Kursk demonstrated that the Red Army could drive the German Army back
to Berlin with no outside assistance. The danger to the free world was that with
no Western presence in Germany at the end of the war, the Russians could
dictate the terms of surrender and determine the occupation policy and
reparations. Instead of merely stripping the relatively undeveloped eastern
provinces of Germany, as in 1945, the Russians would have been able to loot
all of Germany. Russian domination of Germany would have disrupted the
balance of power in post-war Europe as American occupation of Japan changed
the Far East. Realizing the need to be involved in the kill, Roosevelt was ready
to give Stalin a firm commitment for a second front in the conference at Teheran
in November 1943, despite Churchill's lack of enthusiasm.

This book will describe why the battle was fought, where and when it took
place, who fought in the battle, how well the protagonists performed, as well as
the implications of the Battle of Kursk on the war and on the post-war world.

The Battle of Kursk has suffered from two conflicting interpretations: the
official Soviet version and the German version. In the former, the Soviets
emerged as victors after grinding down the German forces in a complex
defensive system "held to the last man." The 2nd SS Panzer Corps, a
"powerful rolling armada of steel," was defeated in a Trafalgar-like tank battle
by a wild charge of hundreds of tanks of the 5th Guards Tank Army.

In the German version, the heroic SS units had driven through the Soviet
defenses in the south and had destroyed the Soviet tank units on a piecemeal
basis, culminating with the destruction of the 5th Guards Tank Army at
Prokorovka, only to have victory snatched from their hands by Hitler, who
refused to release the Viking SS Division and the 23rd Panzer Division. He
then called off the offensive and sent the SS to Italy in response to the threat
posed by the Western Allies invasion of Sicily.

The principal proponent of the German version was Field Marshal Erich
von Manstein, who believed that the Soviets had committed all of their available
reserves by July 12 and that the battle could be won with the commitment of the
24th Panzer Corps standing by near Kharkov. In the original German edition
of Manstein's book, Lost Victories, nineteen pages were devoted to Kursk, and
most of them detailed the discussions made with Hitler on strategy before the
battle. In contrast, Manstein devoted over seventy pages to the German
counteroffensive that he led in the spring of 1943. ¹

An analysis of the details concerning the Battle of Kursk leads to a third
interpretation. Operation Citadel was in fact four distinct battles: the first was
the drive south by the 9th German Army that was held at the second line of
defense by the 2nd Tank Army without drawing on either the Steppe Front or
Stavka reserves. The second battle was the push of the 48th Panzer Corps on
the west side of the advance in the south toward Oboyan, which was halted by
the 1st Tank Army far short of Oboyan. The third and most successful was the
drive by the 2nd SS Panzer Corps that ran into the 5th Guards Tank Army at
Prokorovka. The final battle was the broad front offensive of Army Detachment

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