The Battle of Kursk: The Red Army's Defensive Operations and
Counter-Offensive, July-August 1943, offers a peculiarly Soviet view of
one of the Second World War's most critical events. While the Germans
defeats at Moscow and Stalingrad showed that Hitler could not win the
war in the East, the outcome of Kursk demonstrated beyond a doubt that
he would lose it.
This study was compiled by the Red Army General Staff's
military-historical directorate, which was charged with collecting and
analyzing the war's experience, and issued as an internal document in
1946-47. The study languished for more than a half-century, before being
published in Russia in 2006, although heavily supplemented by commentary
and other information not contained in the original. The present work
omits these additions, while supplying its own commentary in places
deemed necessary.
The book is divided into two parts, dealing with the defensive and
offensive phases of the battle, respectively. The first begins with a
strategic overview of the situation along the Eastern Front by the
spring and summer of 1943 and the Soviet decision to stand on the
defensive. This is followed by a detailed examination of the Central
Front's efforts to counter the expected German attack out of the Orel
salient, and the Voronezh Front's attempts to do the same against the
German concentrations in the Belgorod-Khar'kov area. The rest of this
section is devoted to an exceedingly detailed day-by-day,
tactical-operational account of the struggle, particularly along the
southern face of the salient, where the Germans came closest to
succeeding.
The second part will be more of a revelation to the Western reader, who
is likely to be more familiar with the defensive phase of the battle.
Here the authors once again, in great detail, lay out the Red Army's
preparations for and conduct of a massive counteroffensive to clear the
Orel salient, which soon degenerated to a grinding struggle, which while
ultimately successful, cost the Soviets dearly. Likewise, the authors
detail the Voronezh Front's preparations to reduce the Belgorod salient
and seize the industrial center of Khar'kov. This offensive, in
conjunction with a simultaneous offensive in the Donets industrial
region, pushed the German lines to the breaking point and set the stage
for the follow-on advance to the Dnepr River and the eventual liberation
of Ukraine.
