Following their disastrous defeat at Stalingrad during the winter of 1942-43, the German armed forces launched a climactic offensive in the East known as Operation Citadel on July 4,1943. The climax of Operation Citadel, the Battle of Kursk, involved as many as 6,000 tanks, 4,000 aircraft and 2 million fighting men and is remembered as the greatest tank battle in history. The high-water mark of the battle was the massive armor engagement at Prochorovka (also spelled Prokhorovka), which began on July 12. But while historians have categorized Prochorovka as a victory of improved Soviet tactics over German firepower and heavy tanks, new evidence casts the struggle at the 'gully of death' in a very different light.
The Germans' goal during Citadel was to pinch off a large salient in the Eastern Front that extended 70 miles toward the west. Field Marshal Günther von Kluge's Army Group Center would attack from the north flank of the bulge, with Colonel General Walther Model's Ninth Army leading the effort, General Hans Zorn's XLVI Panzer Corps on the right flank and Maj. Gen. Josef Harpe's XLI Panzer Corps on the left. General Joachim Lemelsen's XLVII Panzer Corps planned to drive toward Kursk and meet up with Field Marshal Erich von Manstein's Army Group South, Col. Gen. Hermann Hoth's Fourth Panzer Army and the Kempf Army, commanded by General Werner Kempf.
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