Chapter 17 Chapter 16 The Great Turning Point on the Soviet Battlefield

In the spring of 1942, the Soviet and German command headquarters were actively planning the next battle.Hitler still focused on the oil in the Caucasus, because the experts' judgment on the serious shortage of oil reserves in Germany made him feel anxious. End this war." In fact, if Germany seizes the oil in the Caucasus, it will not only solve its own needs, but also paralyze the Soviet war machine, so Stalin also said to his subordinates, in order to continue the war, I must Keep the Caucasus oil fields.In the end, Hitler decided that the goal of the summer of 1942 was to occupy the Caucasus oil fields, and simultaneously launched an offensive in two directions in Leningrad and Crimea.

At the end of March 1943, at the meeting of the Supreme Command of the Soviet Army, Stalin judged that the direction of the German attack was still Moscow, and decided to deploy the strategic reserve force in the direction of Bryansk.At the same time, at the request of Timoshenko, commander of the Southwest Front, he launched an offensive in Ukraine. On May 12, the four Soviet armies attacked the German army in the Kharkov area from the Volchansk and Barvinkwo salients, and quickly broke through the German positions and developed smoothly in depth.Timoshenko was unaware that the German army had assembled heavy troops in this area and was preparing to march towards the Caucasus. On May 17, the situation changed suddenly. The German Kleist 1st Armored Army was dispatched from the Slavyan area, and the Paulus 6th Army crossed the North Donets River south of Kharkov. direction, cutting towards the root of the overhang of Timoshenko's troops. On May 19, the Soviet army ordered a retreat, but the timing was missed, and the retreat route was blocked by the German army.By the end of the battle on May 29, in addition to more than 20,000 Soviet troops breaking through, the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th armies participating in the attack were completely wiped out, and 200,000 people were captured. Tenko and two other army commanders were killed.The Soviet army lost 2026 artillery pieces and 1246 tanks.Due to the inaccurate judgment of the Soviet army, they attacked rashly, resulting in the annihilation of the main force of the Southwest Front Army, allowing the German army to easily open the gate of the south wing and regain the initiative on the battlefield.

In order to eliminate the threat of the southern flank when marching into the Caucasus, on May 8, 1942, Hitler ordered Manstein's 11th Army to launch the Crimean Campaign.Manstein captured the Kerch Fortress on May 15, captured 170,000 Soviet troops, and controlled the exit of the Sea of ​​Azov. On July 4, the German army, with its superb field attack tactics, overcame the steep terrain and captured Sevastopol, the last fortress on the Crimean Peninsula. About 100,000 Soviet troops surrendered.Soon, most of Manstein's 11th Army was transferred to the Leningrad area. According to Hitler's order No. 41 issued on April 5, 1942, the march into the Caucasus was carried out in four stages.Phase 1: The German 2nd Army and 4th Panzer Army break through to Voronezh on the Don.The second stage: the 6th Army attacked from the west of Kharkov and cooperated with the 4th Panzer Army to annihilate the Soviet army west of the Don River. At this time, the 4th Panzer Army should turn south along the Don River and encircle the Soviet army in the area .The third stage: the 4th Armored Army and the 6th Army formed the "Army Group B", heading straight to the lower reaches of the Don River from the southeast, and the 1st Armored Army and the 17th Army formed the "Army Group", advancing northeastward and crossing Donnie In the lower reaches of the Ci River, the two army groups will surround the main force near Stalingrad and fight a battle of annihilation similar to the Kyiv battle.The fourth stage: After setting up a cordon along the Don River from Stalingrad to Voronezh, the main force went south to capture the Caucasus.

On June 28, 1942, under the prestige of Kharkov's victory, the 4th Hoth Armored Army and the 2nd Weikers Army launched an attack from the Kursk region to Voronezh. After occupying most of the city on July 6 , Turning to the southeast, sweeping up the defeated Soviet army along the big bend of the Don River. On June 30, Paulus's 6th Army jumped out from between Birgorod and Vlgask and attacked eastward.Kleist's 1st Panzer Corps was dispatched between Izmen and Kupyansk, crossed the North Donets River, and turned south after reaching Bentkov, pointing directly at Rostov, the throat of the Caucasus.

Golikov, commander of the Bryansk Front of the Soviet Army stationed in Voronezh, miscommanded and failed to use the powerful 5th Tank Army to attack the rear of Khoss in time, and Khoss had already won the initiative on the battlefield.At this time, the Soviet army's operations had become flexible. They no longer blindly defended, but retreated in a planned way, reorganizing their defense line on the other side of the Don River. On July 10, the German army divided the "Army Group South" into two Army Groups A and B according to the original plan: Liszt was the commander of "Army Group A", and his targets were Grozny and Baku oil fields in the Caucasus; Army Group" Commander. On July 13, Polk was dismissed by Hitler for being slow, and Weicks took over his command.At this time, the Soviet army also divided the Bryansk Front Army into two for the convenience of command, and established the Voronezh Front Army. Vatudin was the commander, and Rokossovsky was the commander of the newly established Bryansk Front Army.Golikov, the former commander of the Bryansk Front, was dismissed due to improper command.

On July 17, Hitler ordered the 4th Panzer Army of Hoss to turn around and go south to assist the 1st Panzer Army of Kleist to cross the Don River.The 6th Army is now alone, and Kleist didn't need help from others, but Hoss' arrival took up its marching route, causing great confusion. On July 30, Hitler changed his thinking again, believing that the capture of the Caucasus oil fields depended on the occupation of Stalingrad, so he ordered the 4th Hoss Panzer Army to turn north and re-enter the attack on Stalingrad.Just as the Hoth Legion was tossing back and forth, the Soviet army's front in the direction of Stalingrad was rapidly strengthened. On August 9, Hoth was blocked southeast of Stalingrad and was forced to take a defensive position.At this time, the 6th Army in the north launched another powerful offensive. On August 19, the outskirts of Stalingrad were cleared and the city was pushed into the city. On August 23, the German army arrived at the Volga River from the north of the city and cut off the connection between the 62nd Army of the Soviet Army and the main force. On September 10, General Cuikov took over as the commander of the 62nd Army of the Soviet Army and was responsible for defending the city.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Stalingrad was called the Tsarist City. It was a small city with a population of less than 50,000, but it already had a very important position as a trading center for oil, grain, timber, wool, salt, and fish.Earlier, this ancient city located at the junction of the Kamock Prairie and the Don River was also the starting point of the European defense line against the Asian nomadic tribe knights. In 1918, Stalin resisted the attack of the white bandit Kolchak Cossack cavalry here and won the victory.It was called Tsaritsyn at the time, and was renamed Stalingrad in memory of it, but today, its threat comes from the Germans in the west.It strangles the vital point of the Volga River. This ancient canal has now become the main artery of north-south transportation during wartime. The gasoline in the Caucasus is transported through it and supplied to the Soviet troops in various battlefields.Therefore, Stalingrad is vividly called "the key to the Volga".

As of September 15, 1942, the situation of the German army on the Stalingrad front was: from Voronezh to Stalingrad, lined up along the banks of the Don River were the German 2nd Army, the Hungarian 2nd Army, and the Italian 8th Army. Army Corps, the Romanian 3rd Army, the German 6th Army, and to the south of the city the Romanian 4th Army.Both Halder and Paulus were worried that there was a crisis lurking on the left flank of the Don River defense line defended by the vassal army, but Hitler didn't take it seriously. chief of staff.On the Soviet side, from Voronezh to Stalingrad along the Don River, the Voronezh Front, the Southwest Front, the Don Front, and the Stalingrad Front were deployed.Since July, the Soviet Army has secretly formed a strategic reserve force in Central Asia. In early September, Stalin entrusted Zhukov and Vasilevsky to plan a major counteroffensive in Stalingrad.When Stalingrad was in full swing, these huge strategic reserve corps, which had completed training and were well equipped, were heading to the front lines of the Don River and the Volga River. All this was known to the German intelligence agencies, but Hitler did not know. I don't believe it at all.

From September 15th to November 19th, the German army stormed day and night to capture Stalingrad. The Soviet 62nd Army and 64th Army fought desperately to hold a few small positions on the left bank of the Volga River.Every street, every wall, every house, and every floor has been rushed back and forth for countless rounds, but still no clue.At first, the German army charged with infantry groups, but to no avail, and then bombed the city with artillery and planes, turning the city into ruins, which was beneficial to the defending side. With the help of the ruins, the Soviet army carried out effective resistance.

When Chuikov's 62nd Army put the German army in a dilemma under the fortified city, the huge Soviet reserve force had secretly entered the counter-offensive position. On November 19, in the north of Stalingrad, the 5th Tank Army and the 21st Army of the Southwestern Front of Vatudin attacked the Romanian 6th Army on the weak left flank of the German 6th Army at the Don Landing Fields, Serafimovi and Kretskaya. The 3rd Army launched an offensive. On November 20, the 51st, 57th, and 64th Army Groups of the Stalingrad Front in Yeremenko in the south launched a powerful offensive against the Romanian 4th Army between Lake Chacha and Lake Balmanchak.The two armies rushed towards Karachi, the far-reaching rear of the German 6th Army, and joined forces in Karachi on the afternoon of November 23. The 220,000 soldiers of the Paulus Army were surrounded.Hitler immediately transferred back to Manstein from Leningrad, and with his 11th Army Headquarters as his team, he formed the "Don Army Group" headquarters, which unified command of several armies in the Stalingrad area.Facing the encirclement, Zeitzler tried his best to advocate that Paulus lead his troops to immediately break out to the southwest. Hitler was almost persuaded, but Goering, who had been left out for a long time, wanted to show his hand at a critical moment. He assured Hitler that his air force could give the encirclement every day. Transport 500 tons of combat materials (later it turned out that only 104.7 tons of materials can be airdropped per day on average, of which only one day reached 300 tons).Hitler was never willing to retreat, so he decided to stick to Stalingrad.The 6th Army lost the best chance to break through.

In order to rescue the Paulus Army, Manstein set up two assault groups, the "Hollett Group" on the west bank of the Don River, and the "Hoth Group" on the east bank of the Don River, advancing towards Stalingrad from the west and southwest.The Soviet army continued to exert pressure from the north in the Zill River area, pinning down the "Hollett Group" and immobilizing it. Manstein decided that Hoth would take on the rescue mission alone. On December 12, under Manstein's strict order, Hoth's 4th Panzer Army began to advance towards Stalingrad.The operation, code-named "Winter Storm" and called "Death Race" by Manstein, started from Kotelkovo and attacked northeastward in an attempt to cut a line between the rescue forces and the besieged forces in Stalingrad. "corridor".The main force participating in the rescue was the 57th Armored Corps withdrawn from the 1st Caucasus Armored Corps. The 23rd Armored Division was on the right and the 17th Armored Division was on the left. Stalingrad attack advances.The first few days went well, and Hitler's High Command was brimming with optimism.However, it was stubbornly blocked by the Soviet army on the north bank of the Aksay River. In the following week, the little-known fierce battle on the Aksay River actually decided the fate of the Third Reich. In order to cope with the "Winter Storm" operation, Manstein asked Paulus to organize troops to attack southwest, break through the Soviet encirclement, and cooperate with Hoth to cut a "corridor".This support operation was code-named "Thunder", but Paulus telegraphed Manstein: his gasoline storage was only enough for the tank to travel 20 kilometers, and the "Thunder" operation could only be launched when Hoth reached 32 kilometers from the encirclement. On December 19, Hoth's 57th Armored Corps rushed across the Aksay River, and the 6th Armored Division was only 48 kilometers away from the encirclement, which was also the maximum limit that the rescue force could reach.Manstein had a premonition that this was the last chance for the 6th Army to break through, so he mustered up great courage, resolutely defied Hitler's order, and issued an order to Paulus to immediately break out to the southwest and withdraw from Stalingrad in batches.Manstein had taken sole responsibility for disobedience, but the indecisive Paulus decided to obey Hitler anyway.In order to prevent the German army from breaking the siege of Stalingrad, the Soviet High Command cleverly launched an attack on the rear of the German "Army Group A" and "Don Army Group".The Voronezh Front Army and the Southwest Front Army's 1st, 3rd, and 6th Army under the command of Vatutin launched a powerful offensive against the Italian 8th Army, which was responsible for covering the entire southern German army. The Soviet army occupied Kantemirovka, a large German supply base. The sharp edge directly threatened Rostov's throat, forcing Manstein to withdraw the elite 6th Armored Division from the Hoth Rescue Army to deal with the emergency crisis in the rear.In this way, there were only two armored divisions left in the attacking force to break the siege of Stalingrad. According to the German post-war disclosure, the two armored divisions had only 35 tanks left on December 7. On December 24, as the 6th Armored Division had been transferred, the German attack on the Aksay River was at the end of its battle. The 2nd Guards Tank Corps of the Soviet Malinovsky arrived in time to launch a full-scale counterattack against the German army. .The 57th Panzer Army of the German Army was wiped out on December 26, and the remnants serving as cover retreated to Kotelkovo, the original starting point. The fate of Paulos' 6th Army was doomed. During the nearly two months of hard fighting since the siege on November 23, the 6th Army's defense area has been shrinking day by day, ammunition and food are scarce, and the number of wounded is increasing day by day, and winter in Russia has come. On December 30, the Soviet Supreme Command merged the Stalingrad Front Army commanded by Yeremenko into the Don River Front Army commanded by Rokossovsky, and the task of encircling and annihilating the German 6th Army was unified by Rokossovsky Responsible. On January 8, 1943, Rokossovsky sent three Red Army envoys to bring Paulus a letter of surrender, asking Paulus to give a reply within 24 hours.Paulus immediately telegraphed the full text to Hitler, asking for the right to act cheaply in an emergency, but was rejected by Hitler. Forty-eight hours later, the 2.12 million Don River Army under the command of Rokossovsky, under the cover of 6,900 artillery pieces, 250 tanks, and nearly 300 combat aircraft, launched a general attack on the besieged German army.After 6 days of fierce fighting, the German position was reduced by half, and was compressed into a place 24 kilometers long and 15 kilometers wide. On January 24, the Soviet army surrendered to Paulus again, but the latter refused. On January 30, Hitler promoted Paulus to Field Marshal, and all 117 officers under him were promoted to a higher rank.The next day, at 7:45 pm on January 31, Paulus and his chief of staff, General Schmidt, were captured in the underground headquarters of the "Everything" department store.The last resistance of the German army in Stalingrad was not finally stopped until February 2. The 6th Army of the German Army is the most elite group of the German strategic main force. Hitler once claimed to his former commander Reichnau that he could use the 6th Army to open the gate of heaven, but after he got the "key to the Volga", he gave him The Third Reich opened the gates of hell.In this wild bet, 220,000 people from the 6th Army were wiped out.24 generals and 91,000 soldiers under Paulus were captured, and a total of 14 infantry divisions, 3 motorized divisions, 3 armored divisions, 1 Romanian infantry division, 1 Romanian cavalry division, 100 tanks, and 1,800 artillery pieces were lost. 10,000 doors and various vehicles.According to the statistics of the German Army Headquarters, the losses of the German army in terms of armored vehicles and general vehicles are equivalent to 6 months of production, in terms of artillery, it is equivalent to about 3 to 4 months of production, and in terms of small arms and mortars It is equivalent to 2 months of production, and 500 transport planes have also been compensated.The annihilation of the 6th Army, if it had any value, bought some time for the safe withdrawal of 400,000 German troops from the Caucasus. From late July 1942, Liszt commanded the 17th Army and the 1st Armored Army in the "Army Group A" to cross the Don River and go south into the Caucasus, spreading out in a fan shape.On August 10, Kleist's 1st Armored Corps occupied several oil fields such as Maykop, but after entering the Caucasus Mountains, the armored forces were limited by the terrain and made slow progress. On September 9, Hitler dismissed Liszt and assumed the post of commander of "Army Group A". He did not hand over command to Kleist until late November, but the German army's goal of occupying the large oil field in Grozny was never achieved. In mid-December, after the Soviet army broke through the defense line of the Italian 8th Army, it approached Rostov, the "bottleneck" behind the Caucasian German army.Chief of Staff Zeitzler warned Hitler that if he did not retreat in time, "Army Group A" would encounter a second Stalingrad, and Hitler reluctantly agreed to make a partial retreat. On January 14, 1943, the Soviet army took a more daring action. Golikov's Voronezh Front Army and Vatudin's Southwest Front Army defeated the German 2nd Army and the Hungarian 2nd Army westward, occupying Kursk and Kharkov, then the Soviet Southwest Front Army turned southwest and pressed towards the Isthmus of Perekopu on the Black Sea coast in an attempt to block the exit of the Crimea Peninsula, intending to block Kleist's "Army Group A" and Manstein's "Dayton" He Group Army Group" wiped out all of them. Manstein tried his best and ordered the "Hollett Group" and "Hoth Group" that originally rescued Stalingrad to retreat while alternately covering with Mackensen's 1st Panzer Army, and retreated to Rostov.The Southern Front Army of the Soviet Army Yeremenko (formerly the Stalingrad Front Army) had a sharp drop in offensive due to the excessively long supply line, and ultimately failed to cut off the retreat of the Caucasus German Army.After surviving several crises, the 1st Panzer Army reached the Mius River through Rostov, the 17th Army retreated to the Taman Peninsula, and the German army finally withdrew from the Caucasus intact in early February.At this time, the Soviet High Command misjudged that the German army was routed and was about to retreat to the west bank of the Dnieper River, so it ordered the troops to pursue desperately.Although the vanguard of the Soviet Army Vatudin had penetrated to the line of the Dnieper River behind the German army, its supply line was too long and paralyzed, and the troops lost ground in advance and retreat.Due to the shortening of the front line, the German army had vacated mobile reserves. Starting on February 19, Manstein decisively invested in Hausser's 2nd SS Panzer Army, Hoth's 4th Panzer Army, and Mackensen's 1st Panzer Army. The northern offensive, after annihilating the vanguard of the solitary 6th Army and the Popov tank group, reoccupied Kharkov on March 14. The Voronezh Front Army and the Southwest Front Army retreated beyond the Donets River. 65 kilometers to the east, the rear of the Central Front Army of the Soviet Army Rokossovsky (formerly the Don River Front Army) was threatened.At Zhukov's request, Stalin urgently dispatched the 1st Tank Army, the 21st Army, and the 64th Army in the strategic reserve to come for reinforcements and stabilize the situation.In this way, the German army survived the serious crisis caused by the annihilation of the 6th Army, developed a crisis-ridden retreat into an excellent anti-encirclement war, and regained the initiative on the southern flank battlefield. In April 1943, the entire southern front of the German army had been retracted and straightened, but the Soviet army formed a huge salient on the German front in the Kursk area, maintaining contact with the German army on the north, west, and south sides.The Kursk salient is 160 kilometers wide in front, 240 kilometers deep in the north and 80 kilometers deep in the south.Rokossovsky's Central Front held to the north, and Vatutin's Voronezh Front to the south.When necessary, the Soviet army can start from this area and attack the rear communication line of the German army in a detour to the north and south.However, if the German army seizes the salient, it can annihilate the main forces of the two front forces of the Soviet army in one fell swoop, and can shorten the front again, freeing up more mobile troops.Therefore, the Kursk salient has become a sensitive area for both sides. In April, Hitler and the generals began to discuss the issue of launching an attack on Kursk.Manstein believes that launching an offensive in April is more certain, but it cannot be delayed, because the Soviet army in the Kursk area has not yet had time to rest and its fortifications are not perfect.Kruger, Model, and Zeitzler agreed. On April 15th, Hitler issued an order from the Headquarters, announcing the battle plan to attack Kursk code-named "Fortress".Hitler repeatedly delayed the attack in order to allow the new "Panther" tanks to be put into service.At two discussions in early May, Manstein and Model believed that the best time to attack had passed, because aerial reconnaissance photos showed that the Soviet army had built solid fortifications in Kursk, but Keitel and Model Chief of Staff Zeitzler advocated the offensive.Hitler hesitated for a moment and dragged it off until June.Guderian, who once again served as the director of armored forces, strongly opposed the "fortress" operation. He reminded Hitler not to expect too much from the new "Leopard" and "Tiger" tanks. Unexpected trouble, and the tank strategic reserve team that has just been formed is bound to be fully used. Once it fails, it will be difficult to recover for a long time.However, Hitler was finally persuaded by Zeitzler and Keitel and ordered the decisive battle on the Eastern Front to be launched on July 5. While the high-level German army was arguing endlessly, the Soviet High Command was also discussing the combat plan for the Kursk region. In late March, Zhukov, Commander of the Voronezh Front, Vatudin, Commander of the Central Front, Kosovsky, and Chief of Staff, Vasilevsky, reviewed the situation on the Eastern Front and drafted a report on April 8. To Stalin, Zhukov predicted that German forces would attack the Soviet forces on the Kursk salient from both northern and southern flanks in the summer.He believes that it is inappropriate for the Soviet army to switch to the offensive recently in order to act first. It is best to use up the German tanks in the defense, and then invest in the new cutting-edge reserve team to switch to a full-scale counterattack. On April 12, Vatudin, commander of the Voronezh Front, and Khrushchev, political commissar, also reported the current situation to the General Staff Headquarters and requested the deployment of a strategic reserve force in the rear area of ​​the Kursk salient.Among the senior generals, Vadudin advocated preemptive strikes, but Zhukov and Vasilevsky advocated late strikes, and Stalin agreed with them. At the end of May 1943, when the British military regiment visited, the head of the regiment, Matt, warned his Soviet counterparts: If the German armored force is not consumed, the attack will inevitably fail; Tank units smashed through the British lines, or at least blunted their blades, and then the British turned from defensive to offensive; when enemy tanks broke in, it was important to hold the "waist" on both sides, using all available Use the reserve team to strengthen the defense on both sides of the gap, instead of facing the torrent that broke through the embankment as a dam.Matter's experience somewhat influenced the Soviet High Command's decision to strike afterward. There was a diplomatic interlude between Germany and the Soviet Union in early June.As early as the spring of 1943, both Germany and the Soviet Union felt that the future was bleak and the outcome was uncertain. Secret meeting in Kirovgrad.But Hitler regarded himself as the winner and demanded that the Dnieper River be the new boundary between the two countries, while the Soviet Union demanded that the pre-war Bug River be still the boundary.Then there were rumors in the Western countries, so Stalin ordered the suspension of the negotiations and continued the military confrontation. Both sides have made up their minds to fight a decisive battle at Kursk.The Supreme Commands of both Germany and the Soviet Union have begun to deploy tens of thousands of troops, and various combat materials have been continuously concentrated in the Kursk region. More importantly, both sides have put all their strategic reserves into the Kursk region. .Both Germany and the Soviet Union realized that this battle was of great significance to both sides: if the Soviet army was defeated, the situation would return to the predicament of being trapped in Moscow in the winter of 1941; Build a strategic reserve force of existing scale.So Hitler threw a sentence to the generals: "You can't fail." The deployment of German and Soviet forces in the Kursk region is as follows: The Soviet Central Front and the Voronezh Front (not including the Steppe Front) invested a total of 1.336 million troops, 3,444 tanks, 19,100 artillery pieces, and 2,900 combat aircraft.The Rokossovsky Central Front defended the north, the Vatudin-Voronezh Front defended the south, and Konev's Steppe Front, the strategic reserve of the Supreme Command, was deployed due east of the Kursk salient.In the Kursk defense area, a total of five lines of defense were arranged in front and rear in all directions threatened by tanks, and the defense was composed of anti-tank support points and anti-tank areas.In addition to artillery and tanks, measures such as laying mines, digging tank trenches, anti-tank cliffs, and setting up engineering obstacle equipment were widely adopted, and a rapid obstacle setting team and an anti-tank reserve team were organized.The plan of the Soviet army was to consume the elite German armor with a strong defense first, and then counterattack. The German army participated in the battle with 50 divisions, a total of 900,000 people, 2,000 aircraft, 2,700 tanks and assault artillery, and used all the tank strategic reserves.Model's 9th Army was the main offensive in the north, with a total of 21 divisions, including 6 armored divisions and 1 armored guard division, with a total of more than 900 tanks. Eight of the 14 infantry divisions participated in the operation, supported by 730 aircraft from the 6th Air Force.Manstein's "Southern Army Group" was the main offensive in the south, with a total of 22 divisions, including 6 armored divisions, 5 armored guard divisions, and 7 of the 11 infantry divisions participated in the attack. More than 900 tanks (including 94 Tigers) tanks, 200 Panther tanks).The intention of the German army was to cut in from the "roots" of the south and north of the Kursk salient, and after reaching a joint division, wipe out the two Soviet fronts in the encirclement. Judging from the comparison of forces between the two sides before the battle, the Soviet army had a clear advantage.The advantages of the Soviet army over the German army are: 40% more troops, 20% more tanks, 90% more artillery and mortars, and 45% more combat aircraft. On the morning of July 5, the Germans began their offensive.On the first day, Model's Ninth Army in the north broke through the Soviet defense line on a 32-kilometer-wide front and advanced 9.6 kilometers.Manstein in the south progressed more smoothly, but at a higher price. On July 7, Manstein seemed to have seized the initiative, and Vatudin's Voronezh Front positions began to waver. On July 9, Hoth's 4th Armored Army had broken through the three Soviet lines of defense in the south and attacked the fourth line of defense. The 48th Armored Army was only 25 kilometers away from Oboyan, the center of the Soviet defense.The Soviet army urgently mobilized the two main group armies of the strategic reserve steppe front army to reinforce the Voronezh front army. On July 12, the 5th Guards Tank Army of Rotmistrov, the main force of the Prairie Front Army, marched more than 300 kilometers and rushed to the Porokhorovka area. The 2nd SS Panzer Army encountered.The 850 (door) tanks and automatic artillery of the Soviet army and more than 500 (door) tanks and self-propelled artillery of the German army launched the largest tank battle in history. The battle of Kursk reached its climax at this time.The Soviet army has already invested all its tank strategic reserves, while the German army still has several divisions of tank strategic reserves that have not yet been invested. Manstein intends to let the opponent exhaust to a considerable extent, and then release the last few tank divisions at a decisive moment. On July 13, just when Manstein believed that victory was in sight, Hitler summoned him and Kruger to East Prussia and ordered the "fortress" operations to be stopped immediately because the British and American troops had landed in Sicily on July 10. Italy collapsed, and troops had to be drawn from the Soviet-German battlefield to form a new army there.Manstein believes that stopping fighting now is tantamount to giving up victory, at least to consume the strategic reserve of the Soviet army.Hitler made concessions, except that the German army in the south continued to consume the Soviet army, and the other troops withdrew from the battle, but several armored divisions in Manstein's hands were transferred away a few days later. Hitler's "fortress" operation ended anticlimactically, but the Soviet counterattack began. On July 12, the Bryansk Front and the Western Front of the Soviet Army launched an attack on Orel behind Kruger's "Central Army Group". A frontal attack on Kruger was carried out on July 15.At the same time, the Voronezh Front Army and the Steppe Front Army also launched a counterattack against Manstein's "Southern Army Group" in the south, and the German army retreated steadily from the north to the south. On August 5, the Soviet army recovered Belgorod and Orel, and the Battle of Kursk finally ended with the Soviet army recovering Kharkov on August 22.Germany's strategic reserves were exhausted in the battle, and the German army completely lost its strategic initiative on the Soviet-German battlefield, and its defeat has been unstoppable ever since.