd they be blind.Don,t know if that is fact or fiction.FramerT.

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Erich, very good point you bring up of references. I have sent all my books home to Australia (pending a move soon) so I think the book is called Panzer Offensive or something like that by Pan/Ballentine.

I've also seen some BBC documentaries which have stated this, but would not rely on them as the best source.

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Der große Stoß Büstenhalter auf Ihrem Kopf!!

On some book or site on Wittman I read that in Kursk the only ramming incident would have happened to Wittman´s tank, but Wittman could free his tank and continue the battle. Don´t know what happened to the T-34 though.

But like said, I only recall this and cannot be too sure. But the ramming in masses I don´t think it happened as the huge battle clash itself never took place either.

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Speaking of Wittman...was it ever concluded wether his Tiger, in France, was blown apart by a Sherman or a rocket from a Typhoon??? Hard to see how a Sherman could cause a Tiger's turret to be blown off the hull...how concievable is the Typhoon??? What would you say was the ratio in which Tiger's lost their turrets as compared to Sherman's, Cromwell's and T-34's?????????? [img]graemlins/rk.gif[/img]

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