The Battle of Kursk was fought between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union from July to August 1943 around the city of Kursk, and it was Germany's last major strategic offensive on the Eastern Front. The German plan, Operation Citadel, aimed to encircle a large Soviet salient around Kursk, but Soviet forces, forewarned and deeply fortified, blunted the attack within days and then drove the German army back across a broad front. Georgy Zhukov coordinated the Soviet defense as the Stavka's representative at the front. Historians rank Kursk alongside the Battle of Stalingrad among the war's most often-cited turning points, though which battle truly turned the Eastern Front is still debated.
Facts
Battle TypeLarge-scale offensive and defensive battle (Operation Citadel and the Soviet counteroffensive) 1 LocationKursk Oblast, Soviet Union 1 OutcomeSoviet victory. Germany's Operation Citadel was repulsed, and the Wehrmacht never again mounted a major strategic offensive on the Eastern Front. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
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Open Questions (1 open question)
Was Kursk or Stalingrad the true turning point of the war on the Eastern Front?
Historians most often cite Stalingrad and Kursk together as the war's two leading turning points on the Eastern Front, but disagree over which one actually broke German strategic initiative: Stalingrad destroyed an entire German army, while Kursk was the last German offensive attempt in the east, after which Germany fought only defensively.
What would resolve this A historiographical consensus defining "turning point" by a single agreed measure, such as loss of the strategic initiative, territorial momentum or force-generation capacity, applied consistently to both battles.
Military historyWikipedia: Battle of Kursk
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