Days, weeks, passed.
The men on the front line waited, waited for the inevitable,
for the unthinkable,
for the cataclysmic conflict that had to come around...
...the salient at Kursk.
Then it happened.
One night, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht were given a special ration of Schnapps.
A sign every man knew.
Liquor to steel the soul.
A last drink before you die.
One man deserts.
He heads to the Soviet line,
and he's interrogated for hours.
He convinces a political officer,
a man named Nikita Khrushchev,
that the attack will begin on July the 5th, the next day.
Khrushchev calls Moscow in the middle of the night.
Joseph Stalin is woken up.
He asks Khrushchev for his assessment.
To which Khrushchev replies...
...“We will make the enemy pay in blood”.
Then the Soviet guns began to sing.
All along the front
in the predawn hours of July 5th, 1943,
Soviet artillery attempted to stop Germans units forming for the assault.
The effect is limited.
The Wehrmacht has been planning for this day for too long.
But Stalin and his greatest general, Zhukov, had not been idle either.
They had turned the Kursk salient into a fortress.
Observations along the frontier...
...and intelligence supplied by the British...
...made it clear that this was exactly where a German attack would come.
Stalin wanted to preempt the attack by an offensive of his own,
but Zhukov convinced him to build defensive works of the Eastern front...
...and let the Germans wade through their own dead to make it through.
Once they had been bloodied here, there'd be time enough for an offensive.
And as the cannons roared and dawn broke,
the great test finally came.
The Luftwaffe took to the air,
not for once as a force meant to cripple the enemy's air capacity...
...but rather simply as support for the massive assault.
Bombs fell on artillery and bunkers rather than airfields.
The Germans knew the air war couldn't be sustained.
Still, The Soviet air force managed at first a haphazard response,
and in the opening waves,
large numbers of Yakolev and Lavochkin fighters fell from the sky.
On the north east, the German advance rolled forward,
slowed by the vast minefields of the salient.
New technology was tried,
an innovation, a remote controlled, mine sweeping vehicle.
It was instantly met with fire from Soviet artillery.
Bursting shells and mines exploding under fire...
...turned the battle field into a haze of smoke and suspended earth.
But the path was clear and the forces on the left pushed on.
The far left, armed with the rare Ferdinand,
an 88 mounted on a rejected version of the Tiger chassis,
found itself struggling in close quarters combat.
Their Ferdinand, their armored support,
did not have any close quarters weapons,
it was devoid of even the machine gun that was standard on most tanks.
Losses began to mount. Yet they still pushed on.
In the center of the northern push,
the new Tiger tanks started to show their metal against the Soviet T-34,
the tank that had been causing German armor so much trouble for years
and they began to push through.
Gains were made,
but everywhere they were stopped short of a true breakthrough.
Luftwaffe and Red Air Force fighters traded turns strafing the ground.
The massive concentration of artillery form both sides continued nonstop.
It was clear this was going to be no rush across France.
All along the north,
the Germans were slowly carving their way into the enemy lines,
but behind every minefield they crossed
and every pillbox they shattered,
there was just another minefield
and another pillbox awaiting them in Zhukov's fortress Kursk.
And casualties were beginning to mount.
Even though much of the remaining German resources had been devoted,
for months, to the offensive around Kursk,
German reserves were at an all time low.
Partisan activity behind the lines...
...further hampered men and material from reaching the front.
And the variety of vehicles...
...and the introduction of new and radical tank designs...
...strained repair crews to their limits.
Meanwhile in the south,
Manstein's force began to execute a similar plan,
brutal in its simplicity.
Push forward.
He had concentrated his forces…
…in the center of his front…
…and planned to simply exert force at a point…
…until the Soviets broke.
He had some of the strongest panzer divisions…
…left to the German army…
…and they would act like a spearhead…
…to thrust through the Soviet line.
His initial target was the small town of Oboyan,
a mere 30 miles from the front.
But this attack began in stinging rain,
which softened the ground and slowed operations.
Even the next day, when the weather cleared,
the muddy terrain hampered the advance.
But with the clear weather…
…came the war in the air.
The Red Airforce thought that…
…they might surprise the Germans…
…and catch their planes still on the ground,
but the Luftwaffe scrambled just in time…
…and what initially appeared to be…
…a turkey shoot for the Soviets…
…turned into a massive battle in the sky.
Over 400 planes…
…whirled and chased along the 20 miles of the front.
Underneath, hundreds of Panthers, Panzer 3s and 4s,
and self propelled guns…
…rolled along a two mile stretch of open front.
But even that wasn't enough.
Slowed by weather and entangled in the Soviet defenses,
the presence of so many tanks…
…didn't scatter the Soviet units…
…like they would have two years before.
Instead, they were met with the near suicidal resistance…
…of the Soviet guard.
Men would leap on tanks…
…to take out their turrets with satchel charges…
…or face down panzers at full speed…
…with anti tank rifles.
But the Germans still had the practiced killers…
…of the SS Panzer Corp to throw at the south.
The powerful Tigers…
…destroyed bunkers from half a mile away,
…only to be met with the withering hail of Katyusha rockets.
Flamethrower teams…
…burnt their way forward,
cooking men alive at their guns.
It was a scene from hell.
Rapidly, the Germans smashed through the front line,
but this was resistance on a scale…
…totally unlike what they had expected.
By the early morning hours of the next day,
the Germans had barely reached…
…the second line of Soviet defenses.
Of the three major groups in the south,
only one made it to its first day objective…
…and one was woefully behind.
Soviet artillery took out bridge after bridge on the Donets,
further hampering the advance.
On both fronts, north and south,
the Germans were making gains.
Nowhere had they simply been repulsed…
…or forced to reverse or retreat.
Yet, nowhere had they made a breakthrough either.
Almost every contingent of the German forces…
…was behind schedule,
off the timetable of the initial planning.
And the cost had been immense, for both sides.
As the first few days of Operation Citadel wound down,
the fate of the contest stood on a knife's edge.
Neither side was winning,
but neither side had started to lose.
And on that knife's edge…
…hung the fate of nations, if not the world.
Hitler knew…
…that a victory here wouldn't win him the war,
…but if he could win here…
…and inflict major losses on the Soviet forces,
…he might be able to sit down with the Soviet ambassadors…
…and bargain for peace from a position of strength.
A successful conclusion…
…might, at least temporarily, allow a cessation…
…of the war in the east,
so that German forces…
…could concentrate on the imminent war in the west.
With Great Britain and the United States…
…looking to finally, truly push into Europe,
…a victory here…
…might cut them off from their ferocious eastern ally.
And in turn, a loss here…
…would mean disaster.
It would encourage the democracies in the west…
…to hasten their invasion of Europe,
…if for no other reason,
to prevent Stalin from capturing more European territory…
…than they'd ever want him to have.
It would mean the loss of some of the best remaining units…
…in the Reich and destabilize a front…
…they could barely hold as it is.
Join us next time as we watch…
…which way the knife edge falls…
…in this pivotal battle for the Eastern front.
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