For the fascists, this was the last hope to try to take the strategic initiative and again go to Moscow. The bet was placed not only on the number of troops - special hopes were placed on weapons. This was Hitler's paranoid dream: he demanded from the Wunderwaffe engineers a miracle weapon with which his soldiers would take over the whole world.

Mental abnormalities of this type are contagious. In his memoirs, the Reich Minister of Arms and Ammunition of Germany Albert Speer described: the creator of the German V-Fau, Wernher von Braun, was thrown into prison by order of the Reichsführer SS Himmler. For the fact that, on his personal initiative, at the secret missile center in Peenemünde, he began to develop... an intercontinental postal rocket. Brown decided: since we will soon conquer the whole world, including the USA, then we need to deliver mail to the colonies...

Himmler was furious not because of the postal rocket, but because Brown was obliged to complete a priority project: the V-2 ballistic missile.

For Brown, the story ended with a happy ending: Hitler felt a kindred spirit and ordered the rocket scientist to be released from prison. Wernher von Braun successfully survived the collapse of the Third Reich and left for the USA. On his rocket, the first American flew into space (lagging behind the USSR: Korolev’s rocket earlier launched a ship with Yuri Gagarin into orbit), and US astronauts landed on the Moon...

Focke-Wulf aircraft for Hitler were created by a man named Tank

But let's return to earth. It was during the Battle of Kursk that it became clear that no technical innovations would ensure victory. Hitler threw his best personnel at us: Erich von Manstein, Hermann Hoth, Walter Model. Did not help. Germany could only hope for a miracle - so they began to hope for it. Space rockets and stratospheric “flying saucers” are by no means fiction, but real projects of Nazi Germany. Some were implemented, some were not.

However, there were no “flying saucers” in the Battle of Kursk, but our army was faced with very advanced projects: Tiger and Panther tanks, Focke-Wulf-190 fighters. They were opposed by weapons created by Soviet gunsmiths.

1. Klim speed

The heavy KV-1 (Klim Voroshilov-1) was the most powerful tank in the world before the appearance of the Panthers and Tigers. The Germans called him Gespenst - "Ghost".

But there were reports from the troops about its lack of mobility, and there were complaints about the gearboxes and sights.

The situation with the defective gearbox acquired such proportions that in the spring of 1942, a commander with a terrible reputation was sent to the Crimean Front: Army Commissar 1st Rank Lev Mehlis. Joseph Kotin, one of the fathers of the KV, also went to the troops.

But the main problem is the engine. Attempts to boost the existing one - from 600 to 650 hp. - were unsuccessful, the engine overheated. But it was not possible to replace it with a new one during the war.

The generals looked at the situation from “their bell tower.” And they reported to Stalin that the KV was destroying bridges and breaking up roads. And most importantly, the gun on the heavy Klim and the medium T-34 are the same.

Measures have been taken. The designers reduced the weight to 42.5 tons. The KV-1S tank was tested both here and in the USA. There were some comments (there are no perfect tanks), but overall the results were positive. The weapon remained the same: 76.2 mm ZiS-5 cannon. Maneuverability has improved, speed has increased: from real 28 km/h (according to the passport 34 km/h) to 43 km/h. Actually, the “C” in the name speaks of the speed qualities of the new tank. But the thickness of the armor had to be sacrificed somewhat.

It went into production in August 1942. KV-1S tanks distinguished themselves at Stalingrad and performed well in the Kursk operation. But a good tank found itself in a difficult niche. It had equal armament with the T-34, superior to the latter in armor, but inferior in mobility. And it was more difficult and expensive to produce. And when a powerful 85-mm cannon was installed on the T-34, the management considered that the advantages of a heavy tank over a medium one were lost.

KV-1 was deciphered by knowledgeable people: Kotin - Voroshilov

Well, personal factors, where would we be without them. Stalin somewhat disliked this tank. His phrase went down in history: “The T-34 walks well in deep snow, like a swallow flies, but the KV does poorly.” Actually, this applied to the KV tank without the letter “C”. But objectively, the heavy KV-1S was not a swallow compared to the medium T-34.

By the way, knowledgeable people deciphered the name of the tank: Kotin - Voroshilov. Joseph Kotin was married to the daughter of the legendary marshal. But even such names did not change the fate of the extraordinary car. In September 1943, the KV-1S was discontinued (having produced 1,200 vehicles) in favor of the IS-1.

2. Tanks from the sky

Our pilots dubbed the heavy fighter FW-190 ("Focke-Wulf-190") "Fokker" or "Fokka" and considered it a strong adversary. Noting that it is still possible to hit the "focus".

German aircraft designers Heinrich Focke and Georg Wulf had nothing to do with the creation of the Focke-Wulf 190. They founded a company named after themselves in the 1920s. Georg Wulf crashed in 1927 while testing an aircraft. Heinrich Focke left the management of the company, switching to the creation of helicopters. The FW-190 for Hitler was created by a designer named Kurt Tank.

In their memoirs, our veterans use an unkind word to remember the fascist “frames” - the “eyes” of the Wehrmacht - the FW-189 reconnaissance aircraft. It was designed and personally tested by the same Kurt Tank. Production of the FW-189 was established at factories in Bremen, Germany, Prague and Bordeaux, France. In 1942, the Czechs and French produced four times as many Rams for the Luftwaffe as the Germans. Moreover, the French “frames” surpassed even the German ones in technical perfection. So at the Battle of Kursk, “frames” assembled by the calloused hands of French and Czech workers hung in our sky.

But history loves paradoxes. The French from Normandy-Neman on the Yak-3 also fought against the Fokkers over Orel and Belgorod. Later they were joined by Czechs from the 1st Mixed Czechoslovak Division of the USSR Air Force, flying the La-5FN.

As for the FW-190, they were used sporadically on the Eastern Front at the beginning of the war (near Leningrad and in the area of ​​Lake Ilmen). They tried to use them near Rzhev, but the foresail motors overheated and they didn’t dare send them into battle. Our Air Force encountered squadrons armed with FW-190s already during the Battle of Kursk.

These were already “finished” aircraft, free of engine problems. Our magnificent La-5FN ("boosted model with direct fuel injection") became a worthy rival to it. "Lavochkin" was armed with two 20-mm ShVAK cannons. The Fokker carried two machine guns and 2 to 4 20 mm cannons.

The La-5FN was inferior in some characteristics to the Fokker, but in some respects superior to it. Ultimately, everything depended on the pilot.

On July 20, 1943, Senior Lieutenant Alexey Maresyev shot down two FW-190s in a La-5. The Lavochkin has a heavy steering wheel. To understand: the pilot’s feet are on the pedals that control the rudder on the fin. And Maresyev lost his legs in 1942: they were amputated in the lower leg area. Flew on prosthetics. But how he flew!

During the course, the Germans used hundreds of FW-190s. Few survived. German squadrons were again rearmed with cheaper Messerschmitts. The Focke-Wulf factories did not have time to make up for the losses.

Kurt Tank improved his fighters, proposed a version of a jet fighter... But the sky already belonged to our aces. Germany has run out of experienced pilots. Their bones lay among the wreckage of Fokkers and Messers on our soil.

Grimace of history: aircraft designed by Kurt Tank lost to Soviet fighters again, after the war. In the early 1960s, he created the Marut (Storm Spirit) fighter-bomber for the Indian Air Force. The plane was not bad, it successfully fought with Pakistan. At its base, Tank began to create a supersonic fighter. But India abruptly curtailed projects in favor of Soviet MIGs. Kurt Tank consulted on various projects, including Tornado, and received awards from the government. But he didn’t create any more airplanes. By some irony of fate, competition with our designers ended badly for him.

Fate perhaps.

3.Trophy

Both sides used equipment captured from the enemy.

The Germans formed entire companies of captured T-34 tanks. German tankers considered the T-34 an excellent tank. Like the KV-1.

The USSR also did not neglect trophies. During the war, 800 German tanks and self-propelled guns were repaired at the factories of Moscow and Stalingrad alone.

Most of all we had German T-III and T-IV tanks. Detailed instructions for crew training were even developed.

Heavy Panthers and Tigers were also captured in smaller numbers. "Panthers" were first used on the southern bulge of the Kursk Bulge in July 1943.

Naturally, there were problems with trophies. The crews often broke them. Spare parts were in short supply: they could only be taken from other cars. Excellent 75-mm tank gun mod. 1942 KwK42, which was installed on the Panther, allowed the tank to be used in tank destroyer units. But the question arose: where to get ammunition? Ours were not suitable, the captured ones quickly ran out.

But there were cases when Soviet troops in captured tanks entered the rear of the Germans (they mistook them for their own) and caused a terrible defeat.

But the use of both our own and captured tanks in one unit at the same time led to unpredictable results. A real case: in the fall of 1943, in the battle formations of the 59th separate tank regiment, along with Soviet tanks, a captured Panther was sent into battle. At first, the German artillerymen took care of it: they thought that it was one of their own, it had just gone far behind enemy lines in battle. But when the truth was revealed, all the firepower of the artillery was concentrated on this “Panther”.

And there were many such cases. Special heroism was required from the crews of this equipment.

Among the oddities of using captured armor is the following fact: at the 1st repair base (Moscow), captured Tigers, which could not be restored, became a source of spare parts for Soviet tanks. In particular, the T-34 balancer buffer cushions were made from Tiger rubber bands.

4. Death to spies

Germany, in addition to relying on miracle weapons, tried to organize massive sabotage in our rear. Why did they organize a network of intelligence schools that trained saboteurs, signalmen and provocateurs?

We created Soviet counterintelligence under the somewhat unusual name "Smersh" ("Death to Spies!") in the spring of 1943.

During the Battle of Kursk, Smersh earned fame as one of the most effective counterintelligence agencies in the world. Beginning in 1943, 157 Abwehr messengers who defected to our side took part in the Smersh radio games. At the height of the Battle of Kursk, 10 radio stations of converted agents were used to disseminate information about the positions of the Red Army. Our counterintelligence officers made a worthy contribution to the success of the operation near Kursk.

By the way, the name could have been slightly different. The key historical figures who created this special service - Merkulov, Abakumov and Beria - proposed calling the special service "Smernesh". From the slogan "Death to German spies!" To which Stalin asked: why only German? Aren't spies from other countries working against our army?

Nobody objected.

5. Don't believe your eyes

The German "Tiger" is a powerful tank. But a number of “researchers” and directors today mythologize his fighting qualities. For example, they praise the Tiger cannon, which destroyed the armor of “any tank” from 2 km. It is said that Zeiss telescope sights allowed the Tiger to hit the target with the first shot.

A shell from an 88-mm Krupp gun penetrated up to 80 mm of armor at 2000 meters - this is true. But it took 60 seconds for the Tiger turret to fully rotate, and the enemy tanks did not stand still.

And about “defeat at the first shot” - as they say, first-hand. From the memoirs of a participant in the Battle of Prokhorov, SS Oberscharführer J. Holl, commander of the VI Tiger tank of the 102nd SS battalion "Das Reich". Holl writes: “July 11-12, 1943. I won my first victory. Okay, it was just a tractor towing an artillery piece, but still a destroyed target. My gunner, Karl, fired about 30 shells at it...”

Bravo, Karl: 30 shells on a slow-moving tractor from a supercannon? With such excellent aim.

Miracle gun, miracle sight, miracle gunner...

And further. Increasingly, in films about the Second World War, tanks fire on the move. Director's find, it looks impressive. In principle, you can fire a tank gun like this. Provided that the task is not to get somewhere.

But in general, tankers shoot at specific targets.

Effective gun stabilizers began to be installed en masse on tanks only in the 1950s. During the war, the stabilizer was installed only on the American Sherman. We received 4060 of these tanks from the USA under Lend-Lease. German engineers tried to create a stabilizer for the "Royal Tiger", but did not have time. War is over.

T-34 is a tank symbol and a tank legend. It had an excellent combination of sloped armor, an effective cannon and high speed. 70% of our tanks in the Battle of Kursk are T-34s.

By the way

The beginning of Kozhedub's career was difficult. In the first air battle, his La-5 was shot down by a Messerschmitt, and then also came under fire from its own anti-aircraft guns. They wanted to write off the pilot as an aircraft controller. But he still remained at the flying job, and his amazing talent was revealed in the Battle of Kursk. During the war he fought 120 battles, shooting down 64 aircraft. Three times Hero of the Soviet Union, one of the best Soviet aces and the most effective fighter of the anti-Hitler coalition.

The plane, built with the money of the collective farmer-beekeeper Konev, has an interesting fate. Vasily Konev asked to name the plane in honor of his deceased nephew, Hero of the Soviet Union pilot Georgy Konev. The request was granted. On the Konevsky La-5FN, Kozhedub shot down 8 aircraft. Then ace Pavel Bryzgalov flew on this machine and won 12 victories, later also a Hero of the Soviet Union.

The Battle of Kursk, which lasted 50 days and nights, from July 5 to August 23, 1943, is unparalleled in world history in its scale and ferocity. We remembered the most exciting facts about the Kursk Bulge.

1. Only numbers

About two million people, six thousand tanks, and four thousand aircraft took part in this largest battle in history. According to the Citadel plan, the Germans had to regain the strategic initiative, for which the Wehrmacht troops put forward a powerful offensive group, which included over 900 thousand troops, approximately 10 thousand guns and mortars, 2,700 tanks, and about 2,050 aircraft. The German command also hoped that the key role would be played by the latest weapons, which the Soviet army had no analogues, namely Tiger and Panther tanks, Focke-Wulf 190-A fighters and Heinkel-129 attack aircraft. These ambitious plans were buried by a frontal tank battle near Prokhorovka, in which almost 1,200 tanks and self-propelled guns took part on both sides. Having lost about 400 tanks in one day of battle, the enemy was forced to retreat.

2. The feat of the scouts

A few days before the start of the operation, the Swiss Rudolf Rössler, the most valuable and highly paid agent of Soviet intelligence, transferred information about the Citadel to Moscow. His source of information appeared under the pseudonym "Werther" and remains unknown to this day. Rössler himself claimed that the data was obtained from high-ranking officials whom he knew before the war. There is a hypothesis that “Werther” was Hitler’s personal photographer. At the Nuremberg trials, Colonel General Alfred Jodl said that information about the operation appeared in Moscow earlier than on his desk. Using detailed data on the characteristics of armored vehicles also received from Rössler, our troops carried out continuous mining of the area, which made it possible to compensate for the difference in the class of weapons.

3. Legless hero pilot

Everyone has read “The Tale of a Real Man” by Polevoy about Alexei Maresyev, who returned to duty after being wounded and having both legs amputated. It turns out that the attention of military journalists was attracted by his feat precisely in the battle of Kursk, for which he was awarded the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. At that time, he served near Kursk in the 63rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment and was very worried because the regiment commander was afraid to let him go on combat missions. One day, the squadron commander A. M. Chislov took Alexei with him on a combat mission, in which he performed well and became a full-fledged member of the regiment. On July 20, 1943, Maresyev fought an air battle with an enemy superior in numbers. He personally shot down two enemy fighters and saved the lives of two of his comrades.

4. The first salute of victory

On July 12, Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive along the entire front. On August 5 they liberated the cities of Orel and Belgorod. On the evening of August 5, in honor of this major success, a victorious salute was given in Moscow for the first time in two years of war. After this, it became a good tradition to announce the victories of the Soviet army with artillery salvoes. And on August 23, the Battle of Kursk ended with the liberation of Kharkov. For their courage and heroism, over 100 thousand Soviet soldiers were awarded orders and medals. Historians believe that the Battle of Kursk finally changed the course of the Great Patriotic War in favor of the Soviet Union.

5. Bury the hatchet

Four years ago, a large cemetery was opened on the long-suffering land of Kursk for the burial of German soldiers. German student volunteers buried the remains of more than 21 thousand military personnel, and local authorities, at the expense of the German side, built a new school in neighboring Besedino and repaired roads. This significant event was preceded by an active campaign of communists who opposed the creation of a memorial complex for the fascists. However, as one Russian veteran of the Battle of Kursk put it, the appearance of such a cemetery is “a guarantee that we will never fight again.” If we have begun to bury former enemies, then we can hope that it will never come to a confrontation with them again.

On July 5, 1943, one of the largest battles of the Great Patriotic War began - the Battle of Kursk. According to domestic historiography, the Battle of Kursk, along with the Battle of Stalingrad, constitutes the so-called period of a radical turning point in the war.

Thousands of books have been written about this battle, but many facts are still little known to a wide audience. AiF.ru collected 5 of them.

Stalin's "Werther"

By the summer of 1943, the Soviet Union had caught up and surpassed Nazi Germany not only in terms of weapons production, but also in virtually all areas of military activity.

Soviet agents also worked brilliantly behind enemy lines. Already from the beginning of 1943, Stalin and the Soviet General Staff were aware of the preparation by the German command of a plan for a summer offensive, codenamed “Citadel”.

On April 12, 1943, the exact text of Directive No. 6 “On the plan for Operation Citadel” of the German High Command, translated from German, appeared on Stalin’s desk, endorsed by all services of the Wehrmacht. The only thing that was not on the document was Hitler’s own visa. He staged it three days after the Soviet leader got acquainted with it. The Fuhrer, of course, did not know about this.

Nothing is known about the person who obtained this document for the Soviet command except his code name - “Werther”. Various researchers have put forward different versions of who "Werther" really was - some believe that Hitler's personal photographer was a Soviet agent.

Rokossovsky turned out to be more perspicacious than Vatutin

There was no consensus among Soviet military leaders on how to proceed in the summer of 1943. The commander of the Central Front, Konstantin Rokossovsky, proposed a transition to a deliberate defense in order to exhaust and bleed the advancing enemy, followed by a counteroffensive for his final defeat. But the commander of the Voronezh Front, Nikolai Vatutin, insisted on our troops going on the offensive without any defensive actions.

Stalin, who was more impressed by Vatutin’s point of view, nevertheless, having listened to the opinion of the majority of the military and, first of all, Zhukov, supported Rokossovsky’s position.

However, the Germans showed amazing passivity in early July, which made Stalin doubt the correctness of the decision.

- Comrade Stalin! The Germans have launched an offensive!

-What are you happy about? - asked the surprised leader.

– Now victory will be ours, Comrade Stalin! - answered the commander.

Rokossovsky was not mistaken.

The mysterious battle of Prokhorovka

The key moment of the Battle of Kursk is considered to be the tank battle near the village of Prokhorovka.

Surprisingly, this large-scale clash of armored vehicles of the opposing sides still causes fierce debate among historians.

Classic Soviet historiography reported 800 tanks for the Red Army and 700 for the Wehrmacht. Modern historians tend to increase the number of Soviet tanks and reduce the number of German ones.

Soviet tanks in the Kursk Bulge area, July 1943. Photo: RIA Novosti

Professor of the Royal Department of Modern History at the University of Cambridge, Richard Evans, went the furthest, writing that the Germans at Prokhorovka had only 117 tanks, of which only three were lost.

According to Evans, the Battle of Kursk did not end in a Soviet victory, but on “Hitler’s orders.” The same Evans, who is supported by many young Russian historians, states that by the end of the battle the Red Army had lost 10,000 tanks.

This version has one extremely weak point - it is not clear why, with such successes, the Nazis suddenly began to rapidly roll back to the West?

The losses of the Red Army in the Battle of Prokhorovka were greater than those of the Nazis. The backbone of the Soviet tank corps and armies at that time was the T-34, which was significantly inferior to the newest German Tigers and Panthers - this explains the high number of Soviet losses.

Nevertheless, Nazi tanks were stopped on the field at Prokhorovka, which actually meant the disruption of plans for the German summer offensive.

"Kutuzov" and "Rumyantsev"

When people talk about the Battle of Kursk, they often mention Operation Citadel, the German offensive plan. Meanwhile, after the Wehrmacht onslaught was repulsed, the Soviet troops carried out two of their offensive operations, which ended in brilliant successes. The names of these operations are much less known than “Citadel”.

On July 12, 1943, the troops of the Western and Bryansk fronts went on the offensive in the Oryol direction. Three days later, the Central Front began its offensive. This operation was codenamed “Kutuzov”. During it, a major defeat was inflicted on the German Army Group Center, whose retreat stopped only on August 18 at the Hagen defensive line east of Bryansk. Thanks to “Kutuzov”, the cities of Karachev, Zhizdra, Mtsensk, Bolkhov were liberated, and on the morning of August 5, 1943, Soviet troops entered Orel.

August 1943. Photo: RIA Novosti

On August 3, 1943, troops of the Voronezh and Steppe fronts began the offensive operation "Rumyantsev", named after another Russian commander. On August 5, Soviet troops captured Belgorod and then began to liberate the territory of Left Bank Ukraine. During the 20-day operation, they defeated the opposing Nazi forces and reached Kharkov. On August 23, 1943, at 2 a.m., troops of the Steppe Front launched a night assault on the city, which ended in success by dawn.

“Kutuzov” and “Rumyantsev” became the reason for the first victorious salute during the war years - on August 5, 1943, it was held in Moscow to commemorate the liberation of Orel and Belgorod.

Maresyev's feat

The book of the writer Boris Polevoy “The Tale of a Real Man,” which was based on the life of a real military pilot Alexei Maresyev, was known to almost everyone in the Soviet Union.

But not everyone knows that the fame of Maresyev, who returned to combat aviation after the amputation of both legs, arose precisely during the Battle of Kursk.

Senior Lieutenant Maresyev, who arrived in the 63rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment on the eve of the Battle of Kursk, was faced with distrust. The pilots did not want to fly with him, fearing that a pilot with prosthetics would not be able to cope in difficult times. The regiment commander did not let him into battle either.

Squadron commander Alexander Chislov took him as his partner. Maresyev coped with the task, and at the height of the battles on the Kursk Bulge he carried out combat missions along with everyone else.

On July 20, 1943, during a battle with superior enemy forces, Alexey Maresyev saved the lives of two of his comrades and personally destroyed two enemy Focke-Wulf 190 fighters.

This story immediately became known throughout the front, after which the writer Boris Polevoy appeared in the regiment, immortalizing the name of the hero in his book. On August 24, 1943, Maresyev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

It is interesting that during his participation in battles, fighter pilot Alexei Maresyev personally shot down 11 enemy aircraft: four before being wounded and seven after returning to duty after amputation of both legs.

On July 5, 1943, one of the largest battles of the Great Patriotic War began - the Battle of Kursk. Thousands of books have been written about this battle, but many facts are still little known to a wide audience...

Stalin's "Werther"
By the summer of 1943, the Soviet Union had caught up and surpassed Nazi Germany not only in terms of weapons production, but also in virtually all areas of military activity.
Soviet agents also worked brilliantly behind enemy lines. Already from the beginning of 1943, Stalin and the Soviet General Staff were aware of the preparation by the German command of a plan for a summer offensive, codenamed “Citadel”.


On April 12, 1943, the exact text of Directive No. 6 “On the plan for Operation Citadel” of the German High Command, translated from German, appeared on Stalin’s desk, endorsed by all services of the Wehrmacht. The only thing that was not on the document was Hitler’s own visa. He staged it three days after the Soviet leader got acquainted with it. The Fuhrer, of course, did not know about this.
Nothing is known about the person who obtained this document for the Soviet command except his code name - “Werther”. Various researchers have put forward different versions of who "Werther" really was - some believe that Hitler's personal photographer was a Soviet agent.
Rokossovsky turned out to be more perspicacious than Vatutin
There was no consensus among Soviet military leaders on how to proceed in the summer of 1943. The commander of the Central Front, Konstantin Rokossovsky, proposed a transition to a deliberate defense in order to exhaust and bleed the advancing enemy, followed by a counteroffensive for his final defeat. But the commander of the Voronezh Front, Nikolai Vatutin, insisted on our troops going on the offensive without any defensive actions.

Commander of the Central Front Konstantin Rokossovsky
Stalin, who was more impressed by Vatutin’s point of view, nevertheless, having listened to the opinion of the majority of the military and, first of all, Zhukov, supported Rokossovsky’s position.
However, the Germans showed amazing passivity in early July, which made Stalin doubt the correctness of the decision.
On the night of July 5, 1943, Rokossovsky called Stalin.
- Comrade Stalin! The Germans have launched an offensive!
-What are you happy about? - asked the surprised leader.
– Now victory will be ours, Comrade Stalin! - answered the commander.
Rokossovsky was not mistaken.
The mysterious battle of Prokhorovka
The key moment of the Battle of Kursk is considered to be the tank battle near the village of Prokhorovka.
Surprisingly, this large-scale clash of armored vehicles of the opposing sides still causes fierce debate among historians.
Classic Soviet historiography reported 800 tanks for the Red Army and 700 for the Wehrmacht. Modern historians tend to increase the number of Soviet tanks and reduce the number of German ones.


Professor of the Royal Department of Modern History at the University of Cambridge, Richard Evans, went the furthest, writing that the Germans at Prokhorovka had only 117 tanks, of which only three were lost.
According to Evans, the Battle of Kursk did not end in a Soviet victory, but on “Hitler’s orders.” The same Evans, who is supported by many young Russian historians, states that by the end of the battle the Red Army had lost 10,000 tanks.
This version has one extremely weak point - it is not clear why, with such successes, the Nazis suddenly began to rapidly roll back to the West?
The losses of the Red Army in the Battle of Prokhorovka were greater than those of the Nazis. The backbone of the Soviet tank corps and armies at that time was the T-34, which was significantly inferior to the newest German Tigers and Panthers - this explains the high number of Soviet losses.


Nevertheless, Nazi tanks were stopped on the field at Prokhorovka, which actually meant the disruption of plans for the German summer offensive.
"Kutuzov" and "Rumyantsev"
When people talk about the Battle of Kursk, they often mention Operation Citadel, the German offensive plan. Meanwhile, after the Wehrmacht onslaught was repulsed, the Soviet troops carried out two of their offensive operations, which ended in brilliant successes. The names of these operations are much less known than “Citadel”.
On July 12, 1943, the troops of the Western and Bryansk fronts went on the offensive in the Oryol direction. Three days later, the Central Front began its offensive. This operation was codenamed “Kutuzov”.
During it, a major defeat was inflicted on the German Army Group Center, whose retreat stopped only on August 18 at the Hagen defensive line east of Bryansk. Thanks to “Kutuzov”, the cities of Karachev, Zhizdra, Mtsensk, Bolkhov were liberated, and on the morning of August 5, 1943, Soviet troops entered Orel.


On August 3, 1943, troops of the Voronezh and Steppe fronts began the offensive operation "Rumyantsev", named after another Russian commander. On August 5, Soviet troops captured Belgorod and then began to liberate the territory of Left Bank Ukraine. During the 20-day operation, they defeated the opposing Nazi forces and reached Kharkov. On August 23, 1943, at 2 a.m., troops of the Steppe Front launched a night assault on the city, which ended in success by dawn.
“Kutuzov” and “Rumyantsev” became the reason for the first victorious salute during the war years - on August 5, 1943, it was held in Moscow to commemorate the liberation of Orel and Belgorod.
Maresyev's feat
The book of the writer Boris Polevoy “The Tale of a Real Man,” which was based on the life of a real military pilot Alexei Maresyev, was known to almost everyone in the Soviet Union.
But not everyone knows that the fame of Maresyev, who returned to combat aviation after the amputation of both legs, arose precisely during the Battle of Kursk.
Senior Lieutenant Maresyev, who arrived in the 63rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment on the eve of the Battle of Kursk, was faced with distrust. The pilots did not want to fly with him, fearing that a pilot with prosthetics would not be able to cope in difficult times. The regiment commander did not let him into battle either.


Alexey Maresyev
Squadron commander Alexander Chislov took him as his partner. Maresyev coped with the task, and at the height of the battles on the Kursk Bulge he carried out combat missions along with everyone else.
On July 20, 1943, during a battle with superior enemy forces, Alexey Maresyev saved the lives of two of his comrades and personally destroyed two enemy Focke-Wulf 190 fighters.
This story immediately became known throughout the front, after which the writer Boris Polevoy appeared in the regiment, immortalizing the name of the hero in his book. On August 24, 1943, Maresyev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
It is interesting that during his participation in battles, fighter pilot Alexei Maresyev personally shot down 11 enemy aircraft: four before being wounded and seven after returning to duty after amputation of both legs.

In early July 1943, the famous Battle of Kursk began. As Russian historians write about this, the battle on the Kursk Bulge and the Battle of Stalingrad provided a very significant turning point in the course of the military operations of the Second World War. A lot of literary works have been created about the Battle of Kursk, but few people still know about some points...

Mysterious "Werther"

By mid-1943, the USSR had caught up and even surpassed the state of the Third Reich both in the production of weapons and in other areas of military affairs.

Intelligence among the very top of Hitler's command was unusually effective. Since January 1943, the agents reported to Stalin all the details of the Nazi offensive scheme, which was scheduled for the summer. This scheme was called "Citadel".

Already in mid-April 1943, a directive already translated into Russian was delivered to Joseph Stalin, where the scheme of Operation Citadel was recorded. This important document bore the visas of all Wehrmacht services. Only Adolf Hitler has not yet signed it. He endorsed the scheme only three days after Stalin studied it. Hitler, of course, did not know about this.

The “mole” in the Third Reich, who obtained this very valuable document for Stalin, was highly classified. The only nickname they knew about him was “Werther.” At present, historians can only assume that he was a photographer who personally served Hitler.

Rokossovsky's plan

Soviet senior military officials had different opinions about how Soviet troops should behave during the Nazi offensive in the summer of 1943. Konstantin Rokossovsky, who headed the Central Front, proposed to first carry out a long defense so that the enemy army would run out of strength, and then launch a counterattack and utterly defeat the battle-worn and weakened enemy. And the head of the Voronezh Front, Nikolai Vatutin, expressed the opposite opinion - he called for going on the offensive first, skipping the period of long defense.

Commander of the Central Front Konstantin Rokossovsky

Joseph Stalin, although he preferred Vatutin’s proposal, however, supported the majority’s point of view, which, by the way, was also shared by Marshal Georgy Zhukov, and chose the strategy option that Rokossovsky proposed.

However, contrary to expectations, the Nazis still did not go on the attack, although it was already July, and Stali even doubted that he had chosen the right strategy.

But soon the Nazis suddenly actively went on the offensive, and everything went according to Rokossovsky’s plan - the Soviet Union won the battle on the Kursk Bulge.

An incomprehensible fight near Prokhorovka

Historians recognize the tank battle near the village of Prokhorovka as the most decisive period of the battle on the Kursk Bulge.

It is striking that there is no consensus among academic historians regarding the exact circumstances of this battle, and there is still heated debate on this topic.

In Soviet times, scientists wrote that the Red Army had eight hundred tanks, and the Nazis had seven hundred. Scientists of our period often overestimate the number of Russian military vehicles and underestimate the number of Hitler's.

Cambridge professor Richard Evans even went so far as to point out in his works that the Nazis had only 117 tanks during the battle near Prokhorovka, and only three of them were destroyed.

Evans also claims that there was no victory for the Russian troops there, and it was Hitler himself who gave the order to stop the battle. And he declares, as some modern scientists also believe, that during this battle the USSR troops lost ten thousand tanks.

However, if you believe Richard Evans, why then exactly after this battle did the Nazis begin to rapidly retreat to Berlin?

Yes, of course, the losses of Soviet troops exceeded the damage suffered by the Nazis during the battle near Prokhorovka. The main strength of tank units and all armies at that time were the T-34s, which were much weaker than Hitler’s Tigers and Panthers, which is why there was such an advantage in combat losses.

However, despite all the advantages, the German tracked vehicles did not advance further than the village of Prokhorovka, which broke the entire scheme of Hitler’s offensive called “Citadel”.

Offensive operations "Kutuzov" and "Rumyantsev"

When talking about the battle on the Kursk Bulge, everyone usually talks first about Hitler’s Operation Citadel, that is, about the scheme of the fascist offensive. But when the Nazi attack fizzled out, the Red Army carried out two unusually successful offensive operations. But much fewer people know about them than about the Citadel.

In mid-July 1943, troops of the Western and Bryansk fronts moved to attack towards the city of Orel. After 3 days, the Central Front also launched an attack. This operation was called "Kutuzov".

In continuation of this offensive, Soviet troops greatly “upset” the fascist Army Group Center, which then retreated for a long time. During Kutuzov, many large cities were liberated, and in early August the Red Army entered the city of Orel.

At the beginning of August 1943, troops of the Voronezh and Steppe fronts carried out Operation Rumyantsev, carrying out a massive attack on Nazi fortifications. On August 5, the Red Army occupied Belgorod and continued to recapture Ukrainian lands. Twenty days later, Soviet troops were already near Kharkov. On the night of August 24, 1943, troops of the Steppe Front stormed this city, and in the morning Kharkov was ours.

It was these successful operations - “Kutuzov” and “Rumyantsev” that were awarded the first salute during the war years, held in Moscow in honor of the conquest of Orel and Belgorod.