After advancing a mere eight miles, the German attack ground to a halt.

To make matters worse, the Germans were now coming under fire from ground-attack aircraft. He had survived arrest, torture and imprisonment during Stalin’s purge of army officers in 1937. Soviet Commander of the northern sector of the Kursk salient. He was mortally wounded in an attack by Ukrainian nationalists in February 1944. Launched on July 5th, Operation Citadel plans on circling and eliminating, around Kursk, the forces of the Red Army, which have moved forward too much. Soviet Commander of the southern sector of the Kursk salient.

He committed suicide at the end of the war. Nicknamed the Führer’s Fireman, Hitler considered Model one of his best generals. He had been key in the defeat of France in 1940 and, earlier in 1943, had stabilised the front after German failure at Stalingrad.Ĭommander of the northern German pincer. Between them, these four men commanded around 2.8 million men, 8,000 tanks and 4,200 aircraft…Ĭommander of the southern German pincer. The Battle of Kursk was a major World War II Eastern Front large-scale engagement between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in southwestern Russia during the late summer of 1943 it ultimately became the largest tank battle in history and resulted in a Soviet victory.

Tanks at the battle of kursk