Armor and Blood

operation until early July.

While the Fuhrer delayed, the soldiers moved. In Model’s sector, XX Corps, with four infantry divisions, would hold down the Ninth Army’s right flank. Next came XLVI Panzer Corps. It had only a few tanks under command, but its four infantry divisions were as good as any in Russia and expected to fight their way deeply enough into the Russian defenses to draw their reserves away from Model’s Schwerpunkt. That was provided by XLVII Panzer Corps: three panzer divisions and another good infantry division, commanded by Lieutenant General Joachim Lemelsen, who had commanded mobile troops since 1938 and had no illusions about what he was expected to do. Next to Lemelsen was another panzer corps: Josef Harpe’s XLI. With the 18th Panzer Division, two infantry divisions, and several battalions of heavy armored vehicles, Harpe’s corps was Lemelsen’s left shoulder, to cover his advance and develop his success. The XXIII Corps, which concluded Model’s sector to the east, was tasked with mounting a secondary attack toward the town of Maloarkhangelsk. It had two infantry divisions and a one-of-a-kind “assault division,” an experimental formation whose strong component of antitank guns would make it possible for the corps to hold any positions captured. In reserve were three mobile divisions, two panzer and one panzer grenadier (motorized infantry with some armored half-tracks). These were under Kluge’s control, not Model’s, and would be committed only when the breakthrough was secured.

Model thus commanded in total around 335,000 men, six hundred tanks, and three hundred assault guns. These were tank chassis with guns mounted in the hull. Their heavier caliber made up for limited traverse compared with their turreted counterparts. There were no Panthers, and a single Tiger battalion would join Lemelsen’s corps only at the start of the attack. As compensation, Model received two battalions of Ferdinands: 88 mm assault guns built on the chassis of a Tiger design rejected for production. Often dismissed by critics because of their bulk and because they lacked machine guns for close defense, the Ferdinands drew no criticism from their crews or the infantry, who welcomed their big guns as tank killers and bunker busters.

The Second Army held the salient’s nose. With seven understrength infantry divisions and fewer than a hundred thousand men, it was assigned no role in Citadel beyond maintaining the link between the Ninth Army and Army Group South—which was configured to do the heavy lifting. Model’s deployment reflected what was expected: a straightforward collision of men and tanks, with the Germans essentially muscling their way through the Russian defenses. Hermann Hoth’s Fourth Panzer Army had to perform a trifecta: break in, break through, and break out into the rear of the salient.

To do it, Hoth had almost a quarter million men, including some of the best troops in the German army. Hoth formed his Schwerpunkt by allotting the left half of his sector to LII Corps and its three infantry divisions. In the center, XLVIII Panzer Corps had an infantry division as maid of all work, two panzer divisions, and the elite Grossdeutschland Division (GD). Designated a panzer grenadier, or mechanized infantry, division, Grossdeutschland was configured as a full-fledged panzer division and was at the head of the Wehrmacht’s list for replacements and equipment. The corps also included an independent tank brigade with no fewer than two hundred brand-new Panthers, giving it a total of around six hundred armored fighting vehicles. Next to XLVIII was an arguably even more formidable instrument of war. The SS Panzer Corps had three divisions, 1st Leibstandarte, 2nd Das Reich, and 4th Totenkopf: the pick of the litter in Heinrich Himmler’s already metastasizing Waffen SS. They had fought separately until assembled for Manstein’s counteroffensive in early 1942, and earned reputations as warriors who never expected quarter and gave it only when convenient. Designated panzer grenadier divisions, they were panzer formations in all but name: the corps had around five hundred tanks and assault guns, including forty-two Tigers, and each division had six panzer grenadier battalions —two more than their army counterparts.

Neither Otto von Knobelsdorff of XLVIII Panzer Corps nor Paul Hausser of SS Panzer Corps—the corps’s official title was changed to II SS Panzer Corps in June, but the original title remained in common use during Citadel—particularly stood out among the senior panzer officers as tacticians. The British phrase “good plain cooks” is not damnation with faint praise here. But both had reputations as soldiers’ generals with the decorations to prove it, and Citadel did not look like the kind of battle that would offer much opportunity for finesse. Should that quality be required, Hoth had an ample supply of it. In the spring of 1943, he was the most experienced, and in many judgments the best, army-level commander of mobile forces in the German army. He had led a corps and a panzer group in 1940–1941, survived Hitler’s purge in the winter of 1941–42, taken over the Fourth Panzer Army in June 1942, and taken it to Stalingrad and beyond in a series of virtuoso performances that impressed even Manstein. And through all that, his men called him “Pop” (Vati). Much depended on him. Hermann Hoth expected to deliver.

Army Detachment Kempf stood on Hoth’s right. This was an ad hoc formation above a corps but below an army. It had nine divisions by early July, three of them panzers in III Panzer Corps commanded by another “comer,” Hermann Breith. Werner Kempf was the right man to oversee Breith’s debut in high command. He had led a brigade, a division, and a corps well enough to be promoted to the ad hoc force bearing his name in early 1943. Manstein trusted him: as good a recommendation as any tank man might wish. Kempf’s detachment was originally intended as a blocking force, but its role grew as it became apparent that the defenses on its front might be a little less formidable than those facing Model and Hoth. Breith’s corps added an infantry division, then a Tiger battalion, to its original strength of more than three hundred armored fighting vehicles (AFVs)—a formidable strike force in its own right, able to create opportunities as well as exploit them.

Army Group South had reserves as well: an army panzer division and the 5th SS Panzer Grenadier Division Wiking. But with only around a hundred tanks between them, they were more derringer than belt gun: better able to restore positions or exploit situations than to turn the tide of battle by themselves. They came, moreover, with a string attached. The Army High Command had to approve their commitment—a virtual guarantee of delay and distraction under conditions demanding Manstein’s total concentration.

By this time, what “wave” a German infantry division belonged to was more or less irrelevant. The ones assigned to spearhead the offensive usually had solid cadres of veterans and as many replacements and as much new equipment as the overstretched rear echelons could provide. As late as mid-May, fewer than four hundred recruits and convalescents had on average reached Model’s divisions. They would go into action as much as 20 percent under strength—a level even higher in the rifle companies. Training was another problem. Attacking the kinds of positions mushrooming in the Kursk salient was a specialized craft, and field commanders were willing enough to trade the offensive’s repeated delays for a chance to improve training and increase firepower, giving their men a better chance in the close-quarters fighting to be expected.

The mobile troops were no less weary. By the end of the winter fighting, the eighteen panzer divisions in the East were down to around six hundred tanks. “Motorized” battalions were moving on foot and by wagon. Friedrich von Mellenthin, XLVIII Panzer Corps’s chief of staff, widely accepted in postwar years as a final authority on mobile operations, declared that “hardened and experienced” panzer divisions were ready for another battle as soon as the ground dried. But Mellenthin was a staff officer: a bit removed from the sharp end. Hoth informed Manstein on March 21 that men who had been fighting day and night for months now expected a chance to rest. Even hard-charging regiment and division commanders had to drive instead of lead because of widespread apathy in the ranks.

Staff officers and line officers alike were openly critical of Citadel’s repeated postponements. But delaying the attack provided the breathing space, the Verschnaufpause, the Germans so badly needed. It gave the newcomers a chance to shake down and the old hands a chance to relax. Gerd Schmuckle, who would end a long and checkered military career as deputy commander of NATO in Europe, in 1943 was a junior officer in a panzer division. His memoirs nostalgically recall elaborate alfresco dinner parties, friendly Russian peasants, visits to the Kharkov opera—and one particular ballerina. There was even time to put on a show for a delegation of Turkish officers: clean shaves, clean uniforms, and all medals on display, with a cameraman on hand to record a Tiger put through its paces for the benefit of the Reich’s newsreels.

The backdrop for all this was a buildup like few had ever experienced. Reactions, even among the cynics and grumblers, oddly resembled those widespread in the British Expeditionary Force in the weeks before the Battle of the Somme in 1916. This time, there was just too much of everything for anything to go seriously wrong!

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