Battle of Kursk

Battle of Kursk, important battle that took place at Kursk, in western Russia, from July 5 to August 6, 1943, during World War II. Involving over 2,000,000 men and 3,000 tanks, Kursk has been called the greatest land battle in history.

Following the Wehrmacht's defeat at Stalingrad early in 1943, Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge, the German commander on the central Russian front, planned to strike at Kursk, 320 km (200 mi) south-east of Smolensk. The Kursk salient bulged deep into the German lines; for over a week von Kluge's concentration of 900,000 troops, 2,700 tanks and assault guns, 10,000 artillery pieces, and 2,000 aircraft battered from both north and south at the Soviet defences in an attempt to cut them off from the rest of the line. In furious fighting, the effective new anti-tank guns of the Soviet generals Konstantin Rokossovski (commanding on the northern edge of the salient) and Nikolai Vatutin (to the south) destroyed about 40 per cent of the German armour. On July 12, a counter-attack by Soviet general Markian Popov's army at Orel, 160 km (100 mi) north of Kursk, obliged von Kluge to abandon his tank attack on July 13; and by August 5 his defeat was confirmed by the Russian capture of Orel.

The battle of Kursk was to be the last general Nazi offensive on the central Eastern Front: it cost Hitler over 100,000 men, and irreparable losses to his previously invincible tank divisions.