11/13/2023 0 Comments Tanks used in the battle of kursk![]() Therefore, the fragments of two or three reports prepared during the initial phase of the planning are insufficient to evaluate the quality of intelligence information received from April to June. In addition, we should not forget that the German side had been preparing the operation for more than three months, and its start was postponed at least four times. Footnote 4 However, these small excerpts were given without a clear indication of the source, which largely complicates their interpretation. Solov’ev even cited several quotations from the reports prepared by the key center for processing and analyzing intelligence information within the German army’s General Staff ( Oberkommando des Heeres, OKH), i.e., by Branch 12 “Foreign Armies East” as of March and April 1943. Soviet military historians noted that one of the factors that had influenced the attempt to carry out such an adventurist plan as Operation Citadel could have been the overly optimistic reports of German intelligence about the state and potential of the Red Army at Kursk. On the night of July 17, AG South was forced to begin the withdrawal of its forces from Prokhorovka to their original positions, Footnote 3 and on September 22, the Voronezh Front, which had forced the enemy to retreat by 400 km, reached the Dnieper River. Thus, after 12 days of heavy fighting in the southern part of the Kursk Bulge, Army Group (AG) South, the stronger one of the two formations that participated in the offensive, was able to move only 35 km forward (out of the planned 145). Footnote 2 Nevertheless, the decision to carry out the operation was not revoked, which led to a failure of the Wehrmacht with major consequences. ![]() ![]() Footnote 1 By the end of the first third of May 1943, the quantity and condition of the Soviet troops were such that it became impossible to achieve the goals set out in the Citadel plan. The recently published documents of the German troops of the Central and Voronezh Fronts, operating at Kursk and of the Steppe Military District (StepMD) provide evidence that, as early as at the end of April 1943, even the command of one of the Wehrmacht strike groups at the Kursk Bulge considered the conditions to be unfavorable for carrying out a major offensive. ![]()
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