attacks, operating to the east. Hitler also finally released XXIV Panzer Corps to Manstein—but not for use at the field marshal’s discretion. Any successes against Soviet forces in Manstein’s sector were to be utilized only for breaking contact and withdrawing forces for use elsewhere. Operation Citadel was to be concluded forthwith. Manstein’s new mission was to prepare his army group to meet a major Russian offensive farther south, in the Donets Basin region, whose resources Hitler considered vital to the Reich’s war effort.
That prospect was far down Manstein’s list of concerns. The conference had reflected a significant shift in the opinions of the two field marshals involved. Kluge had been a leading advocate of Citadel in its planning stages. Now he made obvious his conviction that it was time to fold the hand. The Ninth Army had failed to break through, and the chances of its ever succeeding were receding almost by the hour. The Russian attack on the Orel salient, on the contrary, was succeeding all too well. Manstein, who had expressed consistent doubt when Kursk was on the drawing board, now spoke as though confident of victory, with XXIV Panzer Corps to be its instrument. Manstein had sought since the beginning to convince Hitler that Citadel must be an all-or-nothing proposition—no bets hedged, even if it meant putting the Donets Basin at risk. Kluge finished the job by reiterating that there was no way the Ninth Army could hope to resume the offensive at Kursk. Rather than even holding its present positions, the Ninth was going to have to retreat in the coming days.
This was a game Hitler had played like a champion since his political career began: bring opposing viewpoints together, let the proponents exhaust themselves, and hold back his decision until it was a welcome end to gridlock—and until the unhappiness of one party was balanced by the other party’s sense of having won the Fuhrer to its point of view. The conference ended with Hitler repeating his decision to shut down Citadel, adding that he was acting as well in response to the escalating requirements of the Mediterranean theater.
By then it was too late in the day for either commander to return to his army group. They joined Rommel in the headquarters guesthouse for what Manstein’s aide described as a convivial evening, with enough good wine to loosen tongues and invite confidences. Kluge was the first to retire. His evening benediction was to declare that the end would be bad and to announce his willingness to serve under Manstein in an implied consequence of that catastrophe. Rommel lingered, and as the wine continued to circulate he also predicted “the whole house of cards” would collapse. Manstein replied that Hitler would resign the supreme command before that happened. Rommel said Hitler would never give up command. When Manstein stood up, preparing to exit, Rommel too declared himself “prepared to serve” under him.
Turning to the wider issues raised in the marshals’ discussion, the relationships of the participants to the German resistance are outside the scope of this work. It is nevertheless appropriate to contextualize this exchange with an increasing number of similar ones taking place in 1943. In the seventeenth century a Scottish general declared, “He either fears his fate too much / Or his deserts are small / That dares not put it to the touch / To win or lose it all.” The point is clear, though the Earl of Montrose was referring to love, not war. Suggestive as well is the fable of the mouse who fell into a barrel of whiskey and emerged licking his whiskers and slurring, “Bring on that [expletive deleted] cat!”
If Manstein was conscious of having been nominated to bell the beast, he gave no sign of it upon returning to his headquarters on July 13. Erich von Manstein is arguably the first great captain since Julius Caesar to define his own place in history through his writing.
The real Manstein was proud to the point of hubris. He knew his worth to the last reichsmark. In the Crimea, at Stalingrad, and during the following months, he had developed in his own mind into the Reich’s master of lost causes: creating triumph when others saw only disaster. He attended and departed Hitler’s latest conference believing he could once again restore a desperate situation on his terms. His approach to evaluating the results of July 13 in the sector of Army Group South was a logical extension of that premise.
III
Across the battle line, Vatutin’s headquarters had been doing the same thing, albeit with less righteous certainty. Vatutin was all too aware that the SS had held their ground, and even gained ground, against the best and the most Voronezh Front could throw at them. He was equally aware that the Germans were digging in along their front, but that did not preclude further offensive operations. Late in the afternoon of July 12 he and Vasilevsky, still at Rotmistrov’s headquarters, compared notes. They agreed the best response was to maintain pressure. Vatutin’s orders for July 13 tasked Voronezh Front with forestalling what he considered the most likely German initiatives. Specifically, the front’s armies were to prevent reinforcements from reaching Prokhorovka, to destroy the Psel bridgehead and the forward units of III Panzer Corps, and to continue attacking in the Oboyan sector. How all this was to be done given the losses of July 11–12 was not specified. Typical was Vatutin’s injunction to the commander of the Fifth Guards Army not to shift to the defensive prematurely. Measures were being taken to destroy the enemy; until they should be implemented, Fifth Guards’s pressure in its sector would yield a great deal. Therefore, act with more energy—and by implication, trust the system!
Vatutin also informed Stalin that no fewer than eleven German tank divisions had been concentrated in his sector. Despite that massive opposition, Voronezh Front had held its ground and inflicted heavy casualties. Encircling and destroying what remained would constitute a major defeat for the Hitlerites. That, however, would require a greater superiority of force than the front possessed. Vatutin requested reinforcements: a tank and a mechanized corps, plus a full corps of Shturmoviks. The request was countersigned by Nikita Khrushchev.
By all accounts, Stalin was not pleased. Stavka had been pouring resources into Voronezh Front since Citadel began. Rokossovsky had successfully made do with bits and pieces. The Vozhd responded by sending Zhukov by air and Vasilevsky by car to Vatutin’s headquarters. Konev, whose Steppe Front would be first in line to provide the requested support, was also present at the resulting council of war in the early morning of July 13. That was an unusual concentration of alpha personalities and high-profile talent out of Stalin’s direct reach, even at this stage of the war. The stated purpose of the meeting was to coordinate Voronezh and Steppe Fronts’ roles in future offensive operations. Unstated but implied was a parallel task: evaluating, and if necessary sorting out, the immediate situation. The result was a stated intention to mount a counteroffensive on the heels of the retreating enemy. The necessity was first to compel that retreat. Zhukov ordered energetic counterattacks to keep the Germans off balance. Neither he nor Vatutin, however, specified how the army and corps commanders were to implement the process. Unstated but clear enough was the general recognition that Voronezh Front, and the Fifth Guards Tank Army in particular, would need some time, at least a day or so, to regroup and refit.
That last was the highest priority for Rotmistrov’s tankers. Removing disabled tanks was handicapped by the lack of specialized recovery vehicles. Generally, tanks were used for this work, to the detriment of their own engines and transmissions. Across the front, the Germans were able to recover or demolish most of the tanks that lay between the lines. As for maintenance, welding equipment and machine tools were in short supply, making it difficult to repair even simple parts. There were no breakdown teams in forward units, so mechanics had to be taken from repair jobs to supervise stripping parts from disabled vehicles. Major repairs, to engines, guns, turrets, were carried out at tank corps level. These depots were manned by trained mechanics, many of them uniformed civilians from tank factories. However, they were inexperienced in working under field conditions. Overnight, for example, the 29th Tank Corps was able to repair only four of its fifty-five knocked-out tanks and assault guns by the next morning. Nor could replacements be brought forward quickly from depots that lay as far as two hundred miles to the rear.
Militarily, the night of July 12–13 was quiet in the SS sector. Violent thunderstorms provided most of the flash and noise; small and cautious patrols did most of the shooting. Cooks and first sergeants did what they could to provide hot food and coffee to men falling asleep on their feet. Officially and unofficially, alcohol was becoming standard issue to combat what today would be diagnosed as ongoing traumatic stress.
That point has been made so often, in this account and in most other discussions of the Eastern Front, that it risks validating the Wehrmacht meme that German soldiers were at a more refined stage of mental and
