Battle of Kursk

by Tom Zola

  “Nine one, copy that,” he confirmed, turning to the lieutenant. “Sepp, the Panzergrenadiers report: enemy resistance has been broken. The Russians are withdrawing from the village.”

  That was quick, Engelmann thought, glancing at his Swiss watch. 11:02. We’ve caught up a bit.

  “We should get ready,” Nitz forwarded the next radio message.

  “Okay. Then wake up, all of you, and put the books away!”

  Born closed his book but of course Münster snored on blissfully.

  “Hans! Wake up!” Engelmann repeated firmly. No chance – the sergeant was sound asleep. Engelmann climbed down into the belly of his tank, grabbed Born’s book and slapped Münster on the head with it. The soldier woke up in an instant and was immediately alert.

  “Man, I was just dreaming about my girlfriend,” he complained softly, rubbing his eyes.

  “Now, everybody – get ready!” Engelmann ordered. Just then a frantic voice came through the radio, filling the interior of the panzer. It was only then that the lieutenant noticed how loud it had become outside. He stuck his head through the hatch and saw the trouble they were in.

  “Russian counter-attack!” he yelled. Everybody in his tank immediately began to move. Hans started the engine, while Ludwig had already reached for the shells.

  To the left and right of the village, dozens of light and medium Soviet tanks rushed onto the plain. They tore across the land at breakneck speed, quickly shortening the distance between them and the German tanks.

  The 88-millimeter guns of the Tigers had already responded, turning some of the attacking tanks into metal scrap, but that didn’t seem to daunt their comrades.

  Ignoring their casualties, the Russian tanks tore on while constantly firing. Huge columns of dirt rained down on the Tigers and then on the panzers of III Abteilung.

  “Hans, get moving! Close in three hundred meters to the Tigers, then keep left!”

  “Copy that! Step on it, then left!“

  “The platoon shall follow us and take up attack positions on the left next to the Tiger with the perforated side skirt. We’ll tackle anything that goes for their left flank!”

  Münster accelerated, and Elfriede started moving, groaning and moaning. The whole platoon followed behind Engelmann. Radio communication among all tanks was a much underrated advantage in combat, which the Russian tankers didn’t possess. But once again they approached in numbers that made cold sweat run down the spine of every German tank crew member. There was still no end to the flood of tanks streaming over the hills and onto the flat plain. Engelmann had already counted fifty vehicles and there were still more coming. Instead of deploying shrewd tactics, they just flooded the battlefield, and in the end this tactic might even be successful. Engelmann bit on his lower lip – a little too hard, because he suddenly tasted blood. While he held onto his hatch’s rim with both hands, his mind continued to race.

  The Russian tanks just smashed right into the formation of the Tigers at full speed, forcing the Germans into a dangerous close combat. The enemy tanks formed a wide skirmish line without any flank security.

  Engelmann had an idea. “Ebbe!” he yelled into his throat microphone.

  “Sepp?” Nitz responded.

  “Radio message to the commander: Suggestion! The 9th breaks out of the Abteilung, bypasses the heavy battalion on the left side and attacks the enemy’s flank.”

  “Break out, left side, into flank, Roger!”

  “Hans, step on the gas and turn left now.”

  “Yep, Sepp.”

  Ahead of them, one Russian tank after another took a beating and turned into a bonfire of steel, gasoline and human flesh. Yet the sheer mass of enemy forces had its effect. The left track of a Tiger was torn apart after having already been hit three times in the side skirt. Then the ammunition supply of another tank exploded, lifting the turret and hurling it several feet up into the air. The heavy mass of steel crashed down next to another panzer with a loud bang, propelling soil and bushels of grass up into the air. The Tigers continued to fire while maneuvering skillfully to form a wedge so as to present their armored fronts to both Russian attack fronts that were streaming over the hills to the left and right of the village. Finally the flood of tanks to the left came to an end, but around seventy enemy tanks had already entered the open field. Armor-piercing projectiles burst between the vehicles of the III Abteilung, while the German artillery was firing full power in the background and aimed their guns almost point-blank at their visible targets. More Russian tanks – mostly T-34’s – rolled from the right onto the battlefield, but some of them went off-track and ended up in the village, where, pinned between the buildings, they were easy prey for the Panzergrenadiers. Again it became obvious that most Soviet tanks had no radios, because the Russians had apparently not yet noticed that the village was no longer under their control. Now they paid a high price for their ignorance. From all sides German soldiers stormed towards the clumsy tanks, climbed up the hulls and threw grenades through the hatches or fired through the eye slits. Mines and sticky bombs were also in high use. Engelmann could see the small dots that crept all over the enemy tanks right before the steel monsters came to a halt.

  “The old man agrees,” Nitz called out to Engelmann. His voice was almost drowned out in the fighting ruckus. “He’s giving his orders to the other platoons now.”

  Again Nitz pressed the receiver to his ear when another message came in. “1st platoon leads the raid!” he yelled.

  “As always.” Engelmann looked ahead where the forward troops of the enemy’s tank formation crashed into the rows of Tigers and fired at them. The two steel fronts jammed into each other and went for the hunt with armor-piercing rounds. That was the moment when the battle turned confusing. Dense clouds of smoke surrounded the tanks of both factions that met for a deadly dance. While the German vehicles attempted to stick together in small combat units and were thus able to keep their positions, the Russians drove around aimlessly and attacked anything within reach. The Soviets paid the price for their tactics or the lack thereof, the Germans paid equally for their lack of numbers; ten Tigers had already been hit and went up in flames. Yet the combat zone was also littered with smoldering and smoking olive-colored wrecks.

  Now the tanks of Panzer Regiment 2 also caught up with the Tigers in order to aid their big brothers. Panzer III’s and IV’s, even several Panzer II’s, joined the action and fired everything their ammunition supplies allowed for. To the right of the village, several self-propelled assault guns took up position and destroyed no fewer than three T-70 – tiny, pyramid-shaped tanks.

  “AP round!” Engelmann shouted. Born grabbed one of the shells and inserted it in the chamber.

  “Loaded!” he screamed, almost drowned out by the deafening noise of the fight. With full speed, the tanks of the 9th Company broke out of the formation of Tigers, navigated towards their left flank, then turned to the right. The command tank stayed in the wake of the 2nd Platoon. Though the motto of the German Wehrmacht was actually “leading from the front”, in light of the command vehicle’s weak tank armor and the gun that was merely a dummy, nobody blamed the company commander for doing this. At least he was present during the attack. The transmission power of his radio would have sufficed to direct his troops from the artillery positions in the back.

  “Step on it, Hans,” Engelmann ordered, and disappeared through his hatch. They were about to get into close combat, so he wanted to be sure to have at least several millimeters of armored steel around him.

  Münster steered Elfriede in a wide turn into the flank of the Russian tanks that had kept some distance between themselves and the Tigers, which provided them with the opportunity to fire at the Germans from the hills. Squinting, Engelmann peered through one of his eye slits. Now it was important to immediately eliminate the enemy forces that were already aiming their guns at 9th Company. Since the commanders of the Russian tanks were unable to communicate with each other, the Germans had the oppor
tunity to surprise and shoot at as many tanks from the side as possible.

  “Ebbe! Our platoon tackles anything that tries to stops us. Allocation of targets from left to right. The other platoons are to take care of the rest.” In combat, Engelmann sometimes turned into a company commander but he also did it because the real commander let him – and because Engelmann simply was a good company leader. Nitz’s words chased each other as he passed the orders on to the other panzers.

  “Three o’clock, eight hundred...” the lieutenant started his target address because one of the enemy tanks suddenly executed a tight turn to present his front to the 9th Company. Ludwig activated the tank’s turret traverse and aimed the barrel at the Russian tank.

  “Get rid of it!” Engelmann called out.

  Münster stopped. Ludwig fired but he missed the target. The AP projectile exploded in the grass, and tons of soil sprayed in all directions. Immediately Born loaded another shell. Laschke’s tank fired and destroyed the target while the two other tanks of the platoon were focusing on other targets to the left. In the meantime the vehicles of the company started to mingle. Panzer III’s and IV’s rolled into battle in a wild mix, deployed, and considerably cleaned out the rows of Russian tanks. Then, without forewarning, one Panzer IV of the 3rd Platoon blew up in a large detonation that turned it into a chunk of metal scrap engulfed by flames.

  “Where did that come from?” Münster groaned, but Engelmann couldn’t see anything through the narrow eye slits. At the same time all hell broke loose over the 9th Company. The German tanks were surrounded by thick columns of dirt while a Panzer III from the 2nd Platoon was hit in the road wheels, throwing its tracks off. It came to a stop and no longer moved.

  “Guards tank at eight o’clock, 1 200!” Nitz, who had just received the message over the radio, yelled.

  Shit! Engelmann moaned silently, they know the same tricks we do!

  “Turn, turn, turn!” he yelled at the top of his voice.

  “They’re Shermans!” Nitz added in an excited voice while hysterically working the adjusting screws of his radio. Münster turned the panzer around. The next tank of the 3rd Platoon was already going up in flames, while its hatches popped open and men frantically started to climb out of the death trap their tank had suddenly transformed into. Looking through his eye slits, Engelmann could clearly make out the loader whom he had shown a picture of Elly and Gudrun the day before. Now the man was crawling out of his tin can. His uniform was on fire and he threw himself onto the ground. Then the lieutenant saw the Russian tanks that had so cleverly stabbed them in the back. About fifteen Shermans – items on loans from the U.S.A. to the Soviet Union – came up behind the German panzer company. The Shermans were slim battle tanks with a broad turret that sat enthroned almost exactly in the center of the hull; their fronts and tails were slanted sharply. Engelmann had never run across these tanks on a battlefield before and didn’t really have their data at hand because he had thought that these Lend-Lease tanks were used only rarely. But rare or not – here they were, and Engelmann had to waste precious seconds checking his charts. His eyes widened in surprise: Though these tanks were not armored all that well, none of his platoon’s tanks could withstand their 75-millimeter guns – not at this distance.

  The Germans and the Russians fired, and there were casualties on both sides. Then the 9th Company got unexpected support. The artillery batteries positioned less than a mile away started to fire directly at visible targets, and today the boys were veritable sharpshooters. The first salvo tore up the side of a Sherman, blasted the turret – including the red star – of another tank away, and turned three more armored fighting vehicles into burning infernos.

  Wrecked tanks, metal scrap, and bodies burned to a crisp, were scattered all over the battlefield; and now that the Germans had destroyed seventy percent of the attacking forces, the Russians realized that they had been defeated and started to withdraw. Under fire, the Russian tanks retreated behind the hills, while the Shermans that had crept up through a thin section of forest were completely annihilated. Engelmann’s tank fired the last shot of this battle and hit the remaining Sherman right in the middle of the hull while it was trying to drive backwards into the woods. The round penetrated the armor and extinguished all life inside.

  Engelmann would have liked to lean back in his turret and take a break, but it wasn’t that simple. What was important now was to take up position again, to regroup, and to request support to look after the wounded and dead. But then the order to pursue ASAP, issued by the regimental commander, Colonel Rudolf Sieckenius, came in over the radio. Engelmann sighed.

  Of course it was sensible of Oberst Sieckenius to use the dynamics of the attack to advance directly to the hills of the south bank in the Psel River bend, but Engelmann was so exhausted from the battle that he felt like just going to sleep under his Elfriede. The lieutenant had dark rings under his eyes when he looked at his crew’s sweaty, serious faces and nodded slowly.

  “Let’s go then,” he said, faking enthusiasm and clapping his hands.

  *

  The rest of the day was one long sequence of smaller tank skirmishes. Engelmann’s unit didn’t make it as far as the goal of this stage, Prokhorovka. The forces farthest at the front were stopped right before the city limits. But they had conquered the hills west of it that were so important. The Russians had defended each one of their positions bravely and fiercely in murderous combat. Again and again small enemy tank formations had regrouped for counter-attacks and drained the energy of the 16th Panzer Division. Constant dripping wears away the stone. Above all, enemy infantry forces let themselves be overrun, over and over again, just to engage in fights with German soldiers and supply corps troops that followed on foot. For this reason Engelmann’s unit had to turn around twice to go back to places they thought they had already conquered, and fight there once again.

  In the evening they finally got the order to stop the offensive and make camp so the exhausted soldiers could rest and repair the tanks, some of which were badly damaged and most of which were out of fuel and ammunition.

  The forces of Panzer Regiment 2 alone had achieved a three-digit number of hits that day, and the Tigers could celebrate almost as many. Baffled, Engelmann shook his head and wondered where the Russians got all these tanks from.

  Yet he knew this much: Tomorrow just as many or even more enemy tanks would await them. The Russians were still rallying their armored forces near Prokhorovka.

  The 16th Panzer Division, however, was battle-weary and had already lost more than a quarter of its panzers because they were either destroyed or immobile in the workshops. The Tigers only numbered twenty-two tanks by now. Engelmann had also suffered a loss: Meyer’s tank had been hit and, apart from the radio operator, who had suffered severe burns and been taken to the field hospital, every man had been killed in action. Engelmann sighed. Here it was again, that pessimism in his heart. Suddenly he wasn’t certain at all any more whether Citadel could be brought to a successful conclusion.

  Ponyri, Soviet Union, May 5th, 1943

  Heeresgruppe Mitte – 72 kilometers north of Kursk

  The enemy’s rocket blasts had hit the reconnaissance squadron hard – especially 2nd Platoon. Claassen, their leader, was in the field hospital; and after he had already lost a leg, it was still uncertain that he would live to see another day. Staff Sergeant Schredinsky, the leader of 1st Group, was dead, as were six of his ten men. Two others were severely wounded. The attacks had been mere minutes apart – a few minutes had been enough to extinguish twenty-one lives and to cripple twenty-seven others forever. Pappendorf, the highest-ranking surviving sergeant of the platoon, was now the platoon leader of a unit that was hardly any bigger in size than a reinforced squad. He was in charge of seventeen soldiers, all of whom were enlisted men, all except for Sergeant Berning.

  *

  Berning sat at the kitchen table of an abandoned farmhouse in Ponyri and ate a sandwich of cold cuts. Next to him was Hege,
who had field-stripped his MG on the table and was cleaning its parts. He had been working on them for hours – just sitting there without saying a word, polishing the parts that were already shining. The rest of the platoon that occupied the two rooms of the cottage was silent as well.

  Some of the men were cleaning their gear or weapons; others just sat around, smoking a pipe or cigarette or eating their rations. Bongartz had already littered the wooden floor under his legs with twelve cigarette butts; his thirteenth cigarette was stuck in the corner of his mouth. Everybody was lost in thought. No one said a word. Pappendorf, however, was not here; he was in a briefing with the company commander and the other platoon leaders to discuss the further course of action. Two hours ago the reconnaissance squadron had been replaced in the front line by a reserve company, and had then proceeded to Ponyri on foot where the men would stay at least until nightfall.

  Now and then Berning looked over at Bongartz, but the lance corporal never returned his glances. Bongartz was the only one left here that Berning really knew.

  Suddenly the door opened and Pappendorf walked in, his arms behind his back. Berning noticed that the staff sergeant was not only scrubbed clean but that there was no dirt on his uniform anymore, either, and that the blood had been washed out. It had turned into pale red stains. He stood there, dressed according to regulations, clenching his teeth and eyeing his men sharply. Everybody looked up and froze. Grimy faces, glued onto soldiers whose boots were covered in mud and whose uniforms looked as if they were made of forest dirt, stared at their platoon leader. While chewing on a thick piece of bread, Berning looked at his comrades. Suddenly he noticed that Pappendorf’s eyes were focused on him again.

  Startled, Berning jumped up, realizing his mistake.