The Battle of Kursk
University Press of Kansas, 1999

Could the Germans have won at Kursk, or was it a desperate, doomed offensive? Several recent books have challenged the popular image of a German panzer armada lost on a futile death ride, and asserted that a real chance for victory fumbled by Hitler's premature order to halt the offensive.

This and other questions may never be fully answered 57 years after the fact. But the most definitive version we are likely to get will probably come from that guru of East Front historians, David Glantz. Along with co-author Jonathan House, Glantz has put together perhaps the most comprehensive look at one of the most crucial battles in history.

Although still overshadowed by more colorful - and ultimately less significant - battles such as Normandy and the Bulge, the broad outlines of Kursk are fairly well-known. Regrouping and rebuilding from the Stalingrad disaster, the Germans rebuilt their panzers and - despite the qualms of some generals -- sent nearly a million men and 3,000 tanks in a pincers movement against the Kursk salient in July 1943. But the Soviets had turned the salient into a fortress, and filled it with two million men and 4,000 tanks. They waited until the Germans beat their heads bloody against the Russian defenses, and then followed up with a massive counteroffensive that sent the Germans reeling. It was the ultimate slugfest, an Armageddon fought between two implacably totalitarian regimes in the heat and dust of a Russian summer.

But this was a drama that many critics say could have had a different ending. What if Hitler had attacked in May instead of waiting until July for the new Tiger and Panther tanks to arrive, thus giving the Soviets time to fortify their positions? What if Hitler had not called off the attack after the climactic tank battle of Prokhorovka, and rushed his elite SS troops to fend off an Allied landing in Italy or the Soviet counteroffensive at Orel?

Glantz tackles these questions, or at least provides enough reams of data for the reader to form his own judgement. For example, he concludes that the Germans lacked the strength to follow up Von Manstein's successful spring counterstroke with a May offensive at Kursk. And while the authors agree with recent assessments that the Soviets took far more of a beating than the SS panzers at Prokhorovka (a far smaller tank battle than the titanic clash of legend), their work suggests the folly of Von Manstein's plea to continue the attack and possibly achieve an encirclement. Taking Kursk would have been an achievement, but frittering away reserves while the Russian counterattack blasted through Orel and Belgorod would have been a disaster.

Most interesting is Glantz's challenge to the conventional notion that Hitler was a fool for attacking a heavily fortified salient where the defenders outnumbered the attackers. Previous Nazi offensives had always overcame Soviet defenses and numerical superiority, and whatever their qualms about the overall attack, "even the most pessimistic German general presumed German forces could easily penetrate Soviet tactical and operational defenses," the authors note. This book makes clear that the confidence of German generals was mirrored by the fear of Stalin's commanders that the Wehrmacht could pull off its usual wizardry. The Germans were not irrational to assume that Soviet skill had not improved - they were merely wrong.

However, while this book briefly addresses the what-if questions, that is not its focus. The Battle of Kursk is a typical Glantz book, long on mind-numbing detail and sometimes short on analysis. Of nearly 500 pages, almost half consists of orders of battle, notes and the text of key German and Soviet orders. As usual, what distinguishes Glantz's work is the exacting, day-by-day charting of the battle and especially his (so far) unique access to once-secret Soviet archives. This is a book that is truly authoritative.

Too bad that it also is truly colorless. Kursk was as dramatic fight as can be imagined, two ruthless and relentless armies locked in a titanic death match. Yet Glantz's prose is colorless, rendered in the dry language of a staff report. Even with the text liberally sprinkled with anecdotes from those who fought, this book is exciting because of its topic rather than its writing.

Still, the details that emerge from such thoroughness often are fascinating. It becomes clear that however the Tiger-tipped SS succeeded in driving a narrow wedge at Prokhorovka, the flanking panzer divisions could not keep up. In fact, the panzers had to do most of the work, because the infantry lacked the strength to screen their flank, as one German general noted.

This book also should bury the myth of the stumbling, bumbling Russian colossus. The Battle of Kursk proves how far the Soviets had come from the disasters of 1941, and just how sophisticated their commanders had become. From Stalin and Zhukov on down, the Red Army meticulously prepared for the onslaught of an enemy whose blitzkriegs had always been victorious in the past. It learned from mistakes such as the overly ambitious and overextended Stalingrad campaign, realizing that "sufficient forces had to be assembled to conduct and sustain the strategic effort throughout its entire duration and to the full depth of Soviet strategic offensives." When the Soviets struck, they struck hard and in mass. They waited until the Germans had exhausted themselves, and counterpunched with an offensive that never really stopped until red flags flew over Berlin.

For more information on this book, contact University Press of Kansas at http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/.

Copyright 2000 The Military Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

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