Although Hitler probably never saw Gehlen’s memo, its content was not likely to upset him any more than he already was—in mid-May, he admitted to Guderian, who had attempted to persuade him not to proceed with the operation, “Whenever I think of this attack my stomach turns over.” Despite their own misgivings, neither Manstein nor Kluge attempted to dissuade Hitler from going forward with Citadel, at a time when he clearly was uncertain as to how to proceed. For its part, the OKW expressed serious reservations about the attack, urging in mid-June that it be abandoned in favor of building reserves for the anticipated Allied invasion in the Mediterranean. Jodl bluntly told Hitler that it was dangerous to commit troops to an offensive that, at best, would achieve limited results while the chief danger lay elsewhere. These warnings, however, fell victim to the rivalry between the OKW and the OKH, with Zeitzler now intervening decisively in favor of the attack. Although Hitler informed the OKW on 18 June that he was definitely going ahead with Citadel, just a week later his ambivalence was again on display. On 25 June, he underscored to Goebbels the necessity, in view of a likely Anglo-American invasion, of “holding our reserves in hand” yet in the same conversation reiterated his belief that the east remained “the decisive front.” Not until 1 July did he finally decide to go ahead with the operation, telling Manstein, “We cannot wait until the enemy, perhaps in the winter or after the establishment of a second front, begins an attack.” The offensive, he informed German troops on the morning of 5 July, “must be of decisive significance and bring a turning-point in the war.” No one knew better than Hitler that this was not likely to happen, even under the most favorable circumstances, but, by this time, the Kursk operation seemed to have taken on a life of its own.67
Its purpose, however, seemed less than clear. Neither Hitler nor the OKH conceived of Kursk as a decisive battle of annihilation, let alone the prelude to a return to the Caucasus. They saw it primarily as a spoiling attack that would knock the anticipated Soviet summer offensive off balance. If successful, it would also allow the transfer of troops to the west to confront the expected Allied invasion. From the outset, however, the unfavorable ratio of forces made the attack in the Kursk salient highly risky even for a gambler like Hitler, with much to lose and little to gain. Although an old military rule of thumb has it that an attacker needs a 3-to-1 superiority in force, the Germans in early July confronted a staggering numerical inferiority. In the entire Kursk-Orel double salient, including reserves, the Germans had scraped together 625,271 combat troops, supported by 2,699 armored vehicles, 9,467 artillery pieces of all types, and 1,372 aircraft. These figures, however, were dwarfed by corresponding Soviet tallies: 1,987,463 combat troops, 8,200 armored vehicles, 47,416 barrels, and 5,965 aircraft. Across the board, the Germans faced disadvantages ranging from 3.2 to 1 to 5 to 1, ratios that remained largely unchanged even if comparing only those forces engaged directly at Kursk.68
Nor, despite all the talk of the Tiger and Panther tanks, could the Germans counter quantitative inferiority with decisive qualitative superiority. Of the 2,465 combat vehicles the Germans threw into action at the Kursk salient on 5 July, only 328 were modern battle tanks: 128 Tigers and 200 Panthers. As an example of the semimodern condition of the Ostheer, the Ninth Army, which was to spearhead the attack in the north, had only 26 Tiger tanks but some 85,000 horses. This lack of mobility against an opponent whose forces had been substantially mechanized and motorized through Lend-Lease deliveries negated the Germans’ one remaining advantage—their skill at deep, mobile operations. Moreover, the interminable delays in launching the attack gave the Soviets precious time to construct the most formidable system of fortifications in the world, an elaborate labyrinth of eight separate defensive lines consisting of antitank ditches, tank traps, minefields, barbed-wire obstacles, antitank guns, flamethrowers, and machine-gun nests that stretched 180 miles to the rear.69
In addition, relying on their accurate intelligence information, the Soviets had placed the deepest system of minefields precisely at the points of the German main effort. Instead of the fast, freewheeling, mobile operations in which the Wehrmacht specialized, then, the Germans now faced a static “biting-through” operation reminiscent of the trench struggles of World War I, a battle of attrition that they could not win. It was, as a German tank commander later admitted, “unbelievable”: “The Soviets had prepared a defensive system whose depth was inconceivable to us. Every time we broke though a position in bitter fighting, we found ourselves before another new one.” As at Stalingrad, the German leadership allowed itself to be drawn into a test of strength in a confined area against a numerically superior enemy, one that negated the Germans’ own strengths and accentuated Soviet advantages. Worse, even had the Germans managed a breakthrough, it likely would have been a Pyrrhic victory so costly that it would have been indistinguishable from defeat.70
Paradoxically, the last German offensive in the east, planned for 3:30 A.M. on 5 July as a simultaneous strike from both sides of the Kursk salient, actually began with a preventive attack by Red artillery and air forces. Supplied with incorrect information by a German soldier captured while clearing minefields, Soviet commanders sought to catch the Germans off guard and inflict enormous losses on their assembled troops. At 2:00 that morning, therefore, Russian artillery opened a thunderous barrage in both north and south, while the Soviets hurled a fleet of bombers at German airfields crammed with aircraft. Luftwaffe radar, however, spotted the hundreds of attacking Soviet bombers, giving the Germans precious minutes to send their own fighter planes aloft. The element of surprise now worked against the Soviets; instead of catching the Germans off guard, Luftwaffe fighters dove into the unprotected enemy bombers with a vengeance. In the early morning hours of 5 July, one of the most lopsided aerial battles of World War II ended with a Soviet rout: 425 Russian planes were shot down with a loss of only thirty-six German machines. Nor had the artillery barrage had any impact, for German troops for the most part were still in their trenches or dugouts. It was, both literally and figuratively, a shot in the dark.71
The German assault thus started on time, although the attackers immediately encountered fierce resistance. In the northern sector, under the operational control of Kluge’s Army Group Center, Model’s Ninth Army spearheaded the attack. Although Model, a particular favorite of Hitler’s, was regarded as a fighting general, his plan of attack was uncharacteristically cautious. Violating the key rule of Schwerpunkt, he chose to preserve his tank forces, keeping some in reserve, and having others follow the infantry rather than punch holes in the enemy defenses. Not only did this slow the advance, but, as the attacking infantry inevitably got hung up on the extensive Soviet defenses, Model was forced to throw tanks into the battle, where they were blown up by mines. The reasons for Model’s prudence were not hard to find. From the outset of planning, he had been unconvinced of any chance of success at Kursk and had tried to scuttle the operation by raising endless objections, which served only to delay it. In addition, he was ever mindful of the weak Second Panzer Army (a tank army in name only since, until the eve of the battle, it had no battle tanks), which was to protect his left flank. Given the double-S nature of the Kursk-Orel salient and the large Soviet reserves to his north, Model knew that any enemy counterstrike would not only easily slice through the German defenses but also immediately threaten his own army with encirclement and destruction. It was fear of just such an attack, which the Soviets had, in fact, prepared, that led him to keep mobile tank forces in deep reserve.72