The Battle of Kursk is a radical turning point in the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War. Germany. Eastern rampart
Great Patriotic War- the war of the USSR with Germany and its allies in – years and with Japan in 1945; component World War II.
From a management perspective Nazi Germany, war with the USSR was inevitable. The communist regime was seen by them as alien, and at the same time capable of striking at any moment. Only the rapid defeat of the USSR gave the Germans the opportunity to ensure dominance on the European continent. In addition, it gave them access to the rich industrial and agricultural regions of Eastern Europe.
At the same time, according to some historians, Stalin himself, at the end of 1939, decided on a preemptive attack on Germany in the summer of 1941. On June 15, Soviet troops began their strategic deployment and advance to the western border. According to one version, this was done with the aim of striking Romania and German-occupied Poland, according to another, to frighten Hitler and force him to abandon plans to attack the USSR.
First period of the war (June 22, 1941 – November 18, 1942)
The first stage of the German offensive (June 22 – July 10, 1941)
On June 22, the USSR carried out the mobilization of those liable for military service born in 1905–1918; from the first days of the war, a massive registration of volunteers began. On June 23, an emergency body of the highest military command was created in the USSR to direct military operations - the Headquarters of the Main Command, and there was also maximum centralization of military and political power in the hands of Stalin.
On June 22, British Prime Minister William Churchill made a radio statement about support for the USSR in its fight against Hitlerism. On June 23, the US State Department welcomed the efforts of the Soviet people to repel the German invasion, and on June 24, US President F. Roosevelt promised to provide the USSR with all possible assistance.
On July 18, the Soviet leadership decided to organize the partisan movement in the occupied and front-line areas, which became widespread in the second half of the year.
In the summer and autumn of 1941, about 10 million people were evacuated to the east. and more than 1350 large enterprises. The militarization of the economy began to be carried out with harsh and energetic measures; All the country's material resources were mobilized for military needs.
The main reason for the defeats of the Red Army, despite its quantitative and often qualitative (T-34 and KV tanks) technical superiority, was the poor training of privates and officers, the low level of operation of military equipment and the troops’ lack of experience in conducting large military operations in modern warfare. . Repressions against the high command in 1937–1940 also played a significant role.
Second stage of the German offensive (July 10 – September 30, 1941)
On July 10, Finnish troops launched an offensive and on September 1, the 23rd Soviet Army on the Karelian Isthmus retreated to the line of the old state border, occupied before the Finnish War of 1939–1940. By October 10, the front had stabilized along the line Kestenga - Ukhta - Rugozero - Medvezhyegorsk - Lake Onega. - R. Svir. The enemy was unable to cut off communications routes between European Russia and northern ports.
On July 10, Army Group North launched an offensive in the Leningrad and Tallinn directions. Novgorod fell on August 15, Gatchina on August 21. On August 30, the Germans reached the Neva, cutting off railway connection with the city, and on September 8 they took Shlisselburg and closed the blockade ring around Leningrad. Only the tough measures of the new commander of the Leningrad Front, G.K. Zhukov, made it possible to stop the enemy by September 26.
On July 16, the Romanian 4th Army took Chisinau; The defense of Odessa lasted about two months. Soviet troops left the city only in the first half of October. At the beginning of September, Guderian crossed the Desna and on September 7 captured Konotop (“Konotop breakthrough”). Five Soviet armies were surrounded; the number of prisoners was 665 thousand. Left Bank Ukraine was in the hands of the Germans; the path to Donbass was open; Soviet troops in Crimea found themselves cut off from the main forces.
Defeats on the fronts prompted Headquarters to issue order No. 270 on August 16, which qualified all soldiers and officers who surrendered as traitors and deserters; their families were deprived of state support and subject to exile.
Third stage of the German offensive (September 30 – December 5, 1941)
On September 30, Army Group Center launched an operation to capture Moscow (“Typhoon”). On October 3, Guderian's tanks broke into Oryol and reached the road to Moscow. On October 6–8, all three armies of the Bryansk Front were surrounded south of Bryansk, and the main forces of the Reserve (19th, 20th, 24th and 32nd armies) were surrounded west of Vyazma; the Germans captured 664 thousand prisoners and more than 1200 tanks. But the advance of the 2nd Wehrmacht tank group to Tula was thwarted by the stubborn resistance of M.E. Katukov's brigade near Mtsensk; The 4th Tank Group occupied Yukhnov and rushed to Maloyaroslavets, but was delayed at Medyn by Podolsk cadets (6–10 October); The autumn thaw also slowed down the pace of the German advance.
On October 10, the Germans attacked the right wing of the Reserve Front (renamed the Western Front); On October 12, the 9th Army captured Staritsa, and on October 14, Rzhev. On October 19, a state of siege was declared in Moscow. On October 29, Guderian tried to take Tula, but was repulsed with heavy losses. In early November, the new commander of the Western Front, Zhukov, with an incredible effort of all his forces and constant counterattacks, managed, despite huge losses in manpower and equipment, to stop the Germans in other directions.
On September 27, the Germans broke through the defense line of the Southern Front. Most of Donbass fell into German hands. During the successful counter-offensive of the troops of the Southern Front on November 29, Rostov was liberated, and the Germans were thrown back to the Mius River.
In the second half of October, the 11th German Army broke through into Crimea and by mid-November captured almost the entire peninsula. Soviet troops managed to hold only Sevastopol.
Counter-offensive of the Red Army near Moscow (December 5, 1941 – January 7, 1942)
On December 5–6, the Kalinin, Western and Southwestern fronts switched to offensive operations in the northwestern and southwestern directions. Successful promotion Soviet troops forced Hitler on December 8 to issue a directive on the transition to defense along the entire front line. On December 18, the troops of the Western Front began an offensive in the central direction. As a result, by the beginning of the year the Germans were thrown back 100–250 km to the west. There was a threat of envelopment of Army Group Center from the north and south. The strategic initiative passed to the Red Army.
The success of the operation near Moscow prompted Headquarters to decide to launch a general offensive along the entire front from Lake Ladoga to the Crimea. The offensive operations of the Soviet troops in December 1941 - April 1942 led to a significant change in the military-strategic situation on the Soviet-German front: the Germans were driven back from Moscow, the Moscow, part of the Kalinin, Oryol and Smolensk regions were liberated. There was also a psychological turning point among soldiers and civilians: faith in victory strengthened, the myth of the invincibility of the Wehrmacht was destroyed. The collapse of the plan for a lightning war raised doubts about the successful outcome of the war among both the German military-political leadership and ordinary Germans.
Lyuban operation (January 13 – June 25)
The Lyuban operation was aimed at breaking the blockade of Leningrad. On January 13, the forces of the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts began an offensive in several directions, planning to unite at Lyuban and encircle the enemy’s Chudov group. On March 19, the Germans launched a counterattack, cutting off the 2nd Shock Army from the rest of the forces of the Volkhov Front. Soviet troops repeatedly tried to unblock it and resume the offensive. On May 21, Headquarters decided to withdraw it, but on June 6, the Germans completely closed the encirclement. On June 20, soldiers and officers received orders to leave the encirclement on their own, but only a few managed to do this (according to various estimates, from 6 to 16 thousand people); Army commander A.A. Vlasov surrendered.
Military operations in May-November 1942
Having defeated the Crimean Front (almost 200 thousand people were captured), the Germans occupied Kerch on May 16, and Sevastopol in early July. On May 12, troops of the Southwestern Front and Southern Front launched an attack on Kharkov. For several days it developed successfully, but on May 19 the Germans defeated the 9th Army, throwing it back beyond the Seversky Donets, went to the rear of the advancing Soviet troops and captured them in a pincer movement on May 23; the number of prisoners reached 240 thousand. On June 28–30, the German offensive began against the left wing of the Bryansk and the right wing of the Southwestern Front. On July 8, the Germans captured Voronezh and reached the Middle Don. By July 22, the 1st and 4th Tank Armies reached the Southern Don. On July 24, Rostov-on-Don was captured.
In the context of a military catastrophe in the south, on July 28, Stalin issued order No. 227 “Not a step back,” which provided for severe punishments for retreating without instructions from above, barrier detachments to combat those who left their positions without permission, and penal units for operations in the most dangerous sectors of the front. On the basis of this order, about 1 million military personnel were convicted during the war years, of which 160 thousand were shot, and 400 thousand were sent to penal companies.
On July 25, the Germans crossed the Don and rushed south. In mid-August, the Germans established control over almost all the passes of the central part of the Main Caucasus Range. In the Grozny direction, the Germans occupied Nalchik on October 29, they failed to take Ordzhonikidze and Grozny, and in mid-November their further advance was stopped.
On August 16, German troops launched an offensive towards Stalingrad. On September 13, fighting began in Stalingrad itself. In the second half of October - the first half of November, the Germans captured a significant part of the city, but were unable to break the resistance of the defenders.
By mid-November, the Germans had established control over the Right Bank of the Don and most of the North Caucasus, but did not achieve their strategic goals - to break through to the Volga region and Transcaucasia. This was prevented by counterattacks of the Red Army in other directions (Rzhev meat grinder, tank battle between Zubtsov and Karmanovo, etc.), which, although they were not successful, nevertheless did not allow the Wehrmacht command to transfer reserves to the south.
Second period of the war (November 19, 1942 – December 31, 1943): a radical turning point
Victory at Stalingrad (November 19, 1942 – February 2, 1943)
On November 19, units of the Southwestern Front broke through the defenses of the 3rd Romanian Army and on November 21 captured five Romanian divisions in a pincer movement (Operation Saturn). On November 23, units of the two fronts united at Sovetsky and surrounded the enemy’s Stalingrad group.
On December 16, troops of the Voronezh and Southwestern Fronts launched Operation Little Saturn on the Middle Don, defeated the 8th Italian Army, and on January 26, the 6th Army was cut into two parts. On January 31, the southern group led by F. Paulus capitulated, on February 2 – the northern; 91 thousand people were captured. The Battle of Stalingrad, despite the heavy losses of Soviet troops, was the beginning of a radical turning point in the Great Patriotic War. The Wehrmacht suffered a major defeat and lost its strategic initiative. Japan and Türkiye abandoned their intention to enter the war on the side of Germany.
Economic recovery and transition to the offensive in the central direction
By this time, a turning point had also occurred in the sphere of the Soviet military economy. Already in the winter of 1941/1942 it was possible to stop the decline in mechanical engineering. The rise of ferrous metallurgy began in March, and the energy and fuel industry began in the second half of 1942. By the beginning, the USSR had a clear economic superiority over Germany.
In November 1942 - January 1943, the Red Army went on the offensive in the central direction.
Operation Mars (Rzhevsko-Sychevskaya) was carried out with the aim of eliminating the Rzhevsko-Vyazma bridgehead. Formations of the Western Front made their way through the Rzhev-Sychevka railway and carried out a raid on enemy rear lines, but significant losses and a lack of tanks, guns and ammunition forced them to stop, but this operation did not allow the Germans to transfer part of their forces from the central direction to Stalingrad.
Liberation of the North Caucasus (January 1 – February 12, 1943)
On January 1–3, the operation to liberate the North Caucasus and the Don bend began. Mozdok was liberated on January 3, Kislovodsk, Mineralnye Vody, Essentuki and Pyatigorsk were liberated on January 10–11, and Stavropol on January 21. On January 24, the Germans surrendered Armavir, and on January 30, Tikhoretsk. On February 4, the Black Sea Fleet landed troops in the Myskhako area south of Novorossiysk. On February 12, Krasnodar was captured. However, the lack of forces prevented Soviet troops from encircling the enemy’s North Caucasian group.
Breaking the siege of Leningrad (January 12–30, 1943)
Fearing encirclement of the main forces of Army Group Center on the Rzhev-Vyazma bridgehead, the German command began their systematic withdrawal on March 1. On March 2, units of the Kalinin and Western Fronts began pursuing the enemy. On March 3, Rzhev was liberated, on March 6, Gzhatsk, and on March 12, Vyazma.
The January-March 1943 campaign, despite a number of setbacks, led to the liberation of a vast territory (North Caucasus, lower Don, Voroshilovgrad, Voronezh, Kursk region, part of the Belgorod, Smolensk and Kalinin regions). The blockade of Leningrad was broken, the Demyansky and Rzhev-Vyazemsky ledges were eliminated. Control over the Volga and Don was restored. The Wehrmacht suffered huge losses (approx. 1.2 million people). The depletion of human resources forced the Nazi leadership to carry out a total mobilization of elders (over 46 years old) and younger ages(16–17 years old).
Since the winter of 1942/1943, the partisan movement in the German rear became an important military factor. The partisans caused serious damage to the German army, destroying manpower, blowing up warehouses and trains, and disrupting the communications system. The largest operations were raids by the M.I. detachment. Naumov in Kursk, Sumy, Poltava, Kirovograd, Odessa, Vinnitsa, Kyiv and Zhitomir (February-March 1943) and detachment S.A. Kovpak along Rivne, Zhytomyr and Kyiv regions(February-May 1943).
Defensive Battle of Kursk (July 5–23, 1943)
The Wehrmacht command developed Operation Citadel to encircle a strong group of the Red Army on the Kursk ledge through counter tank attacks from the north and south; If successful, it was planned to carry out Operation Panther to defeat the Southwestern Front. However, Soviet intelligence unraveled the Germans' plans, and in April-June a powerful defensive system of eight lines was created on the Kursk salient.
On July 5, the German 9th Army launched an attack on Kursk from the north, and the 4th Panzer Army from the south. On the northern flank, already on July 10, the Germans went on the defensive. On the southern wing, Wehrmacht tank columns reached Prokhorovka on July 12, but were stopped, and by July 23, the troops of the Voronezh and Steppe Front drove them back to their original lines. Operation Citadel failed.
The general offensive of the Red Army in the second half of 1943 (July 12 - December 24, 1943). Liberation of Left Bank Ukraine
On July 12, units of the Western and Bryansk fronts broke through the German defenses at Zhilkovo and Novosil, and by August 18, Soviet troops cleared the Oryol ledge of the enemy.
By September 22, units of the Southwestern Front pushed the Germans back beyond the Dnieper and reached the approaches to Dnepropetrovsk (now the Dnieper) and Zaporozhye; formations of the Southern Front occupied Taganrog, on September 8 Stalino (now Donetsk), on September 10 - Mariupol; The result of the operation was the liberation of Donbass.
On August 3, troops of the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts broke through the defenses of Army Group South in several places and captured Belgorod on August 5. On August 23, Kharkov was captured.
On September 25, through flank attacks from the south and north, the troops of the Western Front captured Smolensk and by the beginning of October entered the territory of Belarus.
On August 26, the Central, Voronezh and Steppe Fronts began the Chernigov-Poltava operation. The troops of the Central Front broke through the enemy defenses south of Sevsk and occupied the city on August 27; On September 13, we reached the Dnieper on the Loev-Kyiv section. Units of the Voronezh Front reached the Dnieper in the Kyiv-Cherkassy section. Units of the Steppe Front approached the Dnieper in the Cherkassy-Verkhnedneprovsk section. As a result, the Germans lost almost all of Left Bank Ukraine. At the end of September, Soviet troops crossed the Dnieper in several places and captured 23 bridgeheads on its right bank.
On September 1, the troops of the Bryansk Front overcame the Wehrmacht Hagen defense line and occupied Bryansk; by October 3, the Red Army reached the Sozh River in Eastern Belarus.
On September 9, the North Caucasus Front, in cooperation with the Black Sea Fleet and the Azov Military Flotilla, launched an offensive on the Taman Peninsula. Having broken through the Blue Line, Soviet troops took Novorossiysk on September 16, and by October 9 they had completely cleared the peninsula of Germans.
On October 10, the Southwestern Front began an operation to liquidate the Zaporozhye bridgehead and captured Zaporozhye on October 14.
On October 11, the Voronezh (from October 20 - 1st Ukrainian) Front began the Kyiv operation. After two unsuccessful attempts to take the capital of Ukraine with an attack from the south (from the Bukrin bridgehead), it was decided to launch the main blow from the north (from the Lyutezh bridgehead). On November 1, in order to divert the enemy's attention, the 27th and 40th armies moved towards Kyiv from the Bukrinsky bridgehead, and on November 3, the strike group of the 1st Ukrainian Front suddenly attacked it from the Lyutezhsky bridgehead and broke through the German defenses. On November 6, Kyiv was liberated.
On November 13, the Germans, having brought up reserves, launched a counteroffensive in the Zhitomir direction against the 1st Ukrainian Front in order to recapture Kyiv and restore defenses along the Dnieper. But the Red Army retained a vast strategic Kiev bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnieper.
During the period of hostilities from June 1 to December 31, the Wehrmacht suffered huge losses (1 million 413 thousand people), which it was no longer able to fully compensate. A significant part of the USSR territory occupied in 1941–1942 was liberated. The plans of the German command to gain a foothold on the Dnieper lines failed. Conditions were created for the expulsion of the Germans from Right Bank Ukraine.
Third period of the war (December 24, 1943 – May 11, 1945): defeat of Germany
After a series of failures throughout 1943, the German command abandoned attempts to seize the strategic initiative and switched to a tough defense. The main task of the Wehrmacht in the north was to prevent the Red Army from breaking through into the Baltic states and East Prussia, in the center to the border with Poland, and in the south to the Dniester and the Carpathians. The Soviet military leadership set the goal of the winter-spring campaign to defeat German troops on the extreme flanks - on the Right Bank of Ukraine and near Leningrad.
Liberation of Right Bank Ukraine and Crimea
On December 24, 1943, troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front launched an offensive in the western and southwestern directions (Zhitomir-Berdichev operation). Only at the cost of great effort and significant losses did the Germans manage to stop the Soviet troops on the line Sarny - Polonnaya - Kazatin - Zhashkov. On January 5–6, units of the 2nd Ukrainian Front attacked in the Kirovograd direction and captured Kirovograd on January 8, but were forced to stop the offensive on January 10. The Germans did not allow the troops of both fronts to unite and were able to hold the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky ledge, which posed a threat to Kyiv from the south.
On January 24, the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts launched a joint operation to defeat the Korsun-Shevchenskovsky enemy group. On January 28, the 6th and 5th Guards Tank Armies united at Zvenigorodka and closed the encirclement ring. On January 30, Kanev was taken, on February 14, Korsun-Shevchenkovsky. On February 17, the liquidation of the “boiler” was completed; More than 18 thousand Wehrmacht soldiers were captured.
On January 27, units of the 1st Ukrainian Front launched an attack from the Sarn region in the Lutsk-Rivne direction. On January 30, the offensive of the troops of the 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts began on the Nikopol bridgehead. Having overcome fierce enemy resistance, on February 8 they captured Nikopol, on February 22 - Krivoy Rog, and by February 29 they reached the river. Ingulets.
As a result of the winter campaign of 1943/1944, the Germans were finally driven back from the Dnieper. In an effort to make a strategic breakthrough to the borders of Romania and prevent the Wehrmacht from gaining a foothold on the Southern Bug, Dniester and Prut rivers, the Headquarters developed a plan to encircle and defeat Army Group South in Right Bank Ukraine through a coordinated attack by the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts .
The final chord of the spring operation in the south was the expulsion of the Germans from Crimea. On May 7–9, troops of the 4th Ukrainian Front, with the support of the Black Sea Fleet, took Sevastopol by storm, and by May 12 they defeated the remnants of the 17th Army that fled to Chersonesus.
Leningrad-Novgorod operation of the Red Army (January 14 – March 1, 1944)
On January 14, troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts launched an offensive south of Leningrad and near Novgorod. After defeating the 18th German Army and pushing it back to Luga, they liberated Novgorod on January 20. In early February, units of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts reached the approaches to Narva, Gdov and Luga; On February 4 they took Gdov, on February 12 - Luga. The threat of encirclement forced the 18th Army to hastily retreat to the southwest. On February 17, the 2nd Baltic Front carried out a series of attacks against the 16th German Army on the Lovat River. At the beginning of March, the Red Army reached the Panther defensive line (Narva - Lake Peipus - Pskov - Ostrov); Most of the Leningrad and Kalinin regions were liberated.
Military operations in the central direction in December 1943 - April 1944
As the tasks of the winter offensive of the 1st Baltic, Western and Belorussian fronts, the Headquarters set the troops to reach the line Polotsk - Lepel - Mogilev - Ptich and the liberation of Eastern Belarus.
In December 1943 - February 1944, the 1st PribF made three attempts to capture Vitebsk, which did not lead to the capture of the city, but completely depleted the enemy forces. The offensive actions of the Polar Front in the Orsha direction on February 22–25 and March 5–9, 1944 were also unsuccessful.
In the Mozyr direction, the Belorussian Front (BelF) on January 8 dealt a strong blow to the flanks of the 2nd German Army, but thanks to a hasty retreat it managed to avoid encirclement. Lack of forces prevented Soviet troops from encircling and destroying the enemy’s Bobruisk group, and on February 26 the offensive was stopped. Formed on February 17 at the junction of the 1st Ukrainian and Belorussian (from February 24, 1st Belorussian) fronts, the 2nd Belorussian Front began the Polesie operation on March 15 with the goal of capturing Kovel and breaking through to Brest. Soviet troops surrounded Kovel, but on March 23 the Germans launched a counterattack and on April 4 released the Kovel group.
Thus, in the central direction during the winter-spring campaign of 1944, the Red Army was unable to achieve its goals; On April 15, she went on the defensive.
Offensive in Karelia (June 10 – August 9, 1944). Finland's withdrawal from the war
After the loss of most of the occupied territory of the USSR, the main task of the Wehrmacht was to prevent the Red Army from entering Europe and not to lose its allies. That is why the Soviet military-political leadership, having failed in attempts to reach a peace agreement with Finland in February-April 1944, decided to begin the summer campaign of the year with a strike in the north.
On June 10, 1944, LenF troops, with the support of the Baltic Fleet, launched an offensive on the Karelian Isthmus, as a result, control over the White Sea-Baltic Canal and the strategically important Kirov Railway connecting Murmansk with European Russia was restored. By early August, Soviet troops had liberated all of the occupied territory east of Ladoga; in the Kuolisma area they reached the Finnish border. Having suffered defeat, Finland entered into negotiations with the USSR on August 25. On September 4, she broke off relations with Berlin and ceased hostilities, on September 15 declared war on Germany, and on September 19 concluded a truce with the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. The length of the Soviet-German front was reduced by a third. This allowed the Red Army to free up significant forces for operations in other directions.
Liberation of Belarus (June 23 – early August 1944)
Successes in Karelia prompted the Headquarters to carry out a large-scale operation to defeat the enemy in the central direction with the forces of three Belorussian and 1st Baltic fronts (Operation Bagration), which became the main event of the summer-autumn campaign of 1944.
The general offensive of the Soviet troops began on June 23–24. A coordinated attack by the 1st PribF and the right wing of the 3rd BF ended on June 26–27 with the liberation of Vitebsk and the encirclement of five German divisions. On June 26, units of the 1st BF took Zhlobin, on June 27–29 they surrounded and destroyed the enemy’s Bobruisk group, and on June 29 they liberated Bobruisk. As a result of the rapid offensive of the three Belarusian fronts, the German command’s attempt to organize a defense line along the Berezina was thwarted; On July 3, troops of the 1st and 3rd BF broke into Minsk and captured the 4th German Army south of Borisov (liquidated by July 11).
The German front began to collapse. Units of the 1st PribF occupied Polotsk on July 4 and, moving downstream of the Western Dvina, entered the territory of Latvia and Lithuania, reached the coast of the Gulf of Riga, cutting off Army Group North stationed in the Baltic States from the rest of the Wehrmacht forces. Units of the right wing of the 3rd BF, having taken Lepel on June 28, broke through into the valley of the river in early July. Viliya (Nyaris), on August 17 they reached the border of East Prussia.
The troops of the left wing of the 3rd BF, having made a rapid push from Minsk, took Lida on July 3, on July 16, together with the 2nd BF, they took Grodno and at the end of July approached the north-eastern protrusion of the Polish border. The 2nd BF, advancing to the southwest, captured Bialystok on July 27 and drove the Germans beyond the Narev River. Parts of the right wing of the 1st BF, having liberated Baranovichi on July 8, and Pinsk on July 14, at the end of July they reached the Western Bug and reached central area Soviet-Polish border; On July 28, Brest was captured.
As a result of Operation Bagration, Belarus, most of Lithuania and part of Latvia were liberated. The possibility of an offensive in East Prussia and Poland opened up.
Liberation of Western Ukraine and the offensive in Eastern Poland (July 13 – August 29, 1944)
Trying to stop the advance of Soviet troops in Belarus, the Wehrmacht command was forced to transfer units there from other sectors of the Soviet-German front. This facilitated the operations of the Red Army in other directions. On July 13–14, the offensive of the 1st Ukrainian Front began in Western Ukraine. Already on July 17, they crossed the state border of the USSR and entered South-Eastern Poland.
July 18 left wing The 1st BF launched an offensive near Kovel. At the end of July they approached Prague (the right bank suburb of Warsaw), which they managed to take only on September 14. At the beginning of August, German resistance increased sharply, and the advance of the Red Army was stopped. Because of this, the Soviet command was unable to provide necessary assistance An uprising led by the Home Army broke out on August 1 in the Polish capital, and by the beginning of October it was brutally suppressed by the Wehrmacht.
Offensive in the Eastern Carpathians (September 8 – October 28, 1944)
After the occupation of Estonia in the summer of 1941, Metropolitan of Tallinn. Alexander (Paulus) announced the separation of Estonian parishes from the Russian Orthodox Church (the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church was created on the initiative of Alexander (Paulus) in 1923, in 1941 the bishop repented of the sin of schism). In October 1941, at the insistence of the German General Commissioner of Belarus, the Belarusian Church was created. However, Panteleimon (Rozhnovsky), who headed it in the rank of Metropolitan of Minsk and Belarus, maintained canonical communication with the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan. Sergius (Stragorodsky). After the forced retirement of Metropolitan Panteleimon in June 1942, his successor was Archbishop Philotheus (Narco), who also refused to arbitrarily proclaim a national autocephalous Church.
Considering the patriotic position of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan. Sergius (Stragorodsky), the German authorities initially prevented the activities of those priests and parishes that declared their affiliation with the Moscow Patriarchate. Over time, the German authorities began to be more tolerant of the communities of the Moscow Patriarchate. According to the occupiers, these communities only verbally declared their loyalty to the Moscow center, but in reality they were ready to assist the German army in the destruction of the atheistic Soviet state.
In the occupied territory, thousands of churches, churches, and houses of worship of various Protestant movements (primarily Lutherans and Pentecostals) resumed their activities. This process was especially active in the Baltic states, in the Vitebsk, Gomel, Mogilev regions of Belarus, in the Dnepropetrovsk, Zhitomir, Zaporozhye, Kyiv, Voroshilovgrad, Poltava regions of Ukraine, in the Rostov, Smolensk regions of the RSFSR.
The religious factor was taken into account when planning domestic policy in areas where Islam traditionally spread, primarily in the Crimea and the Caucasus. German propaganda declared respect for the values of Islam, presented the occupation as the liberation of peoples from the “Bolshevik godless yoke,” and guaranteed the creation of conditions for the revival of Islam. The occupiers willingly opened mosques in almost every settlement of the “Muslim regions” and provided the Muslim clergy with the opportunity to address believers through radio and print. Throughout the occupied territory where Muslims lived, the positions of mullahs and senior mullahs were restored, whose rights and privileges were equal to the heads of administrations of cities and towns.
When forming special units from among prisoners of war of the Red Army, much attention was paid to religious affiliation: if representatives of peoples who traditionally professed Christianity were mainly sent to the “army of General Vlasov”, then to such formations as the “Turkestan Legion”, “Idel-Ural” representatives of “Islamic” peoples.
The “liberalism” of the German authorities did not apply to all religions. Many communities found themselves on the verge of destruction, for example, in Dvinsk alone, almost all of the 35 synagogues operating before the war were destroyed, and up to 14 thousand Jews were shot. Most of the Evangelical Christian Baptist communities that found themselves in the occupied territory were also destroyed or dispersed by the authorities.
Forced to leave the occupied territories under the pressure of Soviet troops, the Nazi invaders took away liturgical objects, icons, paintings, books, and items made of precious metals from prayer buildings.
According to far from complete data from the Extraordinary State Commission to establish and investigate the atrocities of the Nazi invaders, 1,670 Orthodox churches, 69 chapels, 237 churches, 532 synagogues, 4 mosques and 254 other prayer buildings were completely destroyed, looted or desecrated in the occupied territory. Among those destroyed or desecrated by the Nazis were priceless monuments of history, culture and architecture, incl. dating back to the 11th-17th centuries, in Novgorod, Chernigov, Smolensk, Polotsk, Kyiv, Pskov. Many prayer buildings were converted by the occupiers into prisons, barracks, stables, and garages.
Position and patriotic activities of the Russian Orthodox Church during the war
June 22, 1941 Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan. Sergius (Stragorodsky) compiled the “Message to the Pastors and Flock of Christ’s Orthodox Church,” in which he revealed the anti-Christian essence of fascism and called on believers to defend themselves. In their letters to the Patriarchate, believers reported on the widespread voluntary collection of donations for the needs of the front and defense of the country.
After the death of Patriarch Sergius, according to his will, Metropolitan took over as locum tenens of the patriarchal throne. Alexy (Simansky), unanimously elected at the last meeting of the Local Council on January 31-February 2, 1945, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'. The Council was attended by Patriarchs of Alexandria Christopher II, Antioch Alexander III and Georgian Callistratus (Tsintsadze), representatives of the Constantinople, Jerusalem, Serbian and Romanian patriarchs.
In 1945, the so-called Estonian schism was overcome, and the Orthodox parishes and clergy of Estonia were accepted into communion with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Patriotic activities of communities of other faiths and religions
Immediately after the start of the war, the leaders of almost all religious associations of the USSR supported the liberation struggle of the peoples of the country against the Nazi aggressor. Addressing believers with patriotic messages, they called upon them to honorably fulfill their religious and civic duty to protect the Fatherland and provide all possible material assistance to the needs of the front and rear. The leaders of most religious associations of the USSR condemned those representatives of the clergy who deliberately went over to the side of the enemy and helped to impose a “new order” in the occupied territory.
The head of the Russian Old Believers of the Belokrinitsky hierarchy, Archbishop. Irinarch (Parfyonov), in his Christmas message of 1942, called on the Old Believers, a considerable number of whom fought on the fronts, to serve valiantly in the Red Army and resist the enemy in the occupied territory in the ranks of the partisans. In May 1942, the leaders of the Unions of Baptists and Evangelical Christians addressed a letter of appeal to believers; the appeal spoke of the danger of fascism “for the cause of the Gospel” and called on “brothers and sisters in Christ” to fulfill “their duty to God and to the Motherland”, being “the best warriors at the front and the best employees in the rear." Baptist communities were engaged in sewing linen, collecting clothes and other things for soldiers and families of the dead, helped in caring for the wounded and sick in hospitals, and looked after orphans in orphanages. With funds raised in Baptist communities, the Good Samaritan ambulance plane was built to transport seriously wounded soldiers to the rear. The leader of renovationism, A. I. Vvedensky, repeatedly made patriotic appeals.
In relation to a number of other religious associations, state policy during the war years remained invariably tough. First of all, this concerned “anti-state, anti-Soviet and fanatical sects,” which included the Doukhobors
- http://www.pravenc.ru/text/150063.html
There was no more than a hundred meters between the tanks - you could only fidget, no maneuver. This was not a war - beating up tanks. They crawled and shot. Everything was burning. An indescribable stench hung over the battlefield. Everything was covered with smoke, dust, fire, so that it seemed like it was twilight. The aircraft bombed everyone. Tanks were burning, cars were on fire, communications were not working...
From the memoirs of V.P. Bryukhov, tank driver
Second winter of the war
SS division "Totenkopf" before the offensive.
After fierce battles in the winter of 1942-1943. There was a lull on the Soviet-German front. The warring parties learned lessons from past battles, outlined plans for further actions, armies were replenished with people and new equipment, and reserves were accumulated. Hitler understood that the Reich desperately needed a brilliant victory. In the winter of 1943, the “Russian barbarians” suddenly appeared as a strong and merciless enemy, and the German victories achieved in 1941 faded considerably. The jubilation of Hitler's army gave way to restraint, and then to wariness. In January 1943, Soviet troops inflicted devastating losses on the German army at Stalingrad: total losses fascist troops from November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943. amounted to over 1,500,000 (killed and captured) people, about 2,000 tanks and assault guns, 3,000 aircraft.
In February 1943, Hitler demanded that his generals "replace in the summer what was lost in the winter"; he needed a victory that would return the image of an “invincible armada” to the German army. The fascist German command, planning the summer campaign of 1943, decided to conduct a major offensive on the Soviet-German front in order to regain the lost strategic initiative. For the counter-offensive, the Reich generals chose the so-called Kursk ledge, which extended up to 200 km into the location of German troops, which was formed during the winter-spring offensive of the Soviet troops. The Citadel plan provided that the German army would encircle and destroy Soviet troops in the Kursk salient with two simultaneous counter strikes in the general direction of Kursk: from the Orel region to the south and from the Kharkov region to the north. In the future, German generals intended to expand the offensive front from the area east of Kursk - to the southeast - and defeat Soviet troops in the Donbass.
This is what the Citadel plan looked like.
If you look at the front line that took shape in the spring of 1943, you will immediately notice that the front in the Orel-Kursk-Belgorod-Kharkov area bizarrely curved like a reverse S - in the north, a ledge was wedged into the Soviet defense, in the center of which was Oryol, and directly below there was exactly the same ledge that was held by Soviet troops and the center of which was Kursk. Hitler really liked the idea of “cutting off this Kursk balcony,” and on March 13, 1943, he signed an order to begin preparations for Operation Citadel.
This is interesting: in this directive of the Supreme High Command of the Wehrmacht it can be noted interesting quote: “It should be expected that the Russians, after the end of winter and the spring thaw, having created reserves of material resources and partially replenishing their formations with people, will resume the offensive. Therefore, our task is to, if possible, forestall them in attacking in places with the goal of imposing our will, at least on one of the sectors of the front...” Thus, there was no longer talk of the defeat of the Red Army and the victorious end of the war.
The start of the German offensive was planned for May 3 - the German command was counting on the factor of surprise and the fact that the Russians would not be able to replenish personnel and equipment after grueling battles in the winter. But, having carefully studied the condition of the German troops, the Wehrmacht Supreme Headquarters reported to the Fuhrer that “an offensive is possible only in June, after the arrival of reinforcements to the troops, since the strength of the units is below 60%.”
Despite the signed order for Operation Citadel, disputes arose among the German generals about the need for a summer offensive. The main argument of supporters of the encirclement of Soviet troops in the Kursk salient was expressed by Field Marshal Keitel at a meeting with the Fuhrer: “We must attack for political reasons.” To which Guderian, an ardent opponent of the Citadel plan, replied:
To this direct question, Hitler honestly answered that just thinking about the operation made his “stomach ache.” But Guderian could not dissuade the Fuhrer.
German training
The spring thaw gave the warring parties a respite, which the Wehrmacht used to prepare for the offensive. High losses in people and equipment after Battle of Stalingrad and the subsequent battles in Ukraine led to the fact that all German army reserves were exhausted, and there was simply nothing to restore the formations operating at the front. From January to March 1943, the Wehrmacht lost 2,500 tanks, which amounted to 60% of all combat vehicles produced in 1942. At the end of January, 500 tanks remained in service on the entire eastern front!
The problem of shortage of personnel was also acute, and on January 13 the Fuhrer signed a decree on “Total War”, within the framework of which general mobilization was announced. Men from 16 to 60 years old, women from 17 to 45 were subject to conscription. Intensified conscription into the German army in the occupied territories also began; Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, as well as Russians who emigrated to Europe after the 1917 revolution, were sent to the front and industry. In many prisoner of war concentration camps, the Germans recruited Red Army prisoners into special units.
Nevertheless, all these measures could not fill the gap in the Wehrmacht’s human resources, and from February 11, 1943, 15-year-old schoolchildren were drafted into auxiliary positions in the German Air Force (however, let’s not forget that women and children also worked in USSR factories at that time ).
All these measures, together with the significant industrial potential of Germany, although slowly, restored the strength of the Wehrmacht. According to the plan of Operation Citadel, the breakthrough of the Russian defense was entrusted to tank wedges, led by the latest T-5 and T-6.
Note: in German military terminology, tanks were designated by the index Pz.Kpfw (Panzerkampfwagen - armored fighting machine), and the model number is in Roman numerals. For example: Pz.Kpfw V. In this article, the names of German tanks are given in Russian transcription, with the index “T” and Arabic numerals.
"Panthers" on the march.
T-6 "Tiger"
Fire support was supposed to be carried out with modernized T-4 tanks and self-propelled artillery, but a significant problem was staffing the tank divisions with new vehicles. The production of one T-6 Tiger required as much material and time as the production of three T-4s, and the production of Panthers was just beginning. In addition, the newest T-5 Panther tank was not tested at the front and did not participate in battles, and no one knew how the vehicle would behave in combat conditions. The inspector of the Wehrmacht tank forces, General Guderian, told the Fuhrer that the tank was frankly “raw” and that throwing the Panther into battle right away, without modification, was simply stupid.
But Hitler relied on the “Tank Wedge” tactics and at the end of March demanded the production of 600 T-5 tanks. Despite all the efforts of the German industry, by the end of May no more than 200 combat vehicles had been produced, and finishing the already assembled tanks to the required condition was difficult, new defects and shortcomings were discovered.
The production of the newest Ferdinand self-propelled gun was also behind schedule. All this caused the date of the offensive to be postponed to June 12, and later to July 5.
At the end of June 1943, the German command concentrated forces:
The strike force in the Orel area consisted of 270,000 soldiers and officers, about 3,500 guns and mortars, about 1,200 tanks and self-propelled guns. It was supposed to deliver the main blow in the direction of the Orel-Kursk railway.
The strike force north of Kharkov consisted of 280,000 soldiers and officers, more than 2,500 guns and mortars, and up to 1,500 tanks and self-propelled guns. It was supposed to deliver the main blow with the forces of the 4th Tank Army along the Oboyan-Kursk highway and a secondary blow with the forces of the Kempf operational group in the direction of Belgorod-Korocha.
There were another twenty divisions (320,000 personnel) on the flanks of the strike groups.
In total, to implement their plan, the fascist German command concentrated on the Kursk salient about a million soldiers and officers, about 10,000 guns and mortars, about 2,700 tanks and self-propelled guns, and over 2,000 combat aircraft.
Russian training
Action plan of the Red Army in spring-summer period 1943 ran parallel to the planning of the German Operation Citadel - from March to July. As in the Wehrmacht generals, at Stalin's headquarters there was no consensus on whether to launch an offensive or go on the defensive.
Marshals of the Red Army Vasilevsky and Zhukov believed that it was necessary to give the initiative to the Germans and go on the defensive, destroying the advancing tank forces of the Nazis, counterattack and defeat the enemy. The opponents were the commanders of the Voronezh and Southern Fronts, Malinovsky and Vatutin, who believed that an immediate offensive was required until the Germans recovered from their defeat in the winter of 1943.
At the end of March, Marshal Zhukov visited the fronts and prepared a report for Stalin, in which he stated the following:
« I consider it inappropriate for our troops to go on the offensive in the coming days in order to forestall the enemy. It would be better if we wear down the enemy on our defense, knock out his tanks, and then bring in fresh reserves; by going on a general offensive we will finally finish off the main enemy grouping».
This report formed the basis of the defense plan in the Kursk salient area. The Red Army began a deliberate defense.
This is interesting: The defense plan for the Kursk salient was signed by Stalin at a meeting on April 12. On the same day, draft order No. 6, a counter-strike by German troops near Kursk, was placed on Hitler’s desk. This was the final version of Operation Citadel.
The secret front of the Battle of Kursk
Experience 1941-1943 showed that in order to prepare an offensive operation it is necessary to move a huge amount of manpower, tanks, guns, various military equipment, and ammunition to a certain section of the front; set in motion hundreds of thousands of people over a vast territory, sometimes hundreds of kilometers from the intended point. Only if there is more or less complete awareness of all these movements in the enemy rear will the command really benefit from intelligence reports about the day of the offensive.
Regular reports on the movement and strength of enemy military units provide a picture of possible enemy actions. And for this it is necessary to have well-covered, reliable, well-functioning intelligence.
By 1943, hundreds of Soviet intelligence officers were working behind German lines. But the first serious information that confirmed the correctness of the calculations of the Soviet command was sent by the London station. On April 25, 1943, British intelligence intercepted a telegram from German General Weichs. This was a detailed plan for Operation Citadel and an assessment of the condition of Soviet troops in the Kursk salient area. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, having familiarized himself with the text of the document after deciphering it, decided to hand it over to Soviet intelligence.
At the beginning of May, information began to arrive from front-line and strategic intelligence that the Germans were concentrating troops at the base of the ledge, transferring the most combat-ready units, new technology. At the end of April, several groups of reconnaissance officers were landed in the area of the German-occupied city of Orel, who informed about the movements of enemy troops.
Foreign intelligence of the USSR and the NKVD made their contribution to the defense of the Kursk Bulge. What was needed was disinformation that would force the Wehrmacht generals to redeploy their units and transfer new reinforcements to the front. This will require additional time, which means it will delay the German offensive and enable the Red Army to better prepare its defense and counteroffensive plan. In March 1943, the USSR command headquarters decided that disinformation data for the German command should be transmitted by A.P., a participant in the “Monastery” project. Demyanov.
Operation Monastery
At the very beginning of the Patriotic War, the need arose to penetrate the intelligence network of German intelligence - the Abwehr - operating on the territory of the USSR. It was possible to recruit several agents - Abwehr radio operators - and with their help lure out other German agents.
But, firstly, such an operational game could not last for a long time, and secondly, during it it was unlikely that serious misinformation could be transmitted to the enemy. Therefore, Lieutenant General of the NKVD Sudoplatov decided to simulate the existence in the USSR of the monarchical organization “Throne”, which welcomed the victory of the Germans and wanted to help them.
A candidate for the underground monarchist organization was soon found - Alexander Petrovich Demyanov, who came from a noble officer family. In 1939, he came into contact with German intelligence officers in Moscow, and this contact developed so successfully that the Germans practically considered Demyanov their agent, giving him the nickname “Max.”
On February 17, 1942, Demyanov’s “escape” across the front line was organized. German counterintelligence initially treated the Russian intelligence officer with distrust - he was interrogated and checked with passion, not trusting the stories about the existence of the “Throne”, on whose instructions he ran to the Germans to ask for their help. The Germans staged an execution as a test, but Demyanov showed courage and did not split.
After a response was received from Berlin to a request from the front-line Abwehr unit that the defector was “Max,” known to the Abwehr, and who could be trusted, the attitude towards him changed, and they began to prepare him for deployment to the Soviet rear. His training was short-term, but extremely intensive: Demyanov studied secret writing, encryption and radio.
On March 15, 1942, just twenty-six days after the “transition to the Germans,” he was dropped by parachute over the Yaroslavl region. On the same day he was taken to Moscow with a report to the leadership of the NKVD.
Two weeks later, as agreed before the drop, “Max” went on the air. From that day on, his regular radio contact with German intelligence began. Operation Monastery progressed successfully; it became clear that its capabilities went far beyond the goals outlined at the beginning. Now we could talk not only about “catching” German agents, but also about supplying the Germans with large-scale disinformation prepared at the highest level.
In October 1942, couriers from the Abwehr came to Max, delivering a walkie-talkie, encryption pads and money. After the couriers were captured by the NKVD, they were converted, and now “information” was reaching the Germans through several channels.
On December 18, 1942, “Max” and one of the radio operators were awarded the German Order of the Iron Cross with swords for bravery. The radio game continued. German intelligence couriers increasingly arrived not only in Moscow, but also in other cities where “Throne” supposedly had its strongholds: Gorky, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk. In total, more than fifty agents were captured during the operational game.
But the main merit of the participants in Operation Monastery lies in the transmission of a large amount of critical disinformation. According to legend for the Germans, “Max” worked as a junior liaison officer in the General Staff of the Red Army. Demyanov's reports concerned mainly the railway transportation of military units and military equipment, which made it possible for the Germans to calculate the actions planned in advance by our army. But the leaders of Operation Monastery assumed that the railways were being monitored by real German agents. Therefore, wooden “tanks”, “guns” and other “equipment” were sent along the routes indicated by “Max” under tarpaulin covers.
To confirm Demyanov’s reports about acts of sabotage committed by “his people,” the press published notes about sabotage in railway transport.
The information reported by “Max” was divided into information obtained by his “sources” and by himself. Of course, “his” information was poorer, taking into account his low position.
The radio game continued until the end of 1944, after which they decided to stop it and start a new operation - “Berezino”.
A “reliable source” provided the Germans with weekly data on the deployment of the main units Soviet army south of Moscow. According to legend, he had access to information in the General Staff. The intelligence officer reported the active transfer of Soviet troops and armored vehicles to the Kursk-Orel area, but they are not maneuverable enough, so their use is difficult. The transfer actually took place, but in Max’s messages its dimensions were increased many times over. As the head of the NKVD intelligence service Sudoplatov later said: “Max’s misinformation, as it became known from the memoirs of the head of German intelligence (BND) Gehlen, contributed to the fact that the Germans repeatedly postponed the timing of the offensive on the Kursk Bulge, and this was in the hands of the Soviet Army... »
Defensive lines
The main idea of the USSR command's plan to repel the German attack on the Kursk salient was a system of defense in depth with a large number of engineering structures and obstacles.
Preparation of defense.
The depth of tactical defense was 15-20 kilometers. In preparing the defense, particular importance was attached to the construction of full-profile trenches connected to each other by communication passages. They served as shelters from artillery and mortar fire, as well as from air strikes, and provided covert maneuver along the front. In some areas of the defense, the trenches were in four lines, with a distance of 250 meters between them. Shelters were also equipped there: cracks, niches, long-term firing points, and bridging dugouts.
As a rule, the first line of trenches was occupied by machine gunners, tank destroyers, and anti-tank rifle crews. The main firing structures were anti-fragmentation nests for riflemen, and for machine guns - bunkers (wood-earth firing points - a wooden frame two by two meters, almost completely buried in the ground, and covered on top with several rolls of logs).
The troops worked day and night, and the main difficulty was that, for the purpose of camouflage, the soldiers on the front line only dug at night.
General I.M. Chistyakov, commander of the 6th Guards Army on the Voronezh Front, recalled:
« So, we began to build our defensive lines. The trenches and communication passages were deep - a meter and seventy centimeters; they dug, built dugouts and shelters, and prepared positions for fire weapons. There was a lot of work. The army occupied 64 kilometers along the front, and along the entire front one could expect an offensive: there were no swamps and forests, the so-called passive areas inconvenient for an offensive...”
Thus, in the expected directions of the enemy’s main attacks, each front had six lines of defense with a separation depth of up to 110 km on the Central Front and up to 85 km on the Voronezh Front.
To repel attacks from German tanks and motorized infantry, a widely developed system of engineering obstacles was used: anti-tank ditches, scarps (anti-tank obstacle, which is an artificially cut under high angle the edge of a slope or river bank), three rows of barbed wire, tree debris, minefields. In places where a breakthrough by German tanks was possible, the density of mines reached 1,500 pieces per kilometer of front. In addition, to carry out the operational laying of mines directly in front of the advancing tanks (in those years called “impudent mining”), special mobile barrage detachments (PZO) were organized. Cover was provided by a platoon of anti-tank rifles on trucks all-terrain vehicles or captured armored personnel carriers.
This is interesting: In addition to standard mines, in the defense on the Kursk Bulge, high explosives were widely used, which consisted of a box with incendiary bottles, in the center of which a head bomb, grenade or anti-personnel mine was placed. Unlike conventional minefields, they hit the enemy not only with a blast wave and fragments, but also with the flame resulting from the explosion. A minefield with high explosives cannot be cleared if well camouflaged. Several barrage fields were created from such land mines, which proved to be very effective both against infantry and against light and medium tanks.
The volume of work carried out by the engineering services of the fronts was colossal. In the Central Front alone, in April-June, up to 5,000 km of trenches and communication passages were opened, more than 300 km of wire barriers were installed (of which about 30 km were electrified), more than 400,000 mines and landmines, over 60 km of gouges, and up to 80 km of anti-tank ditches
The crew of the 45 mm gun is ready to open fire.
Considering that the Germans were going to use heavy tanks and self-propelled guns, powerful anti-tank mines were required, but the Red Army did not have enough of them. For example, when hitting a Soviet YaM-5 mine, the German T-2 was completely destroyed, and the T-6 Tiger lost one or two tracks from its caterpillar. If the Wehrmacht had a well-functioning repair system, damaged vehicles were quickly put into service. Knowing this, in some areas, Soviet sappers used the simultaneous installation of two mines (one above the other) in one hole against enemy Tiger and Panther tanks and Ferdinand assault guns.
The basis of the Soviet anti-tank defense was anti-tank strong points (ATOP). These were well-camouflaged firing positions for 6-10 anti-tank guns of 45 and 76 mm caliber, with a wide sector of fire. The PTOOP was protected from German motorized infantry fire by a platoon of machine gunners.
It is worth noting that all firing positions were prepared only by battery crews. As the commander of an anti-tank gun, a participant in the Battle of Kursk, M.P. recalled. Badigin:
“The most difficult thing in war is work, sometimes physically exhausting work, before you have to fight, go on the attack... It is sometimes even easier than this work. According to calculations, in order to dig a 45-mm cannon, you need to remove about thirty cubic meters of earth, and a 76-mm cannon - already fifty-six cubic meters. According to peaceful calculations, this is two days of work. And without calculation - we had to be there by morning... We dug as much as dozens of people might not have to dig up in their entire lives... Let's say this: we stood in a firing position, the commander, for example, decided to shift a kilometer to the right. We have to dig again and throw away fifty-six cubic meters of earth. I didn’t have time to dig up - they said: five kilometers to the left. To dig again... The soldier is just mentally and physically exhausted, exhausted, he can’t. But nevertheless, there are challenges, this is war. If you don't dig in, it means death. This means that they found the strength in themselves and dug... First, as a rule, they dig ditches for shelter, and then only the platform for the gun. You only have to dig two bayonets and you can lie down and hide in the ground - it’s no longer dangerous here. And there was such a rule - it was not established by anyone, but we strictly followed it: you will definitely dig a ditch in the place, if there is such a place, where there is a trace of mines or an exploding shell. Because we ourselves, artillerymen, know that it is extremely rare for a shell to hit the same place twice...”
Leading edge masking
Along with creating a strong defense, the Soviet command was faced with the task of camouflaging the front line. German intelligence did not sit still and carried out large-scale collection of information in the Kursk salient area. All means were used: round-the-clock surveillance of the front line, reconnaissance groups parachuted into the rear of Russian units, and the Germans also systematically captured prisoners. But aerial reconnaissance turned out to be the most effective - German reconnaissance planes regularly photographed the front line of the Soviet defense. And comparing the photographs with the previous ones, taken two or three weeks ago, one could see how the terrain was changing, where the Russians were installing artillery batteries, and where the infantry had dug in.
A German reconnaissance plane crosses no man's land.
On May 28, 1943, a German reconnaissance aircraft Focke-Wulf 189 (“frame” was what Russian pilots called this aircraft) was shot down over the territory of the first echelon of defense of the Soviet troops. The captured pilot with documents and a map was immediately taken to front headquarters. And when the commander of the Voronezh Front superimposed the captured map onto the divisional defense diagram, it turned out to be very similar - in some places the combat positions, especially artillery and tanks, seemed to be copied from the Soviet map.
A plan for the regrouping of Soviet troops was immediately developed. Truly titanic work lay ahead: to re-equip hundreds of strong points, dig up tons of earth - and all this in the shortest possible time. Firing positions were changed only at night. It was also decided: to place mock-ups of guns at the former artillery positions, and to place mock-ups made of plywood in the places where the tanks were formerly concentrated. During German reconnaissance flights over false targets, anti-aircraft fire was simulated. The Second Air Army had to create false airfields at the site of the previous deployment. Some of the combat aircraft remained with the mock-ups, which were periodically moved along the take-off field for simulation. When a Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft approached, a pair of fighters took off from the airfield, whose task was only to scare off the German spy.
The bulk (up to 90%) of the tanks were concentrated on the likely directions of the main attacks of the German tanks. Front commanders adhered to the principle of the massive use of tank troops in decisive sectors of the front.
Soldier training
The period March-June preceding the Battle of Kursk was used to thoroughly prepare troops for combat operations. Commanders and staffs of rifle, tank and artillery formations and units conducted joint exercises on the ground, during which options for launching counterstrikes and counterattacks were worked out. Particular attention during combat training was paid to the ability to organize the repulsion of large tank attacks, the preparation and conduct of counterattacks and counterstrikes, and the implementation of broad maneuvers of forces and means in order to create superiority over the enemy. Combat training took place in each category of military personnel in its own specific areas. For example, anti-tank rifle (ATR) units practiced practical interaction with tank units. Much attention was paid to developing methods for fighting infantry with new German tanks. This became especially relevant after, together with German propaganda about the “miracle weapon of the Third Reich,” the Wehrmacht used heavy T-6 Tiger tanks during the winter battles near Kharkov, which had a strong moral impression on the battle-weary Russian troops.
As infantryman G.S. recalled. Genkin, who came under a terrible blow from Manstein’s tanks, rushing to help the encircled Paulus group near Stalingrad in December 1942:
« And then the tanks came at us... Dozens of tanks... We somehow managed to cut off the German infantry, and then the massacre began. German tanks crushed us.
What kind of shooting at viewing slits is there?! And then the German infantry joined in the extermination of our battalion. The battalion anti-tank rifles managed to fire several shots at the tanks and were crushed by the tracks. We couldn't even move back. Tanks from all sides! Their caterpillars were red with blood. Those of our people who tried to get up and run were immediately killed by bursts of tank machine guns... The bare steppe, as flat as a table. It was a terrible battle, believe me... A bloody mess... I lay among the crushed human bodies and waited for their fate to befall me.».
The impressions of a 56-ton armored vehicle spewing fire and lead only strengthened German propaganda, so it was extremely important to prove to the soldier who was preparing for defensive battles that even an infantryman could fight the “tiger”.
"Tigers" on the march.
Military Publishing House issued special instructions and posters that clearly showed vulnerabilities enemy armored vehicles, advice was given on how to more effectively use each of the anti-tank weapons available to the infantry (grenades, Molotov cocktails, anti-tank rifles, etc.). In order to “eliminate elements of tank fear,” all personnel of rifle and motorized rifle units were tested with tanks at special tank training grounds. And for the testing of infantry and anti-tank artillery regiments, a special training ground was built in the rear of the defense, where firing and exercises were systematically carried out in June. For these purposes, tank crews from neighboring units were involved.
In the training of tank units, the emphasis was primarily on training driver mechanics in practical driving of combat vehicles, primarily in real combat conditions, as well as firing on the move and with short stops.
During the studies, considerable importance was attached to explaining the techniques and methods of camouflage, preserving equipment and people from attacks by German aircraft. At the beginning of May 1943, information was received from Soviet intelligence about the appearance of a new attack aircraft based on the Ju-87 (Junkers 87, also known as Laptezhnik) from the German aviation. The Germans tested the Model G in an experimental squadron located in Crimea.
This “German answer to the Il-2” was a modernized Junkers 87 dive bomber. It mounted two 37 mm cannons that could penetrate up to 40 mm of armor. But, as it turned out later, the Germans abandoned mass production of this attack aircraft due to design flaws, and 174 copies were produced before the end of the war. The new attack aircraft had such a low speed that it could barely overtake the old Hs 126 reconnaissance aircraft, contemptuously called a “crutch” in the Red Army. The new Ju-87 also earned many nicknames: “Cannon Bird” (Kanonenvogel) or “Thing with Long Sticks” (Stuka mil den Langen Stangen).
Attack of German infantry under the cover of self-propelled guns.
By July 5, the defense on the Kursk salient, which has a length of 550 kilometers, was occupied by troops of the Central (commander - Army General Rokossovsky) and Voronezh (commander - Army General Vatutin) fronts. They included 1,336,000 people, more than 19,000 guns and mortars, over 3,500 tanks and self-propelled artillery units (including over 900 T-60 and T-70 light tanks), 2,900 aircraft (including 728 aviation aircraft long range and light bombers Po-2). East of Kursk, the Steppe Military District, which was in reserve at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, was concentrated, renamed on July 9 into the “Steppe Front” (commander - Colonel General I.S. Konev), which had 573,000 people, 8,000 guns and mortars, about 1,000 tanks and self-propelled artillery units , up to 400 combat aircraft.
Operation Citadel and Kursk defensive operation July 5-23, 1943
On the afternoon of July 4, a strong fire strike from the air and artillery was delivered to the military outposts and forward detachments of General Chistyakov’s army. As German Field Marshal Manstein wrote in his memoirs, this attack was aimed at capturing “observation points necessary for directing the offensive.” In addition, the Germans sought to reconnoitre in detail before launching the offensive and, if possible, destroy the Russian minefield system and bring their troops as close as possible to the front line of the Soviet army’s defense. The Wehrmacht attack was repulsed in two hours. At the headquarters of the Soviet command, no one doubted that the Germans were conducting “reconnaissance in force.”
On July 5, at four o'clock in the afternoon, German artillery preparation began - tons of shells fell on the Soviet defense lines. From the memoirs of Wehrmacht soldiers and officers participating in Operation Citadel:
The Stug self-propelled gun is firing.
« ...silence reigned between Belgorod, Tomarovskaya and Faustov. The Russians were waiting. And on the other side of the neutral zone the Germans were waiting. The drone of planes was heard. People raised their heads, Captain Like, commander of the 3rd battalion of the Grenadier Regiment of the Grossdeutschland division, looked at the sky, and then at his watch. “Minute to minute,” he said... And at that moment a squadron of Stuka bombers roared over the trenches towards the enemy. Fighters were flying high above them. The Stukas banked and dived with a howl. On the other side, on the slopes of Gertsovka and Butovo, fountains of earth and smoke rose. It was there that the observation posts of the Soviet artillery were located... The next squadron flew over our positions, and after that another and another. At 15:00 the last bomb exploded. Then the artillery entered. A roaring, howling hell... Ten minutes later, under the cover of artillery fire, the platoons were running through passages in the minefields, with assault guns on their heels.
Detachments of sappers ran between them, ready to eliminate any unexpected obstacle... Soon, however, the garrisons of the still surviving Russian strongholds recovered from the surprise and opened fire from all types of weapons they had... And the Soviet artillery intervened in the matter, installing a deadly screen Volley after volley rained down on the attack area. The rushing German assault guns began to run into Soviet mines. There was the roar of anti-tank rifles and the howl of mortars. The Red fighters, emitting piercing screams, flew like hawks onto the slopes and were already hitting the German assault troops with machine guns and cannons...»
Fierce battles began south of Orel and north of Belgorod. The main blow was delivered to the village of Olkhovatka, and auxiliary blows were delivered to Maloarkhangelsk and Fatezh. Soviet troops met the Germans with dense fire from howitzers and anti-tank guns. The Wehrmacht suffered heavy losses, and only after the fifth attack they managed to break into the front line of defense of the 29th Rifle Corps in the Olkhovat direction.
Central Front
On the Central Front, the enemy delivered the main blow to the center of the 13th Army, commanded by General Pukhov. Having concentrated up to five hundred tanks here, the Germans hoped to break the defense of the Soviet troops with a powerful armored ram with the support of aviation and artillery. The enemy delivered an auxiliary blow to Gnilets.
Komandirsky T-4.
Soviet armor-piercers.
The Russians met the attacks of the advancing enemy with exceptional steadfastness. All anti-tank weapons, and above all tank and self-propelled artillery regiments, in cooperation with rifle units, sappers and units of other branches of the military, inflicted great damage on the Germans. The actions of ground troops were supported by formations of the 16th Air Army of General Rudenko. The German command continuously increased its attack, throwing new tank and infantry units into battle, and tried to break the defenses of the 13th Army at any cost. By the end of the day, the Germans on the main, Olkhovat, direction had penetrated the Soviet defense for eight kilometers and reached the second defensive line.
The commander of the Central Front, General Rokossovsky, decided on the morning of July 6 to launch a counterattack against the Nazi group with the forces of the 2nd Tank Army. The counterattack began early in the morning of July 6, the 16th Tank Corps under the command of General Grigoriev struck Butyrki and threw the enemy two kilometers north. But the German command brought fresh tank units to the area. A battle broke out between 100 Soviet and 200 German tanks. The tankers, showing exceptional courage and perseverance, held the captured positions for a long time. However, using quantitative superiority, the Germans repelled counterattacks by formations of the 16th Panzer Corps, and then two tank divisions of the 41st Panzer Corps and two infantry divisions, with air support, went on the offensive.
T-34 attack
The Germans often used captured T-34s.
The 19th Tank Corps, commanded by General Vasiliev, concentrated in the original area on the morning of July 6. Considerable time was spent organizing interaction with the rifle divisions and clearing the passages, so the formations of the 19th Tank Corps struck in the direction of Podolyan only at 17:00, that is, when the brigades of the 16th Tank Corps were already forced to retreat to their original position. Met by heavy fire from enemy artillery, tanks and aircraft, the 19th Tank Corps suffered losses and retreated to its original position. The counterattack of the 2nd Tank Army did not reach the target, but played a large and important role in the defensive operation of the Central Front. By active and decisive actions of the Soviet troops, the German offensive was stopped in front of the second line of defense.
On July 7, the enemy concentrated his main efforts in three directions: Ponyri, Olkhovatka and Teploye. Replenished with reserve tanks, the battered Nazi divisions sought to break through the defenses of the Red Army troops.
After strong artillery preparation and with the support of 150 aircraft, the Germans attacked Ponyri. 150 Wehrmacht tanks took part in the attack. Fierce fighting broke out and continued until nightfall. Hitler's tanks, together with infantry, supported by strong artillery fire and massive air strikes, attacked eight times, but each time their attack was repulsed.
Rare shot - captured T-60.
The main forces of the German strike group went on the offensive in the directions of Olkhovatka and Teploye. Up to 300 German tanks broke into these areas, but here they were met by heavy fire from tanks and anti-tank artillery. In the very first minutes of the battle, several dozen German tanks were set on fire. The fire of the Soviet troops forced the enemy to retreat back. On July 7, the Germans advanced only three kilometers into the defense. On July 8, the Nazis brought up their reserves and again struck in the previous directions.
Particularly stubborn and heavy fighting took place in the Ponyri area. 80 tanks, supported by motorized infantry, attacked this settlement several times. However, the Russians pushed the Germans back to their original position. In the Olkhovat direction, the Germans launched 13 powerful attacks that day, but all of them were repulsed by heavy infantry, artillery and tank fire, supported by air strikes. In the area of Ponyri station on the morning of July 10, about 300 German tanks attacked Soviet positions. German tanks moved in trains of 50-60 vehicles, and the Russian defenses were subjected to continuous bombardment in groups of 40-60 aircraft.
Nevertheless, the defense held out, destroying 60 Wehrmacht tanks. In six days, the Germans, at the cost of huge losses in manpower and military equipment, penetrated the defenses of the Soviet troops. In the Olkhovat direction - 12 kilometers, and in auxiliary directions - only 1-3 kilometers. During this time, the Germans' forces were exhausted, and they were forced to go on the defensive without reaching their goal.
Voronezh Front
Russian infantry attack.
The infantry is digging into positions.
Bloody battles broke out in these July days on the Voronezh front. The Germans delivered the main blow in the general direction of Kursk, where the bulk of the Wehrmacht tanks were concentrated. On the first day, the Germans brought up to 700 tanks and self-propelled guns into the battle, supported by a large number of artillery and aircraft. At the cost of huge losses in manpower and equipment, the Wehrmacht troops managed to break through the main defense line of the 6th Guards Army in some areas. The commander of the Voronezh Front, General Vatutin, decided to counterattack the battle-weary Wehrmacht tank units. At night, Soviet tanks marched and on the morning of July 6 took up defensive positions near Shepelevo.
In the afternoon, 160 German tanks in four columns reached Shepelevo and tried to break through the Soviet defenses on the move. But here they met powerful fire from rifle units, tank and artillery formations.
From July 9 to July 14, after fierce fighting, the Germans managed to penetrate the defenses of the Soviet troops to a depth of about 35 kilometers. After unsuccessful attempts to break through to Kursk along the highway to Oboyan, the Germans decided to do it further east, through Prokhorovka. The Russian command decided to counterattack Nazi tank units.
Prokhorovka
Wehrmacht tanks near Prokhorovka.
The counterattack during the Battle of Kursk on July 12, 1943 near Prokhorovka was characterized by official Soviet historians as the largest counter tank battle of the Second World War, which was won by Soviet troops. It allegedly clearly demonstrated the complete superiority of Soviet tanks and military art over German weapons and the skill of the military leaders of the German army. Here is the interpretation of this battle in Bolshoi Soviet encyclopedia:
« On July 12, 1943, in the area west and south of Prokhorovka, during the Battle of Kursk, the largest battle in the history of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 took place. oncoming tank battle between the advancing Nazi tank group (2nd SS Panzer Corps and 3rd Tank Corps, about 700 tanks and assault guns in total) and the counterattacking 5th Guards Tank Army and three tank and mechanized brigades (about 800 tanks and self-propelled artillery units, self-propelled guns). In fierce battles that lasted all day, the enemy lost over 350 tanks and assault guns, over 10 thousand people. killed and was forced to go on the defensive, the 5th Guards Tank Army lost about 300 tanks and self-propelled guns. On July 12, the turning point in the Battle of Kursk came, the enemy went on the defensive, and on July 16 began to withdraw his forces. The troops of the Voronezh Front, and from July 19, the Steppe Front, began pursuit and pushed back Nazi troops to the starting line».
There is an alternative version of modern historians, according to which no more than 311 German tanks and self-propelled guns (SPG) fought near Prokhorovka on July 12 against 597 Soviet tanks and SPG. I will not go into detail or quote from documents, orders, reports - this will require much more space than the format of the article allows.
Self-propelled gun "Ferdinand", which was blown up by a Soviet mine.
Destroyed Panthers.
Since everyone studied “official history” in school, I will introduce you to alternative version: in an expanded form, the Battle of Prokhorovka (as an episode of the Battle of Kursk during Operation Citadel by German troops) lasted from July 10 to July 13, 1943. It was on July 10, having encountered stubborn resistance in their movement towards Oboyan, that the Germans changed the direction of the main attack on the Prokhorovka railway station. Here the 2nd SS Panzer Corps advanced as part of the motorized SS divisions (called tank divisions in Russia, although they officially became such in October 1943) “Totenkopf”, “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler” and “Reich” (“SS-Division “Totenkopf”) ", "Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler" and "SS-Das Reich"), which in five days broke through two lines of long-term fortifications of the Soviet troops, the main and second, and reached the third, rear, line ten kilometers southwest on the sixth day Prokhorovka railway station. At four in the morning on July 12, 1943, the “Totenkopf” division began to advance on the bridgehead near the Psel River, and “Adolf Hitler” and “Reich” took up defensive positions at Prokhorovka station.
Exactly at eight in the morning on July 12, 1943, Soviet artillery preparation began, which lasted fifteen minutes, at 8:30 the 18th Tank Corps went on the attack (68 T-34, 18 Mk4 Churchill, 58 T-70 light tanks) and by noon he approached the positions of the German Leibstandarte division, which took up defensive positions near the Prokhorovka station (consisting of 56 tanks: 4 Tiger T-6, 47 T-4, 5 T-3, 10 Stug assault self-propelled guns and 20 Marder anti-tank self-propelled guns) and , having met strong resistance, went on the defensive. At 10:30, the 29th Tank Corps (122 T-34s, 70 T-70 light tanks and 20 self-propelled guns) also approached German positions located at the Oktyabrsky state farm, where it was stopped by the Germans. Having the ability to conduct effective lethal fire from a distance of two kilometers, German tank crews shot at attacking Soviet tanks, as if at a training ground, from camouflaged positions. At 11:00, Oktyabrsky was taken by the motorized rifle brigade of the 29th Corps, but after a German counterattack the brigade retreated. At 16:00, the last attack was launched by the remaining 15 T-34s - hiding behind a forest plantation and the smoke of burning Soviet tanks, they managed to slip through the strongholds of the German assault guns of the Leibstandarte - heights 242.5 and 241.6 - and break into the state farm.
The Komsomol member went the furthest into the enemy’s defenses - five kilometers. But the Germans blocked the state farm and launched a powerful artillery and air strike on it. Ultimately, the units that broke through were almost completely destroyed.
"Ferdinand", abandoned by the crew.
Set fire to T-34.
At ten in the morning the 2nd Tank Corps (35 T-34s, 4 Churchills, 46 T-70 light tanks) and the 2nd Guards Tank Corps (84 T-34s, 3 Churchills, 52 T light tanks) began their offensive -70). Their target was the German Reich division located south of the Prokhorovka station (1 Tiger, 8 captured Soviet tanks T-34, 18 T-4, 34 T-3, 27 assault self-propelled guns and about 70 field and anti-tank artillery guns). By noon, the Russian tank advance was stopped by German artillery and tanks. At 15:00, the Reich Division launched a counteroffensive, pushing back the Soviet units, and advanced two kilometers in a five-kilometer wide area, suffering relatively light losses.
At noon, the “Totenkopf” division began its offensive (94 tanks, 10 Tigers, 30 T-4s, 54 T-3s, 21 assault self-propelled guns) and, having crushed the defenses of the 6th Guards Army, captured the Polezhaev farm. In the middle of the day, Totenkopf units broke through to the high western bank of the Psel River, from which the battle formations of the Soviet 18th Tank Corps were easily covered by flank fire. But the Germans were unable to cross the river, although they forced the 110th and 181st tank brigades of this corps to finally withdraw from the battle.
From the memoirs of V.P. Bryukhov, commander of the T-34 tank of the 2nd Tank Corps:
« In the Battle of Prokhorovka, our corps was first in the second echelon, ensuring the entry of other corps, and then went forward. There was no more than a hundred meters between the tanks - you could only fidget, no maneuver. This was not a war - beating up tanks. They crawled and shot. Everything was burning. An indescribable stench hung over the battlefield. Everything was covered with smoke, dust, fire, so it seemed like twilight had come. The aircraft bombed everyone. Tanks were on fire, cars were on fire, communications did not work. All the wiring was wrapped around the tracks. Radio communications are blocked. What is a connection? I’m working on the transmission, suddenly they kill me - the wave is clogged. We need to switch to a spare wave, but who will guess when? At eight in the morning we went on the attack and immediately clashed with the Germans. About an hour later my tank was knocked out. A shell came from somewhere and hit the side, knocking off the sloth and the first roller. The tank stopped and turned around. We immediately jumped out and let’s crawl into the crater. There is no time for repairs here. This is Prokhorovka! There, if the tank stops, jump out. If you are not killed now, then the next tank will come and finish you off. They shot at point blank range. I switched to another tank. He, too, was soon burned. The shell hit the engine compartment. The tank caught fire and we all jumped out. They climbed into the crater and sat there, shooting back. Well, while I was fighting in the tank, I didn’t play the fool either - with the first shell I covered the 75-mm cannon, which the crew was rolling out to the firing position, and burned the T-3 tank. The battle lasted until about seven o'clock in the evening, and we had heavy losses. In a brigade of sixty-five tanks, there were about twenty-five left, but from the first day I got the impression that the losses on both sides were the same... In the evening of the 12th, the order came to go on the defensive, and for another three days we fought off counterattacks...»
Results of the battle on July 12, 1943 near Prokhorovka station
Counterattack.
The Soviet offensive was stopped, and after stubborn fighting in the area of the Oktyabrsky state farm, the Germans remained in their previous positions. In the northern sector, the Totenkopf division advanced five kilometers, penetrating the Russian defenses. In the southern sector, the SS Reich division advanced two kilometers.
The Soviet tank forces that attacked the enemy southwest of the Prokhorovka station, sandwiched in a six-kilometer wide zone and shot at by gunfire, were unable to realize the advantage in the mobility of their tanks and suffered catastrophic losses: 329 tanks and self-propelled guns (according to other sources, 343). Almost all of the Soviet tanks destroyed in the battles on July 12, suitable for restoration, remained in the territory occupied by the enemy, and were captured and destroyed by them. Soviet troops in the Prokhorovka area not only failed to recapture territory from the enemy, but also lost part of their own.
The Germans lost about 120 combat vehicles, but most of the German tanks and self-propelled assault guns were restored in mobile military repair units, which, located near the front line, usually put up to 90% of damaged armored vehicles back into service with their own resources and resources.
This is interesting: Soviet reports reported dozens of Tigers and Ferdinands shot down by the Red Army. The number of destroyed T-6s in Soviet reports for the Battle of Prokhorov is several times higher than the number of Tigers that participated in it. Soviet tank crews and artillerymen often confused T-4G/H and T-3L/M tanks with mounted armor screens with T-6s, and StuG-type self-propelled guns with Ferdinands.
| German self-propelled guns. Stug with side screens. |
The failure of the Citadel
On July 12, at five in the morning, the Oryol offensive operation “Kutuzov” began. The purpose of the operation was to defeat the German army group “Center” and eliminate the Oryol bulge with attacks from the Western and Bryansk fronts. As a result, the German command was forced to stop the attack on the Kursk ledge and go on the defensive. By the evening of July 13, Red Army units broke through the German defenses to a depth of twenty-five kilometers. On July 15, divisions of the Central Front joined the advancing units of the two fronts. On July 17, after the start of the Soviet attack on the Oryol bridgehead, the Germans finally abandoned hope of resuming the Citadel.
Counterattack near Orel.
T-34 in the Oryol operation.
On July 26, the Germans were forced to leave the Oryol bridgehead and begin to retreat to positions east of Bryansk. On July 29, Volkhov was liberated, on August 5, Orel, and by August 18, Soviet troops approached the defensive lines near Bryansk. This was the end of the Oryol-Kursk operation, but the counteroffensive on the Kursk Bulge grew into a general offensive of the Red Army along the entire front.
On July 19, the troops of the Voronezh and Steppe fronts drove the Germans back to the starting line, from which the Wehrmacht attacked the “Kursk Citadel” on July 5. On August 5, Belgorod was liberated. By August 11, troops of the Voronezh Front cut the Kharkov-Poltava railway. The troops of the Steppe Front came close to the outer defensive perimeter of Kharkov. Having unsuccessfully tried to counterattack, the Germans finally went on the defensive. On August 23, after stubborn fighting, the troops of the Steppe Front completely cleared Kharkov of the Nazis.
Results
The results of the Battle of Kursk were quite disappointing for Soviet Union in terms of loss ratio. Between July 5 and August 23, 1943, Soviet losses reached approximately 1,677,000 killed, captured, wounded and sick; while approximately 360,000 belong to the Wehrmacht.
These figures became available to the public only in 1993, after documents from the archives of the USSR Armed Forces were declassified. Before this, Soviet historians underestimated the losses of the Red Army, while German historians exaggerated them.
Soviet irretrievable losses of tanks and self-propelled guns during the Battle of Kursk amounted to 6,064 vehicles. This figure is confirmed by data on the irretrievable losses of tanks and self-propelled guns in the Soviet tank armies during individual operations of this battle. These losses are four times higher than the German losses, even if we take the traditional Soviet estimate (most likely inflated) of 1,500 enemy tanks and assault guns destroyed.
The fifth mission for the Red Army begins with an order to take up defensive positions. Fortified areas, minefields, several layers of defense, a large number of tanks and self-propelled guns - everything looks as it did on a hot July day in 1943.
Five waves of attacks by German “armored wedges”, strong resistance from howitzer artillery, a barrage of fire and elements of a three-dimensional landscape being erased from the face of the earth convey the scale and atmosphere of a global battle.
Codename: Panzers
Developer: Stormregion
Publisher: Akella
Genre: strategy
Excellent graphics, bright special effects - and complete absence realism. This is how you can characterize this RTS. The Wehrmacht T-3 medium tank withstands a hit from a Katyusha rocket and continues to fire - where has this been seen? The Battle of Kursk will begin in the fourth mission, in the company for the USSR, where the player is asked to cover the Russian defense with volleys of rocket artillery.
Great Battles: Kursk (addition to Blitzkrieg 2)
Developers: Nival/N-Game
Publisher: Akella
Genre: strategy
In my opinion, this time the developers frankly cheated. Where did the German Hetzer self-propelled guns come from on the battlefield near Kursk in July 1943? And where did the Russian T-34-85 come from? Their production began only in 1944.
Also, the disadvantages include the complete absence of an atmosphere of a global battle. The artificial intelligence, to put it mildly, is lame: a tank can easily expose its side during an artillery duel, and an enemy “panther” will not notice being shot at the rear of a Russian self-propelled gun, since it is “busy” destroying infantry in the trenches.
Call of Duty: United Offensive
Developer: Gray Matter Studios
Publisher: Activision
Genre: first person action movie
The developers of action films could not ignore the battle on the Kursk salient. Call of Duty: United Offensive has a mission called "Kursk".
In it, the player is given the opportunity to attack the Germans on a T-34 tank. Despite the loud name, this is a rather boring mission. It is surprising that the German infantry has the Panzerfaust 30 - it entered service with the Wehrmacht only in September 1943, when Battle of Kursk ended.
This historical episode was also covered in such games as IL-2: Sturmovik, Battlefield 1942, Panzer Campaigns.
From north to south.
Karelian Front, 7 Separate Army - no changes
Leningrad Front, Volkhov Front, 2nd Baltic Front - no changes. Preparations are underway for the January offensive.
Blockade day after day
DECEMBER 3, Friday
More than 140 heavy shells hit the city today.
One of these one hundred and forty exploded at 15:35 not far from Nevsky Prospekt, near Palace Square. It exploded when it hit a tram. 50 people were killed, 25 wounded. One of the wounded, a 3rd grade student at school No. 79, Valya Galyshev, wrote from the hospital to his father at the front: “On December 3, I was traveling from school on tram No. 12. They announced shelling of the area, the tram stopped, everyone began to get out of the car. At this time a shell hit nearby, then a second one hit, everyone fell... My ears began to ring. Then I felt something warm in my right leg and saw blood. Then an ambulance arrived and took me to the hospital.
Dad and the fighters! Avenge me and the other guys..."
In addition to Vali Galyshev, 104 people were wounded in the city that day. 69 died.
1st Baltic Front.
On December 13, 1943, an offensive operation began by the troops of the right wing of the 1st Baltic Front of the Red Army with the aim of eliminating the Gorodok ledge, which formed at the final stage of the Nevelsk operation. The ledge was defended by 8 German infantry and airfield divisions, 1 tank division and a number of individual units of the 3rd Tank Army of Army Group Center. The plan of the Soviet command was to defeat the Gorodok group of fascists with counter strikes of the 11th Guards and 4th Shock Armies of the Front (General I. Bagramyan) in the direction of Bychikha station, capture the city of Gorodok and advance on Vitebsk.
Western Front.
Supreme Command Headquarters DIRECTIVE No. 30256 TO THE COMMANDER OF THE WESTERN FRONT TROOPS, REPRESENTATIVE OF THE HEADQUARTERS TO TRANSFER THE DIRECTION OF THE MAIN IMPACT
December 3, 1943 00 h 50 min
1. Stop the offensive of the right wing of the front after receiving this.
2. Leave no more than 10-12 divisions at the Dobromysl and Baevo front.
By December 15, regroup 18-20 divisions with the main means of reinforcement in the area of Velikoye Selo, Dobromysl, Liozno. Regroup to be done secretly from the enemy. In the Dobromysl-Baevo sector, continue intensified reconnaissance and make extensive use of mock-ups of tanks and guns.
3. Reinforce the 10th Army by 10.12 with four or five infantry divisions and continue the offensive in the Mogilev direction in cooperation with the right wing of the Belarusian Front.
4. Report the orders given.
Headquarters of the Supreme High Command I. STALIN A. ANTONOV
Belorussian Front
After the liberation of Gomel, parts of the front slowly advanced between the Sozh and Dnieper rivers in a northwestern direction.
1st Ukrainian Front.
On December 6, in the Chernyakhov area, the enemy broke through the front and marched more than 70 km. went to the Korosten-Kyiv railway line. By December 15, he had eliminated bridgeheads on the western bank of the Teterev River. Fierce fighting took place in the Malin area. According to German data, Soviet losses amounted to 6,000 killed and captured.
worth noting:
December 1 - air raid on Apostolovo station. 2 trains destroyed
December 2 - the village of Bandurovka was liberated. 27 tanks and 25 armored personnel carriers captured
December 3 - Novo-Georgievsk was liberated. 12 tanks captured.
December 4 - air raid on Znamenka station. 50 wagons with ammunition, 20 tanks with fuel, MZA battery were destroyed (data collected after the liberation of Znamenka)
December 7 - 2 tanks captured
December 8 - New Prague liberated, 5 self-propelled guns captured
On December 9, Soviet troops captured the city of Znamenka. In the city, 94 tanks and armored vehicles, 52 armored personnel carriers, 684 cars, 420 motorcycles and bicycles, 152 guns, 120 mortars, 373 machine guns, 22 warehouses were captured
December 15 - 2 tanks were captured in the Kirovograd direction. German BEPO destroyed
In total, the enemy left at least 142 tanks and self-propelled guns on the battlefield
Separate Maritime Army
Litvin G.A., Smirnov E.I. Liberation of Crimea
In the afternoon of December 6, the enemy managed to break through the defenses on the southern outskirts of Eltigen. Gladkov sent a telegram to General Petrov: “The enemy captured half of Eltigen. Some of the wounded were captured. At 16.00 I decide to launch a counterattack with my last forces. If we remain alive at 22.00 I will carry out your 05". (Order 05 - about the breakthrough to Cape Ak-Burun - author's note).
The pilots always supported the combat operations of the paratroopers. On December 8, in 25 air battles, they shot down 22 enemy aircraft. The losses of the 4th Air Army amounted to 7 aircraft.
Let's look again at the events from the other side of the front: December 6, 1943.
Russian counterattacks on Eltigen. They are supported by aviation and artillery. Partisans operate northwest of Bagerovo. 226 prisoners were captured. Of these, six are officers. 16 enemy aircraft were shot down by fighters and eight by anti-aircraft gunners.
At 22:00 on December 6, the paratroopers made a breakthrough. The breakthrough group included the 1339th Infantry Regiment (in front - the 2nd Battalion of Captain P.K. Zhukov) and the 386th Separate Marine Battalion. The cover group on the left was the 1337th Infantry Regiment, on the right - the 1331st. The medical battalion and about 200 wounded were located in the center of the battle formation. Many seriously wounded could not break through. They asked for weapons and ammunition to cover their comrades.
Colonel Gladkov's group of up to 2,000 people crushed the enemy with an unexpected and swift attack. Along the marshy northern shore of Lake Cherubashskoye, the paratroopers broke out of encirclement and went behind enemy lines. After a 25-kilometer night march, tired, battle-weary, with very little ammunition left, they attacked Mount Mithridates (height 91.4 m), where the enemy’s artillery observation posts were located.
clandestine sabotage activities behind enemy lines
On December 7, Ivanovsky, burgomaster of Minsk, chairman of the Belarusian Rada of Trust, was liquidated
the most active partisan actions took place in the Leningrad region
On the European theater of operations
On the night of 2–3 December 1943, the Royal Air Force carried out its fifth raid on Berlin. 401 bombers dropped their 1,686 tons of bombs on the capital of the Reich. 40 planes were shot down.
The destruction of Berlin as well as Hamburg was the main ambition of Marshal Harris, but for some reason he did not take into account that the city was very heavily defended and was beyond the reach of the Oboe system.
In five planned and executed raids on Berlin, in which a total of 2,212 British aircraft took part, 8,656 tons of bombs were dropped. Among the civilian population, 2,700 were killed, an estimated quarter of a million people were left homeless, and nearly 70,000 apartments were reduced to rubble. 123 British bombers were shot down. 
On the evening of December 2, 1943, 96 German bombers took off from Milan to attack Bari, an important port city of 250,000 on the Adriatic Sea, east of Naples.
Lieutenant Ziegler: “In the evening, together with two other vehicles, we took off as gunners and markers. Our Junkers 88 was fully loaded with jamming strips and flare bombs. It was already dark when we crossed the coast south of Ravenna. We needed to approach the target from the Adriatic, so we climbed to 7000 meters and, to our surprise, found that the harbor of Bari was illuminated, as in the most peaceful times. We started throwing out interference strips and, since the harbor was all on fire, we decided to save on flare bombs.”
That evening, 30 Allied ships were finishing loading in the port of Bari, loading military materials and food. To speed up the work, all lights were turned on when darkness fell. After the leading German vehicles scattered foil to paralyze the work of the Allied radars, German bombers appeared almost unnoticed over Bari. And only after the first bombs began to explode in the port did the anti-aircraft guns open fire.
Not a single searchlight illuminated the sky during the attack, not a single balloon blocked the airspace above Bari, not a single Allied fighter appeared in the sky. Never before has a raid of this magnitude been carried out so smoothly and with absolutely no losses. After direct hits, two ships loaded with ammunition exploded. The explosion was so powerful that window panes in houses within a 12-kilometer radius were blown out. An oil pipeline in the port was damaged, which caught fire along with refueling ships and tankers, adding to the fires on previously affected ships. All this merged into one sea of fire.
This raid, which lasted only 20 minutes, was one of the most successful of the entire war. Never again, with the exception of Pearl Harbor, have so many ships been sunk at one blow. More than 1,000 sailors and port security personnel were killed. Weeks passed before the harbor was able to resume operations. This was one side of the tragedy. The second was revealed decades after the war. When the bombing began, the SS John Harvey was moored at the pier, and 17 other ships were either at the pier or at anchor. They were loaded not only with weapons and ammunition, but also with heavy mustard gas, 100 tons in bombs, each weighing 45.5 kilograms, which was an extremely dangerous chemical warfare agent prohibited for use by international law. The Allies wanted it in their arsenal in the Italian theater "just in case."
At the very beginning of the raid, the SS John Harvey received a direct hit and sank with its crew. And although the gas bombs were without fuses, many of them cracked, and the dangerous war material began to spread throughout the port. The gas spreading over the surface of the water, most of which, fortunately, went into the open sea, began to pose a mortal danger to those who survived the raid but were still in the water. Many of the sailors and soldiers were pulled ashore from the gas-contaminated waters, but none of those rescued or rescuers knew anything about mustard gas. The naval command of the port knew what cargo was on board the SS John Harvey, but in the chaos of the bombing and fire, no one remembered it. Some of the survivors later recalled that they smelled “the smell of garlic,” but no one paid any attention to this. And in overcrowded hospitals, no one took care of people who were stained with oil but not injured. They were simply distributed to apartments in their own wet and gas-soaked clothes. And within two hours the first complaints began to arrive. People talked about the unbearable pain in their eyes, as if sand had gotten into them. It was only 12 hours later that the port authority discovered some gas bombs and finally began to think about the cargo of the SS John Harvey. Hospitals were immediately informed that some of those rescued may have come into contact with mustard gas. And 18 hours after the bombing, the first cases of death from gas poisoning were reported. In total, 617 people were counted gassed, of whom 83 died. The latter died a month after the accident. If rescue teams and doctors had been aware of the nature of the cargo and taken appropriate measures, many deaths could have been avoided.
The case of the Bicester ship was also strictly classified. He was not injured during the raid and, taking 30 people on board, at the direction of the port authorities, went to Taranto. After 4 hours, in the open sea, the entire crew collapsed from unbearable pain in their eyes. When, 18 hours after the Bicester raid, she finally reached Taranto, the almost completely blind crew managed to moor the ship with great difficulty.
The bombing of the port of Bari and the destruction of all materiel, ammunition and food a few weeks before the Allied landings at Anzio and Nettuno, which was supposed to open the way to Rome, stopped their advance for a long time.
Pacific Theater of Operations - no changes
December 4 - photo from American aircraft carrier Yorktown
The Eastern Wall or Panther-Wotan line is a defensive line of German troops, partially erected by the Wehrmacht in the fall of 1943 on the Eastern Front. The shaft ran along the line: the Narva River - Pskov-Vitebsk - Orsha - the Sozh River - the middle reaches of the Dnieper River (the base of the Eastern Wall) - the Molochnaya River. The double name was adopted to avoid confusion with the German border fortifications of 1939.
Map of the Eastern Front in July-December 1943. The Panther-Wotan line is indicated by a red zigzag.
The decision to build the Eastern Wall was made by order of Hitler on August 11, 1943. The shaft was divided into two boundaries - “Panther” (northern) and “Wotan” (southern). The defensive line of the German Panther troops was created in the zone of Army Group North and Army Group Center. The Wotan line was built on the southern front in the zone of operation of Army Group South and Army Group A.
In the north, fortifications were erected approximately from Vitebsk and included two defense lines: the 1st ran along the shores of Lake Pskov, the Velikaya, Pskova and Cherekha rivers, the 2nd ran along the western bank of the Velikaya River and the Narova River to the Baltic Sea near Narva. The Wotan line ran from Sea of Azov, along the right bank of the Molochnaya River to the Dnieper floodplains. From Smolensk to the Black Sea, the line ran mostly along the right bank of the Dnieper or its large tributaries. The Wotan line, connecting with the Panther line, created a continuous defensive line from the Azov to the Baltic Sea.
The Panther line extended over 550 km from the Baltic Sea. In the sector of Army Group North alone there were about 6 thousand fortifications, incl. 800 reinforced concrete. The rest of the fortifications were small log dugouts, although some of them had towers. In addition, 180 km of barbed wire barriers were installed, about 30 km of anti-tank ditches were dug, and barriers were built in tank-hazardous areas.
Construction work on the Panther Line began in September 1943. The construction team numbered 50 thousand people, despite the fact that, according to engineers' calculations, at least 70 thousand workers were needed. According to some estimates, about 400 thousand people were required to carry out all the work on the Eastern Wall. However, according to experts, it is unlikely that the total number of workers available to all four army groups exceeded 200 thousand.
In the sector of Army Group Center in August 1943, nodal defensive points were created in areas of automobile and railways walking in the east-west direction. Defensive fortifications were also built on the bridge between the Dnieper and Dvina. At the junctions of the fronts of Army Group North and Army Group South, by November 1, 1943, the main points had anti-tank and anti-personnel defensive structures. These structures included barbed wire fences, trenches, anti-tank ditches, and other types of anti-tank fortifications.
According to Wehrmacht requirements, the Panther line was to consist mainly of field positions with strong points in the main deployment areas, which were to include separate reinforced concrete bunkers. The priorities were distributed as follows:
1) an anti-tank ditch and natural obstacles in the main direction of resistance;
2) winter shelters on the first line;
3) a continuous line of combat trenches;
4) anti-tank positions;
5) observation positions;
6) wire fences;
7) open firing points of heavy infantry weapons;
8) creation and clearing of the firing zone;
9) artillery positions;
10) communication trenches and communication passages.
It was planned to demolish houses, clear sectors of fire and create a devastation zone to a depth of 20 kilometers in front of the main direction of resistance. The main line was also to be located 10 kilometers in front of the vital airfields of Gomel and Vitebsk. Work had to continue until the winter of 1943/44, as positions had to be marked out before snow fell. In addition, it was necessary to organize the quartering of troops.
The construction of roads and bridges was also planned on the Panther Line. The construction of the second line of defense, which ran along the Dnieper and was named the “Bear” line, was planned for August 1943. The line was supposed to stretch along the Dnieper bank from the right flank of the army group to the Mogilev fortified area. In this area, the Dnieper is quite wide, and the high western bank of the river near Orsha rises above the eastern.
Behind the Panther line, another defensive line called the Tiger line was to be built - in the area of the so-called earthen bridge and around Vitebsk. In August it was planned to create a bridgehead in Bobruisk, the importance of which increased even more in 1944, after most of the southern sections of the Panther Line were lost in 1943.
However, the line builders had neither material nor human resources. And most importantly, they were catastrophically limited in time. In this regard, the southern part of the line was no more than 30% complete. Since there were no active military operations by the Red Army at that time in the area of the northern part of the line, readiness construction work reached 60%.
The Wotan line was much less fortified than the Panther line, especially in places where it departed from the Dnieper. The most powerful fortifications were in the area of Zaporozhye and Melitopol. They consisted of anti-tank ditches, 4-6 rows of barbed wire, deep trenches and communication passages, dugouts, minefields, pillboxes and bunkers, reinforced concrete shelters and command posts. For every kilometer of defense there were an average of 8 armored caps and 12 bunkers.
Despite the loud name, the Eastern Wall was formidable only in German propaganda. In fact, all the structures belonged to field fortification and were the second defensive line of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front, after the Hagen Line. It was not for nothing that the commander of Army Group North suppressed such propaganda among his troops, so as not to instill false hope in them.
By the end of September, Manstein's Army Group South and Army Group A, located further south, were pushed back to the Eastern Wall. The 6th Army, which was knocked out of the Wotan Line and thrown back across the Dnieper, was included in Army Group A. Eastern rampart, caused disappointment German soldiers, since the Todt Organization completed only a small part of the planned work in the short time allotted to it. In addition, large numbers of experienced OT workers needed for construction were sent to destroy structures and material resources in areas subject to evacuation, as Hitler began to implement a “scorched earth” policy in 1943. However, the Dnieper River, with its steep, steep western bank and low eastern bank, occupied by Soviet troops, formed a serious natural obstacle in many areas. In some places the width of the river was more than 3 kilometers.
The Red Army immediately tried to break through the line in order to prevent German troops from strengthening for long-term defense, starting a strategic offensive operation on a 300-kilometer front along the Dnieper. The line was especially weak in the area north of the Black Sea, where it extended from the Dnieper to cover the approaches to the Crimea. The Soviet Southern Front broke through the barely fortified line with relative ease, thereby cutting off the German 17th Army on the Crimean Peninsula from its escape route to the mainland. This was followed by the gradual establishment of several Soviet bridgeheads across the Dnieper. Despite the fact that crossing the Dnieper was extremely difficult for the Red Army, German troops were unable to throw off Soviet troops from any bridgehead, which grew as troops were deployed to them. By early November 1943, Kyiv was liberated by the Red Army, which broke the line along the Dnieper, forcing the Wehrmacht to retreat to the Polish border in 1939.
The only part of the line remaining at the disposal of the Wehrmacht after 1943 was the extreme northern part, the Panther Line between Lake Peipus and the Baltic Sea at Narva. This small part of the line was attacked during the Battle of Narva, and the Baltic countries and the Gulf of Finland remained in German hands in 1944.
Thus, weak defensive positions along the Dnieper were able to slow, but not stop, the advance of Soviet troops. The river was a significant obstacle, but the length of the defensive line made it difficult to defend. The Germans' inability to eliminate the Soviet bridgeheads meant that this line would inevitably be broken. The much better fortified northern part of the defensive line turned out to be a more difficult task for the Red Army to break through and was able to hold out almost a year longer in comparison with its southern part. At the same time, the entire defensive line was rather a connection between field fortifications and favorable conditions landscape rather than a fortification. Therefore, it was able to partially fulfill only the tactical tasks of the Wehrmacht, and had absolutely no influence on the strategic plans - to gain a foothold on the occupied line for a long time, making it the eastern border of the Third Reich.
