5 July 1943 year - exactly 75 years ago - began one of the largest battles in human history - the Battle of Kursk. This battle is fairly true historians among the key in the Great Patriotic War. The Battle of Kursk in the end led to the final transition of the strategic initiative in the war the Red Army, pursuers enemy to Berlin, Vienna and Konigsberg.
By the time the Battle of Kursk, to which Hitler's troops had high expectations in terms of seize the initiative after the defeat at Stalingrad, gathered enormous manpower and resources on both sides. According to conservative estimates, on both sides of the front in the Kursk Bulge area converged more 2 million army personnel. It was used more 7 thousands of tanks and self-propelled guns, excluding reserves. Over 4 thousands of planes.
The Battle of Kursk was composed of three major steps, the first stage of which was to contain the offensive strike Wehrmacht, bore the name "Citadel". Defensive operations of Soviet troops lasted from 5 by 23 July, clicking in the second and third stages - Orlovskaya Kharkov and Belgorod-operation. These strategic operations completed the rout of the enemy, loss on the basis of which the entire Battle of Kursk to 23 August 1943 totaled more 100 thousand. dead and missing and about half a million wounded. Losses in military equipment - to 2,9 thousands of tanks and self-propelled guns, and not less than 1,6 thousand. Flight.
One of the most dramatic events of the Battle of Kursk can be regarded as the greatest tank battle in history - the Battle of Prokhorovka. On the exact losses of the Red Army and Hitler's forces during the battle of the historians still argue, providing a variety of arguments in favor of one or another version.
From the memoirs Georgy Zhukov about the Battle of Kursk:
He did not see, that the failure of a major strategic operation not only depends on commanders, and it is determined mainly by a large amount of military and strategic, political, moral and material factors.
All these factors, multiplied by the heroism of the Soviet soldiers, and led to, that at Kursk Hitler's army was defeated and could no longer organize a serious counter-offensive.
as a reminder – neat rows of obelisks with the names of those, who came to the Russian land for its conquest, but forever and I lay in the damp ground a few kilometers from Kursk – now the city of Russian military glory.
