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 emotional development than the brutish Slavs they confronted. To a significant degree, Russian mythology contributes to the trope by stressing the Soviet soldier’s toughness: his unique ability to endure and overcome any conditions he faced.
Alleged racial/cultural differences were far less relevant than the fact that the consequences of combat exhaustion were more salient for the Germans than the Russians. Russian doctrine was based on control from above. At the sharp end, what was ultimately important was the will to obey. The Germans, on the other hand, were forced to compensate for numerical and material inferiority by intangibles: flexibility, initiative, situational awareness. Blunted by stress and fatigue, they could not readily compensate. A company commander in Leibstandarte’s reconnaissance battalion presented his mental state in a diary entry written several days later: “I couldn’t deal with it. It was too much for me. The mental pressure threatened to tear me apart…. I don’t want to list all the dead here…. How old our men have become.”
Wehrmacht mythology has Hitler living in a world of shadows and abstractions. How many corps, army, and army group commanders as well were by the time of Citadel acting on their own illusions about the men they kept ordering forward? How many plans were based on the half-conscious subtext that “the boys up front” could make anything work? These are by no means rhetorical questions. The Soviets facing Manstein had been badly shaken by the fighting on July 11–12. But any chance of exploiting their condition depended on the kind of smoothly working German response that would not only regain the initiative, but shorten reaction times and exacerbate stress points across the battle line. Was that still possible?
The answer began emerging on Totenkopf’s front. During the night, Rotmistrov had reinforced the Psel sector with two brigades of his 5th Guards Mechanized Corps and the 6th Guards Airborne Division, fresh from reserve. There was no time for the usual camouflage, and German reconnaissance aircraft duly noted and reported the newcomers’ presence and positions. Then at 9:30 A.M., Totenkopf informed Hausser that the panzer group still could not be resupplied because of the road conditions. This neat example of delaying bad news and hoping for a miracle was especially significant because Totenkopf’s tanks had been under increasingly heavy attack since dawn. Should the Russians break through, the Psel bridgehead was a matter of yards rather than miles away. Division ordered a retreat—back to Hill 226.6, still a charnel house from the previous day’s fighting. Its garrison of panzer grenadiers was promptly hit by Rotmistrov’s two fresh tank brigades.
The SS fought as hard to hold the hill as they had to capture it, but the Russians kept coming. By 11:15 A.M., the tough Guardsmen had forced the defenders down the reverse slope. With heavy rainstorms blinding artillery observers and grounding Stukas, the way to the Psel bridges seemed open. But minutes later—three minutes by Russian reports—the armor appeared. One of Totenkopf’s tank battalions had managed to take on enough ammunition to reenter the fight. Its guns did just enough damage to halt a Soviet thrust that itself had been bled white on Hill 226.6. A counterattack caught the Soviets before they could consolidate, splitting the infantry from their supporting tanks. By 12:30 P.M., Hill 226.6 was back in German hands. By 3:00 P.M., the Russians had been pushed back almost to their original start lines. Some idea of the day’s shock and frustration is indicated by a Soviet tank corps report describing an attack by no fewer than thirty-three Tigers—more than the whole army group could field—and listing as trophies of the day one machine gun and a lone machine pistol.
Events on Totenkopf’s left took a similar, no less dramatic course. In that sector, a Russian battle group overran a panzer grenadier battalion and made for the bridges. Totenkopf threw in its half-track panzer grenadier battalion as a tank substitute. Its desperate charge scattered the Soviet infantry and confused the tanks, relieved the overrun battalion, then itself foundered against hastily emplaced antitank guns. A second Russian wave, supported by Shturmoviks and another of the sophisticated barrages the Red Army artillery was now capable of unleashing on small scales, ran into a battery of hull-down assault guns that held long enough for Totenkopf’s tank battalion and an antitank battery to add their high-velocity guns to the defense. The antitank gunners, manning a dozen open-topped, lightly armored, highly vulnerable vehicles, were credited with thirty-eight T-34s by the end of the day.
At 6:45 P.M., Totenkopf informed SS Panzer Corps headquarters that the Russian breakthroughs had been halted, the division was reoccupying its former positions, and the Luftwaffe was still nowhere to be seen. The rain and overcast skies had not kept the Shturmoviks from incessant attacks on the bridges and the supply columns struggling to cross them, but their successes were harassing rather than decisive. As the skies cleared in the early evening, German fighters reemerged. Tactically, it had been a good day for Totenkopf. The bridgehead was intact. Over sixty Russian tanks littered the killing grounds. Hill 226.6 was in SS hands. The Russians had been sufficiently hurt that a tank brigade and an assault gun regiment were entirely withdrawn.
Operationally, however, July 13 in the Psel sector was somewhere between a disaster and a catastrophe. SS Panzer Corps’s movements had been predicated on Totenkopf’s breakout from the bridgehead. Instead, the division had been fought to a near standstill just to stay where it was. The last of its Tigers had been bogged down or disabled. And lest the day’s events be considered an aberration, an intercepted Soviet dispatch declared that the bridgehead must be taken at all costs. Based on recent experience, that order was best interpreted literally. During the night, Russian ground patrols and their harassing aircraft seemed everywhere. Mortar, artillery, and rocket fire deluged forward positions and rear echelons. Just before midnight, corps headquarters confirmed the obvious and ordered Totenkopf to hold its positions against all attacks. Any renewed German offensive would have to be sparked by someone else, somewhere else.
That someone else would not be Leibstandarte. Its positions came under air and artillery attack at daylight. An attempt by the reconnaissance battalion to make contact with Totenkopf was stopped almost immediately. Then the Soviet attacks began. Rotmistrov had ordered a start time of 8:00 A.M. His forward units, still stunned from the day before, were slow off the mark and poorly coordinated; they made no headway. At 11:40 A.M., Rotmistrov informed Vatutin that the SS seemed to be preparing a major attack for the next day and
strongly hinted that he wished to suspend operations and prepare an appropriate reception. Vatutin called the Fifth Guards Tank Army’s offensive essential and ordered it continued, promising air support.
Rotmistrov saluted electronically, then spent the rest of the day shadowboxing. So did Hausser. His initial attack orders for Das Reich were frustrated internally by “administrative delays”: a euphemism for everybody still shaking off the previous forty-eight hours. After token gains of ground, Das Reich halted for the day. Das Reich’s commander declared himself unwilling to order a full-scale attack without appropriate preparation and air support—a fairly emphatic gesture of defiance, especially in the Waffen SS. Fourth Panzer Army’s daily report described II SS Panzer Corps as repelling heavy, tank-supported infantry attacks. It mentioned Totenkopf’s withdrawals. It also, however, described ground reconnaissance reports of a Soviet retreat from what seemed an exploitable pocket developing between Breith’s advancing corps and Das Reich. Though unverified by the Luftwaffe, this at least suggested an opportunity. If Das Reich made one more effort, and if Nehring’s panzer corps came up behind them, and if Breith did his part closing the gap with Army Detachment Kempf … well, who knew? One last throw of the dice had decided many a battle for Prussia and Germany, ever since Fehrbellin in 1675.
Manstein too was looking to Army Group South’s flanks. The XLVIII Panzer Corps, variously and legitimately described as dazed and mechanical, had spent July 13 regrouping, patrolling north, and shoring up its trailing left flank. On the right, the forward elements of III Panzer Corps were less than nine miles from Prokhorovka on the night of July 12. The 7th Panzer Division was stalemated and pinned. The 6th Panzer was down to fourteen tanks at day’s end. But the corps as a whole mustered sixty-two, including half a dozen Tigers. With 7th Panzer covering the flank, 6th and 19th Panzer Divisions went forward on the morning of July 13, gaining ground slowly in the teeth of a well-coordinated “shield and sword” defense: frontline infantry fighting—almost literally—to the last man, supported by armored counterstrikes that repeatedly set the Germans back on their heels. The defenders’ tactics differed from the Red Army’s norm for Citadel in that there had not been time to prepare more than rudimentary defensive positions. Instead the intention was to stop the Germans by inflicting unsupportable losses in the open. The tankers and riflemen of Trufanov’s task force did not fall short by much. When the fighting died down, III Panzer Corps was nowhere near in any of its divisional sectors to a junction with the SS around Prokhorovka.
From Manstein’s perspective on his return from Rastenburg, none of these developments stopped him from translating the general intention he had developed over the few previous days into a revised plan. Although July 13 might seem a lost day, if Army Group South had been able to catch its breath, time remained—and time was vital. The XLVIII Panzer Corps and the SS would still carry the main burden, but in a new direction: driving north to Oboyan, then shifting west, and crushing the Russians along the Psel. But for that attack to succeed, a continuous, solid front to the east/northeast was necessary. In other words, III Panzer Corps must not merely link up with the SS, but take over its southern positions, allowing Das Reich in particular to add muscle to the drive on Oboyan. And that would require finishing the Russians south of Prokhorovka, specifically the Sixty-ninth Army and the tank units that had just reinforced it.
The plan was christened Operation Roland: perhaps a semiconscious reference to the Carolingian paladin mythologized for a forlorn-hope operation in the Pass of Roncevaux. The XLVIII Panzer Corps pulled itself together on the night of July 13 for one more effort. Totenkopf’s reconnaissance battalion had established tenuous contact with 11th Panzer Division but had been strained to its limits on July 13 holding its own positions. The chances of meaningful support from the SS were correspondingly nil. As was increasingly the case, a disproportionate hope and a disproportionate burden were placed on an elite formation. Once again it was Grossdeutschland’s turn to carry the flag—and the can.
The division’s orders for July 14 were to shift its axis left and cooperate with 3rd Panzer Division in enveloping Oboyan from the west. This turned out to be an old story on a different page. Grossdeutschland, which had reassembled most of its elements during July 13, attacked at 4:00 A.M. into a wasteland of shattered trees, burning underbrush, and random minefields—and into the teeth of Fifth Guards Tank Corps and 10th Tank Corps. Grossdeutschland’s intention was for its armored battle group to skirt the western edge of the devastated forest and continue north. A second battle group, built around the division’s assault gun battalion, would flank the forest from the opposite direction. As soon as Grossdeutschland’s leading elements crossed their start lines, however, they came under heavy fire from Soviet tanks, then faced an assault across ground supposed to be controlled by 3rd Panzer. That division, ordered and expected to go forward on Grossdeutschland’s left, began its attack at 7:00 A.M., encountered a minefield, and lost two tanks. Unsupported, the panzer grenadiers were unable to crack the Russian defenses. “Requested” by Grossdeutschland to shape up and close up, 3rd Panzer’s headquarters called for air support. The response was that the Stukas were otherwise engaged.
A Soviet counterattack drove the 3rd’s riflemen back as the tanks evaded the minefield, only to be immobilized in a mudflat. The 3rd Panzer shouldered forward against increasingly heavy opposition. The Luftwaffe now went all out to help. Heinkel 111s of VIII Air Corps were diverted from their normal targets in the rear echelons to support the panzers directly and did especially accurate work bombing just ahead of 3rd Panzer’s attack. Half a dozen of the increasingly scarce Stukas were shot down by Soviet fighters and light flak. Not until late afternoon, however, did the division’s 3rd Panzer Grenadier Regiment close in on the Russian positions around Hill 258.5. And not until 6:30 P.M. did it capture the objective and finally clear the way for Grossdeutschland.
That division’s advance had been thrown on its heels around 11:00 A.M. by a surprise tank-infantry attack with devastating rocket and artillery support. A battalion of the 332nd Infantry Division, ordered forward to take over ground presumably occupied by Grossdeutschland’s panzers, found empty space. Corps headquarters had lost contact with Grossdeutschland’s headquarters. It was 5:30 P.M. before the advance resumed, helped as much by 3rd Panzer’s initiative as from any fresh internal momentum. The forward elements immediately came under fire from local Russian reserves hastily redeployed. Gains averaged a little over a mile—a long way from the morning’s expectations. The XLVIII Panzer Corps had failed. The 3rd Panzer was a spent force. Grossdeutschland was almost as badly worn. Only a handful of Panthers remained operational or repairable. Aircrew losses included two Gruppe commanders, one with seventy-eight fighter victories and the other with seventy Stuka sorties.
The First Tank Army was staggering but had done its job. On July 13, Vatutin visited Katukov’s headquarters and extended congratulations all around. The army, he declared, deserved Guards status for its work since July 5. In fact, he had already submitted the recommendation. That was the good news. The bad news was that while First Tank might hope for reinforcements, Stavka had decided: Not one man, not one vehicle. That meant repairing damaged tanks and returning lightly wounded to their units, both as quickly as possible. Then Vatutin concluded with the other good news: First Tank Army was to be withdrawn into reserve and begin preparing for its future role in the great summer offensive.
At 10:00 A.M. on July 16, Vatutin ordered Voronezh Front to “go over to the stubborn defense of its current lines.” That sentence reflects the difference ten days had made in the tactical, operational, and strategic situations on the Eastern Front. The Russians were able to replace their battle-worn formations and able to hold ground as opposed to attacking across it. And one of Manstein’s projected windows of opportunity was closed.
IV
Vatutin and Rotmistrov were no less anxious about the situation on their left flank than Manstein and Kempf w
ere hopeful. The advance of III Panzer Corps had been on a northeast axis that left the Sixty-ninth Army and its reinforcements caught in a narrow salient between Breith’s panzers and Das Reich, with limited maneuver room and a chance of being cut off at the salient’s base. Vatutin’s initial orders for July 14 were for the Sixty-ninth and Fifth Guards Tank Armies to destroy the Germans. Stavka-pleasing rhetoric out of the way, the real mission was to above all prevent a breakthrough on either flank of the newly created salient. Voronezh Front backed its words by reinforcing the Sixty-ninth Army with a number of artillery, antitank, and Katyusha units. But its rhetoric of attack was challenged by reports from the front line. The 81st Guards Rifle Division was typical. It described its men as physically exhausted, without food and water for as long as three days, a fifth of them unarmed. Another rifle division reported such a shortage of horses that it had been forced to abandon eight guns and a quarter of its artillery ammunition.
Such statements read like excuses to political officers. Efforts to restore discipline included, again, creating blocking detachments of “thoroughly checked” officers and men, with the assignment of “detaining” everyone moving to the rear without authorization and sending them back. By July 17, almost seven thousand shirkers had been accounted for. Enough men remained in the ranks, however, to hold ground tenaciously and give ground stubbornly on Breith’s sector throughout July 14.
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