![]() Luftflotte 4 (4th Air Fleet) ( Otto Deßloch as both commander-in-chief and chief of staff ) - Air support for Army Group South.3rd SS Panzergrenadier Division TotenkopfĪrmy Detachment Kempf ( Werner Kempf).2nd SS Panzergrenadier Division Das Reich.1st SS Panzergrenadier Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler.Panzergrenadier Division Großdeutschland.XLVIII Panzer Corps ( Otto von Knobelsdorff).This article first appeared on July 5, 2007.2nd Panzer Army ( Erich-Heinrich Clößner) Īrmy Group South ( Erich von Manstein) Photo: Soldiers with a Tiger I of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Das Reich advance through the southern Voronezh front at the Battle of Kursk. No longer able to dictate the course of the war to an enemy that was only growing in strength, and with its own dwindling forces being siphoned off to meet threats in other theaters, Germany's fate was sealed. Kursk was where the operational initiative on the Eastern Front passed to the Red Army. With the Allied invasion of Sicily on July 11 and a new Soviet offensive beginning in the north, Hitler called off Zitadelle on July 13. Although the Soviets suffered considerably heavier losses, overall German strength was ebbing fast. ![]() The decisive engagement was fought at Prokhorovka on July 12, with German and Soviet tanks blasting away at each other from point-blank range. The heavy Tiger I also fought at Kursk, although the bulk of the German armor was composed of up-gunned Panzer IIIs and IVs. ![]() The Germans also possessed some excellent tanks ( Panzer in German) – on paper at least – particularly the Panther, which had been designed specifically to take on the T-34. The Soviets were equipped with probably the war's most consistently efficient tank, the T-34, which had given the Germans a nasty shock early in the eastern campaign. The battle that unfolded around Kursk was the apogee of tank warfare.
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