NINETEEN
LOOKING ACROSS THE SILENT STEPPE, WITH ONLY A lone German reconnaissance aircraft circling lazily like a bird over the Soviet lines, the Panzer Graf prepared his battalion commanders for what was to come before releasing them to address their men, some of whom would be involved in the preliminary attack scheduled for 4 July. Its aim was to secure better observation and start positions against the Belgorod–Gotnya railway line and village of Gertsovka.
The attack was launched at 3:00 p.m., taking the Russians completely by surprise. The grenadiers stormed into the forward trenches clearing the Russians out in a frenzy of sub-machine gun fire, grenades and close-quarter fighting. Prompt Russian artillery fire and minefields halted further progress. A sudden thunderstorm soaked the ground, which, together with the minefields, prevented any of the Graf’s tanks taking an effective part. Father Ruzek, a Catholic chaplain, went into the minefield to succour some wounded who were mangled and bleeding from multiple injuries. He calmly walked across to the wounded and, placing one over his shoulders, slowly walked back through the minefield unscathed. He repeated this five times, carrying a badly injured man each time without triggering a mine.1
Russian aircraft joined the fray, making repeated strafing runs. German Ju-87 Stukas were also out in force and managed to silence the Soviet artillery with repeated dive-bombing attacks. Their screaming, plummeting dives had a demoralizing psychological effect almost as devastating as their bombs.
Captain Bolk, a battalion commander in the Fusilier Regiment, stepped on a mine and had his leg blown off in a fiery blast. His fusiliers, however, never let up and by nightfall had taken their objectives, although at heavy cost.2
The next day, 5 July, dawned with the promise of another hot and sultry day. Von Strachwitz’s Panzer Regiment had moved up during the night, moving carefully to avoid any unnecessary noise or show any light, to take up attack positions behind the Fusilier Regiment. The stealthy preparations were unnecessary, however, as the Russians knew the exact time of the attack—a German pioneer, Private Fermello of the 6th Infantry Division, had been captured in a firefight with a Russian patrol in no man’s land and had revealed the date and start time of the main attack—3:00 a.m., 5 July.
Grossdeutschland’s pioneers went forward to clear the minefields, with the 2nd Pioneer Company clearing some 2,700 mines.3 However before the start of the attack and the Germans preliminary artillery barrage, the Russians commenced a spoiling bombardment of their own which disrupted the preparations. However, as Soviet Marshal Zhukov admitted later, their bombardment was premature, catching the Germans while still in their trenches and fixed positions, rather than in the open forming up or commencing their attack. The result was only a minor disruption, with far less casualties than would otherwise have been the case.
The Germans commenced their artillery barrage along the entire Kursk front. As Grossdeutschland was the spearhead of the attack, its artillery was reinforced by the guns of the 3rd and 11th Panzer Divisions, making for 120 guns blasting ahead of the division’s line of advance. Irrespective of the number of guns involved, a shortage of ammunition meant that the division’s regimental artillery commander, Lieutenant Colonel Albrecht, could only provide a barrage of short duration. He had the same aerial photos as von Strachwitz, and like the Panzer Graf could not distinguish the real from the dummy positions, so consequently he had to spread his salvoes rather than concentrate his fire, in order to hit enough of the genuine positions to make a difference.
The rockets fired by the Nebelwerfers arched across the sky and shredded the Soviet trenches, killing the Red infantry by the sheer concussive effects of their blasts. Smoke from the barrage rose into the air, mingling with the smoke of grass fires and burning villages. The noise, as always, was horrendous, with the crashing and howling of guns and the grind of tracked vehicles, along with the roar of low-flying aircraft streaking across the ground in search of targets. Soon the crackling of small-arms fire was added to, then lost in, the infernal din.
The Soviets’ first outpost lines vanished in a hail of metal and fire with a few brave survivors continuing to snipe at the German pioneers trying to clear the minefields. The Russians’ second line however, was much stronger than the first, consisting of dug-in T-34s, machine-gun nests, and numerous anti-tank guns just waiting to claim their victims.
All too soon the German guns fell silent, with the grenadiers and fusiliers moving out in long files into the open. Von Strachwitz was surprised by the brevity of the barrage and wondered what Hörnlein was doing. Surely the divisional commander had ensured an adequate stock of ammunition? He knew that the limited number of shells expended would have left the Russian defences largely unscathed, with the infantry sure to sustain heavy casualties. Russian artillery fire however, never let up, clearly experiencing no shortage of guns or ammunition. A thunderstorm broke, soaking the hapless grenadiers stoically advancing in the heat of heavy enemy fire.
“Panzers march!” von Strachwitz commanded, and led his tanks forward. His regiment was spearheaded by Captain Wallroth’s 1st Tiger Company. They moved carefully through the minefields with the engineers showing the way. Almost instantly they engaged the enemy tanks, guns and infantry who swarmed towards them with foolish courage.
Following behind von Strachwitz’s Panzer Regiment were the Panther battalions, which ran into an undetected minefield. Explosions rent the air as vulnerable tank tracks were damaged, bringing the steel monsters to a shuddering halt. Fourteen Panthers were rapidly put out of action, standing stationary in the minefield, perfect targets for Soviet artillery and anti-tank guns. Engineers hastily rushed in to the clear the mines, taking fire from the Russian snipers and artillery as they carried out their painstaking work.
The Graf pushed on towards Cherkasskove, defended by the elite Russian 67th Guards Rifle Division. He was supported by infantry, who stormed through the first Russian line and managed to penetrate deeper into the Russian defences. In his command tank the Graf would have later heard the chilling message: “Panzer 11-01 hit. Battalion Commander seriously wounded.”4 He knew the battalion commander well; he was his wife’s brother, Graf Saurma. Captain von Gottberg took over command of the battalion. Graf Saurma was evacuated to the main hospital in Breslau where he later died of his wounds.
The Panther battalions in the meantime had been extricated from the minefield only to get bogged down in some marshy ground, bringing their attack to a standstill once again. When von Strachwitz was informed of this he was furious. Not to have reconnoitred the ground was an act of gross incompetence. The Panther regiment had been badly led from the very beginning, and instead of being the great hope of the offensive was rapidly becoming a liability.
Major Remer’s armoured personnel carrier battalion attacked Cherkasskoye after the Graf’s panzers and the Fusilier Regiment were halted by minefields—the Panthers were not the only ones to run into those fiery traps. One of von Strachwitz’s most experienced officers, Lieutenant Hausherr, was killed along with his gunner when his tank was destroyed by a direct hit. Even with a direct hit some, or even most of the crew of a tank could survive, although often with wounds. A great many were killed or wounded only after they had exited their stricken tank.
The Graf’s stationary panzers were subjected to continuous artillery fire while the long-suffering pioneers cleared the minefields. These men performed heroic feats, clearing dangerous, sometimes booby-trapped, mines in the open under artillery and small-arms fire with little in the way of recognition or reward. On this occasion their task took ten long agonizing hours. In the meantime the neighbouring 11th Panzer Division, where von Strachwitz’s son was fighting, was making better progress. It would have frustrated von Strachwitz that the elite Grossdeutschland, reinforced as it was with the long-awaited Panthers, was going nowhere, being surpassed by an average panzer division which had started Operation Citadel with only 74 tanks. He unfairly blamed both Hörnlein and Lauchert for the failure.
The Grossdeutschland’s grenadiers however, were making reasonable headway despite a Russian bomb hitting their regimental headquarters and killing the regimental adjutant, Captain Beckendorff, and two other officers. So congested was this sector of the battlefield that their 2nd Battalion was delayed by a battalion from 11th Panzer which blocked its way.
The Graf’s Panzer Regiment resumed its momentum that afternoon, assisting the Grenadiers’ 1st Battalion in destroying a Russian artillery battery at Cherkasskoye. Flame tanks were brought forward attacking the Russian defences with streams of fire, destroying gun positions and trench lines. The Graf’s tanks were also tasked with supporting Major Remer’s 1st Grenadier Battalion in attacking Points 237.7 and 247.1. By nightfall Cherkasskoye was taken after heavy fighting and frightful losses. Russian Boston bombers attacked the division’s positions during the night without doing much damage.
That evening the Panzer Graf was still fuming over the day’s events, with the mishandling of the Panther regiment uppermost in his mind. He couldn’t contain his anger and, going over his commanding officer Hörnlein’s head, he went straight to the corps commander, General Knobelsdorff, to complain. Knobelsdorff was surprised to see him, but listened patiently, as he respected the Graf’s tactical ability and command experience.5 Still exasperated, von Strachwitz pointed out that the duality of command—with Decker commanding the Brigade and himself the Grossdeutschland Panzer Regiment—was unworkable, added to which there was Lauchert’s command of the Panther Regiment, making the whole command structure unwieldy and cumbersome. He went on to point out the command deficiencies regarding the minefield and swampy terrain, which had all but removed the Panthers from the crucial early stages of the battle.
Von Knobelsdorff could see for himself that drastic change was needed, and being in the middle of operations couldn’t prevaricate or worry about niceties of military protocol. He gave the overall panzer command to von Strachwitz, sidelining Decker in the process. Needless to say Decker was singularly unimpressed by this turn of events and justifiably livid over the Panzer Graf’s actions. He wrote a letter of complaint to Guderian on 17 July after the offensive was over. In it he said that working with the “Panzer Lion”—another commonly used nickname for von Strachwitz—was unpleasant. He went on to say that von Strachwitz refused to answer radio calls and had acted “independently,” which was probably true. Because of von Strachwitz he had been called before von Knobelsdorff to defend his actions while von Strachwitz after taking command had employed “the Panthers outright crazily,” which was certainly not true, resulting in “mine damage.” Not mincing his words he went on, saying that his 200 Panthers had shrunk to a mere 12 due to “idiotic tactical employment.” He continued by saying that “Grossdeutschland was very reasonable” but not its commanding general, which suggests that Hörnlein, unknown to Hyazinth, must have been favouring von Strachwitz over Decker,6 and very probably did try to have von Strachwitz take command of the Brigade. What Decker didn’t say in his letter, however, was that two Panther battalion commanders had been replaced within two days of each other for incompetence, one of whom froze in action due to his inexperience, having to be replaced on the spot by a Captain Gabriel.
Needless to say von Strachwitz’s actions did not go over well with General Hörnlein who, despite the soundness of the decision, was justifiably angry that von Strachwitz had ignored the chain of command. It was an inexcusable breach of protocol and discipline, but it was in keeping with Graf von Strachwitz’s character, who could not tolerate fools or foolish decisions no matter from whom they came. This grated with Hörnlein, who disliked hot-headed officers.
Hyazinth von Strachwitz’s regiment lost 30 tanks in the day’s fighting, the greatest loss he had sustained in a single day to that point. Mercifully, most were disabled due to track and other minor damage from mines and could be brought back into action relatively quickly. Most of the serious losses and damage had been caused by the anti-tank guns, which generally applied to all the panzer divisions fighting at Kursk. The III Panzer Corps for instance—which had the 6th, 7th and 19th Panzer Divisions—lost 60% of its tanks to anti-tank guns between 9 and 12 July. Only 5% were lost to mines.7 Most tankers hated these stealthy killers and feared them more than the enemy tanks. They could often spot a T-34 first, but the anti-tank gun usually only announced its presence with the first shot, and if it was a hit, it would often prove fatal to the tank and some of the crew. The Panther Regiment lost 18 of its tanks for the destruction of six Soviet tanks, three heavy antitank guns and one close-support aircraft shot down. The Graf’s order of battle showed four Panzer IIs, 12 Panzer IIIs, 51 Panzer IVs, 12 flame tanks and only three Tigers available for action after a hard day’s fighting.8
The exhausted, hard-working engineers were again sent out during the night to continue clearing the minefields. The next morning dawned warm and sultry. A smoky haze shrouded the battlefield from grass fires and burnt-out tanks. Now in sole command of the Brigade, including what remained of the Panthers, von Strachwitz was resolved to show just how much better he could do.
The attack on the Soviet second defence line resumed at first light after a 90-minute artillery barrage. The Graf’s panzers spearheaded the attack, supported by Remer’s battalion. The second line was even stronger than the first, with deep bunkers, 50 dug-in T-34s, more minefields, heavy machine guns, flamethrowers and 30–40 anti-tank guns, all of which were well camouflaged.9 The infantry stormed forward to clear the way for the Graf’s tanks and suffered appalling losses from the heavy Russian defensive fire. It took an entire day’s intensive fighting by the Graf’s tanks and Remer’s armoured infantry to take Hill 247.2 near Dubrova. Too many good men of both sides died on this small hill. Having seized the hill, the tanks and grenadiers set up an all-round defence for the night.
The Grenadiers’ 2nd Battalion closed up during the night. Von Strachwitz planned to push his panzers through the following day to an open battlefield where he would be free to manoeuvre. He called up the repair unit to fix the numerous tanks suffering track damage, rendering them fit to fight the following day. Russian bombers harassed his men during the evening, having made several appearances during the day whenever German fighters were absent.
Elsewhere, in contrast to von Strachwitz’s and the army’s stalled attack, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Division had made good progress, spearing 32 kilometres through the Soviet defences and tearing a deep gap in the Soviet 6th Guards Army. A Leibstandarte tank crewman described the action:
On separate slopes some 1,000 metres apart the forces faced each other like figures on a chess board… . All the Tigers fired. The combat escalated into an ecstasy of roaring engines… . They rolled ahead a few metres, pulled left, pulled right, manoeuvred to escape the enemy crosshairs and bring the enemy into their own fire. We counted the torches of the enemy tanks which would never again fire on German soldiers. After one hour 12 T-34s were in flames. The other 30 curved wildly back and forth firing as rapidly as their barrels would deliver. They aimed well but our armour was very strong. We no longer twitched when a steely finger knocked on our walls. We wiped the flakes of interior paint from our faces, loaded again, aimed, fired.10
The Tiger’s armour, even if not sloped, was so thick that at Kursk two Grossdeutschland Tigers each sustained 10 hits from 7.62mm anti-tank guns without being knocked out.11
The next day, 7 July, was another of unremitting attack. However the Graf was now finding the Soviet armour more numerous and aggressive. The reason, although unknown to him, was that the Luftwaffe had withdrawn a significant number of ground attack units to support General Model’s Ninth Army on the northern pincer. Model’s attack had ground to a halt after penetrating barely nine kilometres. Model’s armoured fighting vehicle of great expectation had been the super-heavy Ferdinand, or Elefant, a large turretless, but enclosed self-propelled gun on a Porsche Tiger tank prototype body mounting an 88mm gun. These 73-ton behemoths were slow, unwieldy and cumbersome, making them easy targets for T-34s and anti-tank guns, and as they were without machine guns, they were even vulnerable to Russian infantry. They failed to have any impact on the fighting.
As a result of the switch to the north, the Luftwaffe lost air supremacy over Kursk and only achieved air superiority over critical local sectors where the support was provided. For instance on day one, the Luftwaffe flew 1,958 sorties while on day two only 899 sorties. The Reds on the other hand flew 1,632 sorties on the second day. The Germans lost 100 aircraft during those first two days, but the Russian losses were much higher. On 5 July, before the German assault commenced, the Russians launched a pre-emptive bomber strike against the packed German airfields. It was a bold move but the German Freya radars spotted them well beforehand and the German Jagdfleigers (flying hunters) scrambled to meet them. Messerschmidts and Focke-Wulf 190s tore into the bomber streams, tearing them to pieces. The Russians stoically droned on holding formation as best they could while the Germans blasted them out of the sky one by one. Over 120 Russian aircraft were destroyed for only 26 German fighters shot down. Being over their own lines, the Germans who baled out or crashlanded returned to fly again, while any surviving Russians went into captivity. Very little damage was sustained by the targeted airfields. Elsewhere on the Kursk front the German fighters shot down 200 Russian aircraft on the first day, knocking out any aggression from the survivors. The Russians then took on a largely defensive stance against the German fighters, making their presence felt only when the Germans were absent.12 Nevertheless vicious dog-fights still took place all over the sky as the German Jagdfleigers sought out their Soviet counterparts. This of course gave the German ground-attack planes, Stukas and Focke-Wulfs, plenty of opportunities, and they flew continuous sorties, as Herman Buchner, a Focke-Wulf ground-attack pilot who fought at Kursk and Orel, pointed out in his memoir:
The battle for Orel and Kursk raged to a ferocious climax… . Our Russian opponents were now not only greater in number, but were also using much better equipment and were tactically more aware. As always I was on the go from early morning until late evening when with daylight almost gone, I would grab a late night meal and collapse onto my bed, totally exhausted. The weather was glorious almost every day so there was no respite to the intensity of operations, which in addition to taking its toll on the exhausted pilots, put enormous pressure on the mechanics and armourers… . As the daily grind of mission after mission continued … it was only the exceptional trips that we remembered. One such mission was when we caught a Russian fuel supply column in the open as it tried to make its way to re-supply the tank units in the south. There were between ten and fourteen vehicles in the convoy, and electing to attack my Rotte leader took the lead vehicle and I set about the rearmost vehicle immediately setting it afire with my guns. The column was brought to an immediate stand still … The target shooting began in earnest with us attacking entirely at will… . The game lasted a quarter of an hour until all the vehicles were burning brightly with the dense smoke climbing to some 500 or 600 metres into the air.13
As 7 July dawned, the Grenadiers’ 2nd Battalion with Panther support attacked the village of Dubrova, with the Panthers getting caught in another minefield. By this time the Panther crews should have been reading mine-clearing manuals and becoming experts in this field. The Panzer Graf sent in his 2nd Panzer Battalion to save the situation, which they proceeded to do by helping the grenadiers take Dubrova.14 The Russians poured concentrated artillery fire on the Germans, causing considerable casualties. A force of T-34s appeared, quickly launching an attack on Von Strachwitz’s 1st Battalion, but were easily repulsed with the Graf destroying several Russian tanks. Unfortunately his adjutant, Captain von Seydlitz, suffered a serious stomach wound and had to be evacuated immediately. Russian tanks with supporting infantry were crowding around and cutting off the evacuation route. Graf von Strachwitz didn’t hesitate. He launched his tank amongst them, firing rapidly left and right, scattering the Russian infantry with his machine-gun fire and swiftly moving tracks. He cleared a path for the panzer carrying his wounded aide, then swung around to block the Soviet pursuit. His gunner destroyed two T-34s in quick succession but a third slammed a shell into his tank disabling it. Another Panzer IV despatched the Russian tank as von Strachwitz abandoned his stricken tank to take over one nearby to resume his command. This meant running across open ground swept by fire with Red infantry still scattered around firing at anything that remotely looked German. Map case and pistol in hand he dashed across. A machine gun chattered behind him but it was his former crew providing him with covering fire from their machine pistols. Bullets and shrapnel whizzed over his head as he clambered into his replacement tank where eager hands helped him inside. Unfortunately the rescue effort was all in vain as von Seydlitz died before he could reach medical assistance.
Heavy fighting took place around the small but heavily fortified town of Sirtsevo. In a combined tank and infantry assault the defences near the town were taken but only after heavy fighting, often at close quarters, the Germans having to clear the Russians out with bayonets, knives, hand grenades and entrenching tools as well as with rifles and machine-guns. No quarter was asked or given. Von Strachwitz lost his only operational Tiger in the fighting. At the same time Hill 230.1 was captured, again after savage fighting, with the Russians desperately resisting the Fusilier and Reconnaissance Battalions, who only captured it with assault-gun support.
The air war had a life of its own and continued to rage overhead. Flying in his Me-109 with its bleeding heart personal insignia, was Erich “Bubi” Hartmann who downed seven Soviet aircraft during the day. His score during the war eventually reached 352, making him the world’s leading air ace with a total never likely to be surpassed. He also joined Graf von Strachwitz in the small elite band of recipients of the Knight’s Cross with Diamonds.15
Stukas provided close air support, swooping down to dive-bomb Russian positions immediately in front of the Panzer Graf’s tanks. They came in waves, hurtling down to take out artillery batteries and where known, forward observer positions. Their howling sirens and near-vertical dives, with bombs being released very close to the ground, often broke the Russians’ morale so that they offered little or no resistance to the attacking Germans.
On the left of von Knobelsdorff’s XLVIII Panzer Corps, Hausser’s Waffen SS Panzer Corps continued to make good progress, surpassing their army neighbours’ penetrations. Unlike the army units, who advanced on a broad front, the SS made narrower penetrations on a separate divisional basis; still, outpacing the army was a source of satisfaction for the SS troops, who with the exception of Grossdeutschland considered themselves superior to the army panzer divisions. As well they might with double the tank strength of the army panzer divisions, three battalions of infantry to the army’s two in the panzergrenadier regiment, and greater allocations of artillery and other equipment.
A tank driver of the 7th Company of Leibstandarte’s Panzer Regiment describes his platoon’s mission to bail out Jochen Peiper from a hot spot at Kursk:
“Driver, march!” was his order to me. In moments the smoke was closing in around us. I had to drive slowly so as not to run into things. The image before my window were like pictures from a silent movie: wrecks, flames, ghostly figures with Russian helmets. Shell after shell. Suddenly a heavy hit somewhere… . Weiser radioed several times asking for more covering fire and ordered other vehicles to stay back. He reported shells were hitting and that he would go on alone with his panzer… . We were riding right toward the enemy, in the middle of the enemy… . Suddenly the alarmed cry: T-34 at two o’clock. Load a tank shell! Fire! The gunner reports the turret was stuck. It was really becoming serious. “Driver, aim with the panzer, turn right!” came the order. I moved up, drove in their rear, really needing to shift gear but knowing I didn’t have time. Turned the panzer around. Suddenly an explosion, then silence! One look at the tachometer told me the motor wasn’t running. Was it just stalled or was it hit? … I asked “What should I do?” The radio operator pulled down my earphones and shouted “The gunner is dead. On board communications are dead” I yelled back, “Tell the loader to ask what I should do?” The answer came. “The commander is dead” … In the seconds which had passed since the shell hit our gunner’s side I had seen Russians storming towards us. I drove on, and suddenly saw our opponent, the T-34, at most one hundred metres away… . I turned around ninety degrees and there was an explosion. I was probably only a fraction of a second faster than he. My sixth sense steered me behind a wreck which served as a shield from him… . The glass of my window was too shattered to see out of. I drove with my head out of the hatch. Hauptsturmführer Tiemann motioned me to drive on; Stein was covering me with his gun at six o’clock… . Someone later counted the hits on my panzer… . They counted seventeen infantry hits and three from the tanks.16
At nightfall, von Strachwitz’s panzers, along with the panzer grenadiers, set up all-round defensive positions. He remained dissatisfied with the day’s fighting, as the major breakthrough had still not occurred and remained as elusive as ever. His regiment had knocked out 62 Soviet tanks, destroyed 55 guns and an Illyushin Il-2 ground-attack plane. But by now he only had 23 Panzer IVs, 20 Panthers, six Panzer IIIs, and four flame tanks. It was a huge diminution of strength from the more than 360 tanks Grossdeutschland had started with, a clear result of the battle of attrition being waged, the type of battle which von Strachwitz had so desperately wished to avoid. The neighbouring divisions had not done any better. The 3rd Panzer had made little headway while 11th Panzer had reached a line equal to Grossdeutchland’s advanced outposts. These forward elements were halted by Soviet flanking fire because of 3rd Panzer’s inability to keep up, which, given its initial tank strength, was not surprising.
After routine maintenance and restocking of fuel and ammunition, the tank crews collapsed into a coma-like sleep from sheer exhaustion, so that officers and NCOs had to be particularly vigilant to ensure sentries were actually sent out and remained awake. Many tank crews were taking methamphetamine (Pervitin) to stop from collapsing into a sleep of utter exhaustion during the fighting.
Thursday 8 July dawned with a promise of more of the same—heat, death, relentless attacks, and determined defence with no end in sight. Von Strachwitz was feeling bitter and frustrated. No matter how many T-34s remained brewed up on the battlefield, trench lines taken, guns destroyed, ever more seemed to spring from the ground in a seemingly endless procession. He went over his plans for the assault on Sirtsevo. Welcome reinforcements had arrived in the shape of some of his Tigers returning from the repair company, along with some more Panzer IVs. He despatched a screening force under Lieutenant Hausherr, which had no sooner taken up blocking positions when it was attacked by a large force of 40 T-34s. Not content to wait for von Strachwitz to attack, they launched a spoiling attack of their own. Very quickly Hausherr’s panzers were overwhelmed with his four tanks destroyed and the young lieutenant killed.
The Soviets swept on to Point 230.1, where von Strachwitz quickly deployed his force to meet them. His Tigers went forward, their powerful guns smashing the Reds before they could get within range to retaliate. A brief but intense firefight quickly developed where the superior German gunnery and formidable Tiger won the fray. Ten T-34s were left burning in almost as many minutes. The remainder withdrew in some disorder. Stukas, which had been hovering over the battlefield like birds of prey, now seized their chance, swooping down onto the fleeing Russian tanks and blowing many of them up. Not all the Stukas escaped unscathed. Above Sirtsevo, Stuka experten Captain Karl Fitzer—a Knight’s Cross wearer with 600 missions to his credit—was killed when his plane was blown apart in the air.
Von Strachwitz supported Remer’s 1st Grenadier Battalion in the attack on Sirtsevo. German fighters, Focke-Wulf 190 ground-attack planes and Stukas provided air support. They came in waves of up to 50 aircraft in a show of aerial strength the Panzer Graf was personally never to see again. German fighter ace Günter Rall shot down four Russian aircraft in the swirling combat above the town, adding to a score that would eventually reach 275 in over 700 missions, earning him the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. Also in the sky was Erich Hartmann who shot down two more Russians—including the 22-victory Russian ace Major Tokarev—which brought his kills to 275.17
Just after midday Remer’s grenadiers succeeded in seizing the town, a feat which would not have been possible without von Strachwitz’s panzers and reinforcements from the 11th Panzer Division, together with the much-needed Luftwaffe support. The Panzer Graf then moved on towards Verkhnopenye, coming under heavy fire from dug-in T-34s which had to be taken out one by one. This was a difficult task as only their turrets were above ground and these were well camouflaged. Eventually 11 were destroyed.
At the same time, Grossdeutschland’s Reconnaissance Battalion under Major Wätjen, supported by Peter Frantz’s Assault Gun Battalion came under attack just north of Gremuchiy—40 T-34s of the Soviet VI Tank Corps attacked them in successive waves. The infantry took up defensive positions while Frantz sallied out to meet the Russians. He placed his guns in flanking ambush positions along a reverse slope and waited for the Russians to close in. Each platoon began blasting the Russians as they moved past in turn. Sergeant Senkhiel’s guns took out the first four. More and more T-34s perished as their advance continued. Finally, having had enough, they withdrew to regroup, then attacked again in the same manner, with exactly the same formation. This was a result of their operating procedure, which stressed that they should follow the same orders precisely until they were successful or the orders were changed. Personal initiative was not only discouraged but forbidden without approval from a higher authority. Basically the officer issuing the orders was held personally responsible and was the only one allowed to alter them without permission. Fear of failure and the dreaded penal battalion kept everyone obedient to the original orders. After several hours 35 Russian tanks remained burning or disabled in the killing ground. The assault guns also destroyed 18 anti-tank guns that had followed in support. This now cleared the road to the town of Verkhnopenye, which straggled along both sides of the River Pena, and was heavily fortified, as was every town and village in the area.
Von Strachwitz took his 1st Battalion, along with his surviving Panthers and the 2nd Grenadier Battalion, to Point 230.1. There they clashed with the Russian 200th Tank Brigade, near Verkhnopenye. As he was grossly outnumbered, von Strachwitz called for his 2nd Battalion at Sirtsevo to reinforce him. He planned to use the hammer and anvil tactic, pinning down the Soviets frontally while his 2nd Battalion took them in the rear. The Panzer Graf had to hold out until his 2nd Battalion arrived. The Panthers finally showed what they could do, their sloped armour and 75mm high-velocity guns coming into their own against the massed T-34s, and he was once again helped by Stukas who continuously dived onto the Russian tanks, blowing them to pieces with well-placed bombs. His 2nd Battalion finally arrived, destroying five T-34s from the rear, forcing the remainder to withdraw in surprise from the attack. Two German tanks were knocked out, with a third damaged but capable of returning to the maintenance facility on its own. Soviet Sturmovik ground-attack planes made several strafing runs against Remer’s Battalion with three shot down by the self-propelled light anti-aircraft guns he had attached to his unit, for the price of one gun damaged. It was an excellent result given that the Sturmoviks were armoured and difficult to bring down.
Elsewhere the SS Panzer Corps continued to advance steadily. In three days of heavy fighting it claimed 290 Russian tanks destroyed, which was a testimony to their panzers’ and grenadiers’ fighting ability. The Russians, however, remained undeterred, despite their massive casualties. They were stoically determined to fight to the end regardless of the cost, as Vasily Grossman, the Soviet writer present at Kursk records:
A gun-layer fired point-blank at a Tiger with a 45mm gun. The shells bounced off it. The gun layer lost his head and threw himself at the Tiger.
A lieutenant wounded in the leg, with a hand torn off, was commanding a battery attacked by tanks. After the enemy attack had been halted he shot himself because he didn’t want to live as a cripple.18
The young lieutenant clearly understood the nature of the regime he served as after the war crippled veterans were treated abominably. Grossman continues:
At dawn German tanks started to attack… . Battery commander Ketselman was wounded. He was dying in a puddle of black blood; the first artillery piece was broken. A direct hit had torn off an arm and the head of a gun layer. Senior Corporal Melekhin, the gun commander … was lying on the ground with heavy shell shock, looking at the cannon, his stare heavy and murky …
Only the ammunition bearer, Dawydov, was still on his feet. And the Germans had already come very close. They were seizing the barrels as the artillerists say. Then the commander of the neighbouring gun, Mikhail Vasiliey, took control. And he ordered them to open fire at the German infantry with canister. Then having run out of anti-personnel rounds, they began to fire at the German submachine gunners at point-blank range with armour-piercing shells. That was a terrible sight.19
Graf von Strachwitz’s regiment had now been whittled down to a mere nine operational tanks and was desperately short of ammunition. Although he was accustomed to operating with just a few tanks, he had always operated from a much larger base, and had never before been reduced to such low numbers. It was very worrying, given that the Soviet defences were still immensely strong. However, that evening saw more tanks return from the workshops, which gave his numbers a much-needed boost.
At the tip of Grossdeutschland’s spearhead, von Strachwitz was now only 11 kilometres from the division’s major objective of Oboyan. To seize this objective the Graf now had 24 Panzer IVs, 11 Panthers, and eight Tigers, an improvement on the previous day but by no means a strong force.20
The following day, 9 July, was another clear day, giving plenty of scope for the opposing air forces to intervene in the grinding battles below. Von Strachwitz’s first objective was Point 240.4. A Nebelwerfer regiment launched a continuous stream of rockets onto the Russian positions, creating a huge cloud of smoke and dust in the distance beneath which untold Russians were maimed or killed in the maelstrom of explosions. Flanking fire continued to rake Grossdeutschland as the badly depleted 3rd Panzer Division continued to lag behind, leaving Grossdeutschland’s flank exposed.
Behind the Graf, the Fusilier Regiment advanced past Verkhnopenye but was halted by Soviet tanks and anti-tank guns. Watjen’s Reconnaissance Battalion with Frantz’s assault guns moved along the road to Oboyan. Ahead of them Stukas pounded Russian tank assembly areas.
Von Strachwitz, along with the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Grenadier Regiment, stormed into the attack on Verkhnopenye. Entire squadrons of Stukas swooped into the attack in waves of screaming destruction on the Russian lines. Russian tanks streamed out to meet Grossdeutschland’s panzers and battle commenced at the 3,000-metre range, with the Stukas streaking down to support the panzers. Smoke, dust and flames obscured the battlefield while the action turned into a grinding slugging match between the tanks. Russian anti-tank guns also made their presence felt, with one hitting the turret of 6th Company’s Lieutenant Authenried, killing him instantly. Once again the Stukas had an impact, among them that flown by the famous experten Hans Ulrich Rudel. He had been experimenting with a cannon-mounted tank-busting Stuka in the Crimea and had it flown over to take part in Operation Citadel where it made its destructive debut. He described it in his memoir:
In the first attack four tanks explode under the hammer blows of my cannons; by the evening the total rises to twelve. We are all seized with a kind of passion for the chase, from the glorious feeling of having saved much German bloodshed with every tank destroyed… .
Sometimes we dive onto the steel monsters from behind sometimes from the side… . We always to try to hit the tank in one of its most vulnerable places.21
The satisfaction that came from saving German lives was a theme frequently repeated by the ground-attack pilots and was a strong motivating factor. Rudel’s aggressive attitude also epitomises that of the Jagdfleigers, the fighter pilots. They went into combat avid for kills, keen to add to their scores, knowing they would be amply rewarded. Survival wasn’t sufficient for them. To make kills was everything. They were ambitious, many actively seeking the Knight’s Cross, which required a set number of kills, eventually 100 for the Eastern Front. A pilot seeking combat and kills was said to have a “throat ache,” which could only be assuaged by the Knight’s Cross. German tankers had a similar attitude, wanting to kill Russian tanks and paint kill rings on their barrels and maybe get the Knight’s Cross. This hunting/kill attitude had a similar result, with the emergence of notable tank aces, many having 100 kills or more. For Hyazinth von Strachwitz, his personal kills were a by-product of his battle success and leadership and not a motivating factor per se. Nevertheless he was one of the few tankers to wear the Gold Panzer Assault Badge for 100 engagements, so he easily accumulated over 100 Soviet tanks destroyed.
The German fighter ace Günther Rall continued his run of success, shooting down eight Russian aircraft before being shot down himself and having to be rescued by a German panzerjäger (self-propelled tank hunter) in no man’s land. Rudel, seeing the success of his Stuka cannon, arranged for his squadron to be similarly equipped and so his specialized tank-attack unit was born. One of his air crew, Sergeant Hans Krohn, was involved in the fighting at Kursk and later Orel and describes the methods they used:
Our cannon planes took a terrible toll on the Russian armour. We attacked at very low altitude—I often feared that we were going to hit a ground obstacle with our landing gear—and my pilot [the Stuka had a two man crew, and he was the rear gunner] opened fire at the tanks at a distance of fifty metres. That gave us very little margin to pull up and get away before the tank exploded… . Most of our attacks were made against the side of the tanks, in that way they offered the largest targets. I know that some pilots attacked from behind because that was where the armour was weakest but that also meant that the target was so small that it was difficult to hit.22
The continual attacks proved too much for the Soviets, who withdrew, but not before destroying three of the Graf’s panzers. Captain von Wietersheim led his tank company to the village of Novosiovka, taking the high ground and opening the way for the Fusilier Regiment to continue the advance to a road fork at Point 244.8 on the way to Oboyan. The Panzer Graf then received new orders to make a 90-degree turn, leaving the Oboyan road to assist the 3rd Panzer Division which was equipped with mainly obsolete Panzer IIIs and was making little headway against strong Russian resistance. His tanks encountered a screening force of T-34s along the way near Point 1.3 near Verkhnopenye and were forced to halt for the night in order to refuel and rearm. The Reconnaissance Battalion which had been following him halted at Point 251.4. This movement to rescue 3rd Panzer Division, which reached Point 244.8, was the furthest the Grossdeutschland Division would penetrate the Soviet lines during Operation Citadel—a disappointing result for all concerned.
Early in the morning of 10 July von Strachwitz was conducting an armed reconnaissance when he spotted Russian tanks in a small valley. Although heavily outnumbered, his first instinct was to attack, which he did at 4:00 a.m. taking the enemy by surprise. In a matter of minutes rapid accurate German gunfire began brewing up the T-34s. Explosions rent the air as tank after tank went up in flames. However their numbers were so large that the Russians were undeterred, merely shrugging the losses off and hitting back, destroying several Panzer IVs including two command tanks. Going to the assistance of one of the command tanks von Strachwitz interposed himself between the Panzer IV and the Russians, destroying a T-34 in short order. The Russians were everywhere, providing a plethora of targets, with the Graf concentrating hard to ensure that his gunner took out the ones who posed the greatest threat. In the heat of the battle his awareness of the internal machinations of his tank failed him and he was hit hard in the shoulder by the recoil of his gun. The blow was so serious that his crew sent out a distress call and promptly withdrew to seek medical attention for their regimental commander. Von Strachwitz promptly radioed for von Wietersheim to take over command while his tank sped back to safety and the medical clearing station where his wound received immediate attention. Its severity meant that he was evacuated, eventually reaching the hospital in Breslau. He was bitterly disappointed at leaving the battle unfinished. Kursk was a personal failure for him. It was not the type of battle where he could excel; his talents lay in the fast-ranging battles of manoeuvre where surprise, speed, tactical skill, imagination and the clever use of ground made all the difference. All the more galling was that the honour of fighting in the greatest tank battle of the war at Prokhorovka was to go to the Waffen SS.
Soon after the Graf’s removal, the Russians withdrew to regroup, while von Weitershem resumed the advance towards Hill 243.0, but heavy flanking fire forced him to halt. He was then ordered to take the crossroads near Point 258.5 with assistance provided by the fusiliers, but once again he was brought to a halt from glancing fire as the neighbouring division was still lagging behind. Russian tanks mounted several counterattacks but didn’t pursue them too aggressively. A greater problem came from the concealed anti-tank guns, which were difficult to detect even after they had fired. Von Wietersheim had to call on a Nebelwerfer battery to destroy a nest of these guns which were proving difficult to eliminate.23
On the Oboyan road the Fusilier Regiment captured Hill 244.8, while east of the road 11th Panzer took a point nearby with Stuka support. For its part 3rd Panzer took the commanding heights of Berezovka, capturing some 2,000 Russians in the process.24 As good as these advances were, they were not spectacular and the major breakthrough remained as elusive as ever.
To the north, General Model’s Ninth Army was going nowhere. His Army was well below the strength of Hoth’s, and the major success was always expected to come from the south, but he did not perform as well as had been expected.
On von Wietersheim’s right flank Watzen’s Reconnaissance Battalion with Frantz’s assault guns were attacked by 15 T-34s emerging from a cornfield. In a brisk firefight the assault guns drove them off destroying several in the process.25 The strong Soviet defences forced Hörnlein to halt the attack and form a defensive line, which the Russians quickly tested with several battalion-sized attacks supported by tanks against the Grenadier Regiment.
The massive casualties the Reds had suffered forced them to release seven tank corps from their strategic reserve. That they had these to utilize while leaving strong forces still available for a major counterstroke boded ill for the Germans’ chances of success.
That same day, 11 July, the Soviet Bryansk Front26 northeast of Kursk launched a major offensive against Model’s Ninth Army which ended his participation in Operation Citadel forcing him as it did on to the defensive.
The Grossdeutschland Panzer Regiment was meantime in such a perilous state that its two battalions had to be disbanded and combined into a combat group comprising two companies.27 Nevertheless it resumed its advance, smashing Russian defensive positions despite ferocious resistance and causing the survivors to run, abandoning artillery pieces and anti-tank guns. The division’s Panthers retook Hill 258.5, which had been lost earlier, and were involved in heavy fighting in the Tolstoi area before being forced to withdraw due to lack of infantry support. The division noticed the large quantities of American equipment, especially trucks, and captured a supply dump of American rations. No doubt they enjoyed the corned meat as a welcome change from army bread, soup and sausage.
12 July saw the epic tank battle between the German IInd SS Panzer Corps and the Russian 5th Guards Tank Army at Prokhorovka. A major battle of its own within the broader battle for Kursk, it was a localised tactical victory for the Germans, with between 300 and 400 wrecked Russian tanks littering the battlefield. Prokhorovka gets caught up in the general German defeat that Kursk clearly was, but it must be remembered that Operation Citadel was a wide-ranging offensive, with various battles contained in its ambit. Prokhorovka was just one of these battles, albeit the most important one, and given the scale of tank forces employed it is the most written about. The Germans won at Prokhorovka but failed in their offensive. It is noteworthy because afterwards the Germans, having squandered their tank reserves, lacked the resources to mount another major offensive, and apart from local counterattacks and minor offensives such as in Hungary in 1944, would remain on the defensive in the east. If the Russians had had too many “victories” like that which they claimed at Prokhorovka, they would have lost the war, for the losses they sustained were massive. SS General Paul Hausser was so incredulous at his division’s tank-kill claims that he actually walked over the battlefield numbering the wrecked Russian tanks with a piece of chalk. Despite Russian propaganda claiming Prokhorovka as a victory, Stalin was so alarmed by the losses that he wanted General Rotmistrov court-martialled, hardly the reward for a victorious general. Clearly Stalin regarded Prokhorovka a defeat.
On 13 July Hitler called von Manstein and von Kluge to his headquarters, telling them that because of the Allied invasion of Sicily he was cancelling Operation Citadel. Von Manstein objected, telling his Führer he wished to continue. Von Kluge for his part told Hitler that the Russians had launched an attack against the German Orel salient, which had Model fighting for his life and screaming for reinforcements. The Soviets had been waiting all along to take out the bulge in their line and were simply waiting for the Germans to burn themselves out at Kursk. It was a testimony to the huge resources they still had that they were able to attack there, as well as mount a counteroffensive on the Kursk front, which eventually took back all the Germans’ gains in five days on 23 July.
Despite Hitler calling the offensive off, fighting still continued. Grossdeutschland mounted an attack on 14 July along with the 332nd Infantry Division in the Dogij forest, wiping out a female anti-tank brigade stationed there. The attack continued on to take Hill 240.2 with solid Stuka support. The attack had to be abandoned for lack of ammunition, a problem which would increasingly affect the Germans as the war continued. The following day the 7th Company of the 2nd Panzer Battalion under Captain Lex destroyed 16 T-34s among a far superior Russian force. His bravery and leadership earned him the Knight’s Cross. The Panzer Regiment now had 44 Panzer IVs and three Panzer IIIs as total write-offs since the attack began on 5 July. This shows the importance of the repair companies to the division and the vital importance of holding possession of the battlefield so that damaged tanks could be recovered, as happened at Prokhorovka.
On 18 July von Lauchert’s Panther Regiment was removed from Grossdeutschland’s order of battle and directly subordinated to the XLVIII Panzer Corps. Between 5 and 14 July, the Regiment had destroyed 263 Russian tanks, 144 anti-tank guns, 22 artillery pieces, 60 trucks and various other pieces of equipment, and despite its poor start had more than redeemed itself. Some but by no means all of their achievement could be attributable to the leadership of Graf von Strachwitz. On that same day the Grossdeutschland received orders for deployment elsewhere and it returned to Tomarovka. Operation Citadel was over, not as a massive defeat, but as a costly failure.
The Russians could, and did, claim a victory. It wasn’t, however, the decisive triumph they claimed it to be. The Russians called it decisive to magnify a victory which barely exceeded a stalemate, while Guderian called it decisive because it was for him—he had lost his panzer reserve. The fact remains that no matter what the Germans did from this point, the war was lost due to the lack of manpower, fuel, transport, ammunition and resources. Blitzkrieg—the short lightning war they had planned—had been their only hope.
If they had not undertaken Operation Citadel, then what? The accumulated resources would have been used for a counteroffensive as Manstein wanted and had achieved at Kharkov. It would have meant fewer German casualties, heavier Russian ones, and perhaps checked the Russians for a time. However the Russians would have attacked again, elsewhere or simultaneously in several places, and the Germans would have been back in the same situation, and on the long bitter road of retreat. The truth was that the Germans only had sufficient resources for one big and one medium-size offensive, and whether used at Kursk, the Ardennes or elsewhere, the result would have been the same. It is also probable that Hitler wouldn’t have allowed Manstein his counter-blow, and the armour resources would have been merely frittered away fighting numerous breakthroughs in attempting to carry out Hitler’s “no retreat” orders. The likelihood of the tanks being kept to counter the Allied invasion as Guderian wanted would have remained slim, as too many crises would have developed in the east not to use up the armour.
Did the constant delays in launching Citadel make a difference? Certainly, as von Manstein maintains, had the attack been launched in April it would have stood a greater chance of success with fewer German losses. However, given the Russians’ overpowering resources they would still have halted the Germans, though they might have needed a little longer, or they would have launched the attack against Model at Orel earlier, creating a crisis which would have halted Citadel in any event.
As usual, casualty figures vary depending on the sources or calculations used. Steven Newton in his book Kursk, the German View holds an interesting discussion on this topic, as do Glantz and House in The Battle of Kursk. German dead, wounded and missing were probably 49,822 while Russian dead, wounded and missing possibly exceeded 177,847. The Germans lost 323 armoured fighting vehicles, with 1,612 damaged, most of them repairable; the Soviets lost 1,614 tanks with over 1,000 damaged.28 Aircraft losses on the southern flank were 97 German aircraft to the Russians’ 707. Between 5 and 11 July on the northern flank, the Germans lost 57 aircraft and the Soviets 430. The huge imbalance was largely due to the greater experience and aggression of the German pilots. The Germans also used self-propelled light anti-aircraft guns to accompany their tanks and infantry in the front lines, something that the Russians did not do. The German Stuka squadrons lost eight of their best pilots—all Knight’s Cross holders—in the fighting, sounding the death knell for the Stukas as a major combatant for the remainder of the war, steadily but quickly replaced by the Focke Wulf 190 in the ground-attack role.29
Overall for the Soviets, Kursk was a defensive, pyrrhic victory at best, and Prokhorovka a localised tactical defeat. Both sides fought with raw, stubborn courage, and the Soviet soldier would never again be underestimated, despite the fact that the Germans left the battlefield still convinced of their superiority on a personal level. Their advance against massive and impossible odds was, as Colonel T.N. Dupuy observed in his book A Genius For War, an “incredible accomplishment” and one which should not be overlooked in the euphoria of the Soviet victory.30
NOTES
1. Will Fowler, Kursk: The Vital 24 Hours (Amber Books, UK, 2005).
2. Helmuth Spaeter (Trans David Johnston), The History of the Panzerkorps Grossdeutschland, Vol 2 (J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, Canada, 1995).
3. Ibid.
4. Paul Carrell, Hitler’s War on Russia: Scorched Earth (Corgi Books, UK, 1971).
5. Hans-Joachim Jung (trans. David Johnston), The History of Panzerregiment Grossdeutschland (J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, Canada, 2000).
6. Thomas Jentz, Panzertruppen 2. See also The Dupuy Institute www.dupuyinstitute.org/wbb/forum
7. Didier Lodieu, III Panzer Korps at Kursk (Histoire and Collections, Paris, 2007).
8. Jung, The History of Panzerregiment Grossdeutschland.
9. Ibid.
10. Fowler, Kursk, pp.83–84.
11. Thomas L. Jentz, Germany’s Tiger Tanks: Tiger I and II Combat Tracks.
12. Steven H. Newton, Kursk, the German View: Eyewitness Reports by the German Commanders (Da Capo Press, USA, 2002).
13. Hermann Buchner, Stormbird (Crecy, 2009), p. 132.
14. Carrell, Hitler’s War on Russia, Vol 2.
15. Some dispute the German aces’ high kill rates, maintaining that they were inflated. In fact, the Germans were most meticulous in confirming kills. Unconfirmed kills were not counted, and as most pilots had some unconfirmed kills, an argument could be made that scores were in fact higher. Ivan Kozhedub, a 62-kill Soviet ace, claimed after the war that his actual score was over 100. The same could be said of the German aces, and they didn’t count shared or disputed kills, which were credited to the squadron. German 78-kill ace Georg-Peter Eder, for instance, had 40 probable kills, which were not counted. Writers trying to explain the high German scores put it down to the fact that, being outnumbered, they had more targets to shoot at, though that also meant there were more enemies to shoot them down. Source R. F. Toliver and T. J. Constable, Horrido! (Arthur Baker, UK, 1968).
16. Rudolf Lehmann (trans. Nick Olcott), The Leibstandarte, Vol III (J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, Canada, 1990), pp.219–220.
17. Christer Bergström, Kursk: The Air Battle, July 1943 (Allan Publishing, UK, 2007).
18. Vasily Grossman (ed. & trans. Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova), A Writer at War With the Red Army 1941–1945 (The Harvill Press, UK, 2005), p. 233.
19. Ibid., p.235.
20. Bergström, Kursk: The Air Battle, July 1943; Jung, The History of Panzerregiment Grossdeutschland.
21. Hans Ulrich Rudel (trans. Lynton Hudson), Stuka Pilot (Euphorion Books, Dublin, 1952), p. 107.
22. Bergström, Kursk.
23. Bergström, Kursk.
24. Jung, The History of Panzerregiment Grossdeutschland.
25. A Soviet Front was their equivalent to a German Army Group.
26. Carrell, Hitler’s War.
27. Jung, The History of Panzerregiment Grossdeutschland.
28. See David Glantz and Jonathan House, Battle of Kursk (University of Kansas Press, 1999) and Steven H. Newton (trans. and ed.), Kursk: The German View (Da Capo Press, USA, 2002) for detailed analysis of German and Soviet casualties.
29. Bergström, Kursk.
30. Colonel T. N. Dupuy, A Genius for War The German Army and General Staff 1807–1945 (McDonald & Jones, London, 1977).