Battle of Kursk: why Russia "continues to fight" the largest tank battle in history

The victory in the largest tank battle of history against Nazi Germany in Kursk in 1943 remains a great source of pride for the Russians.

It is therefore not surprising that the Russian authorities reacted angrily to Western historians for questioning the Red Army's domination of the battlefield.

For decades, the Russians have seen no reason to doubt Soviet military historians, who had described the Prokhorovka battle on July 12, 1943 as a turning point in which the Red Army had taken the initiative to push back the Nazi defense. .

This confrontation was framed in the most extensive
Battle of Kursk from July 5 to August 23, 1943 and this was undoubtedly a turning point in the Second World War.

Soviet forces foiled a huge Nazi counter-attack after the colossal defeat of Adolf Hitler's troops at Stalingrad during the winter of 1942-1943.

But recently, the British historian Ben Wheatley badyzed aerial photos of the Prokhorovka battlefield taken by the Luftwaffe – the German air force – from July 14 to 16, while the region was still in the hands of Germany.

The photographs were in the
US National Archives UU … in College Park, Maryland.

Report in a German newspaper

Wheatley estimates, based on a detailed study of war parties and historical archives, that the Germans lost only five Panzer IV tanks to Prokhorovka on July 12, while managing to decimate entire formations. Soviet kamikaze tanks. of which more than 200 have been turned into fire leftovers.

The historian writes that dozens of Soviet T-34 tanks fell into a 4.5-meter-deep antitank ditch dug by the Soviet infantry itself and that when the Red Army realized their mistake, other T-34s started doing it. row to cross a bridge.

According to Wheatley's version, the German tanks could easily attack them there.

Wheatley and a German military historian, Karl-Heinz Frieser, are quoted in an article in the German newspaper Die Welt that reached an agreement with the Russians.

The author of the report, Sven Felix Kellerhoff, says that the evidence of Soviet humiliation in Prokhorovka is so convincing that Russia must destroy the monument that stands there in the honor of the Heroism of the crew of the Soviet tank on July 12.

The Russian ambbadador to Germany, Sergei Nechayevm, said that Kellerhoff's idea was "beyond the intelligible".

"The attempts to rewrite immutable historical facts, to falsify the events of those years, to reduce the decisive role of the Soviets in the defeat of Nazism and the liberation of Europe from the" brown plague "seem unworthy and insulting" , did he declare.

The director of the Russian Museum of Air Defense, Yuri Knutov, has described the German article as "forgery of history."

The battle of Kursk

• On July 5, 1943, the German forces launched a mbadive surprise attack to encircle Soviet forces occupying a bulge extending 160 kilometers west to the German lines.
• The battle involved about 6,000 tanks (including 2,700 Germans), two million soldiers and 4,000 aircraft.
• The German push was blocked by Soviet mines and other anti-tank defenses.
• The Russian Air Force – much improved now – played a crucial role in stopping the German artillery.
• Soviet forces regained control of the cities of Oriol and Kharkov in August of the same year.
• The victory gave the initiative of the Red Army on the Eastern Front.

Reaction of Russian legislators

Die Welt was also scandalized by the Russian Parliament.

Alexander Sherin, defense specialist in the Duma (lower house), urged the German authorities to prosecute the editor.

Sherin noted that the report "destroyed the penance of the German nation for what Nazi Germany had done".

Soviet heroism during the Second World War became an important theme for the presidency of Vladimir Putin in his aspiration to encourage Russian national pride.

There is no doubt that Soviet forces have suffered greatly in Prokhorovka, although they have progressed in other areas of the Kursk front.

Military historian Alexei Isayev told the BBC's Russian service that the Soviet losses at Prokhorovka coincided with Wheatley's calculations.

Soviet heroism during the Second World War became an important theme for the presidency of Vladimir Putin in his aspiration to encourage Russian national pride

Soviet reports speak of 237 Soviet tanks destroyed as well as 14 self-propelled weapons, said Isayev.

But he also warned that the Germans could have removed their own damaged tanks from the battlefield after July 12 and before taking aerial photographs.

In this case, they would not appear in the images Wheatley studied.

The robust tank T-34 was undoubtedly an impressive Soviet invention, the backbone of the Red Army.

But Soviet soldiers were overtaken in Kursk by the heavy German Tiger tank, dressed in armor 12 cm thick and by the new mobile machine gun Ferdinand.

The war photographer Anatoly Yegorov was at the heart of the Kursk battle. His nephew Mikhail Yegorov met with the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets and talked about what Anatoly had told him about his work in this city.

The robust T-34 tank was undoubtedly an impressive Soviet invention, the backbone of the Red Army

"Most of these photos have not been published." Do you know why there have never been any panoramic images of the Prokhorovka battlefield in our country? "M's once asked my uncle." Because for every burned Tiger, there were 10 of our T-34 destroyed! How could you publish such images in newspapers? ".

Anatoly told his nephew that a skilled Soviet elite shooter could sometimes stop a Tiger by firing at the driver through the tank's aiming slot. The crew then climbed. Almost anything else could stop a tiger.

The controversy around Prokhorovka shows how fragile the war is for the Russians, a war that has claimed the lives of more than 20 million people.

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