Talk:Battle of Kursk

Reads like German revisionist history

As with so many YouTube videos on the Nazi invasion of the USSR, this entry also has the stench of Nazi revisionism within its paragraphs. The closet neo-Nazis are very busy, whitewashing their war with Russia. Take for example the passages with glowingly talk of German commanders "knocking out 30 T-34s and getting the Iron cross". The tendency to heroize the Nazi invasion is throughout this amateurish, biased 'history' of Kursk. The Russian perspective is missing or deliberately minimized: the Russians are barbarians who should not have won, they only won because of sheer numbers against the heroic Nazi war machine. This is how this crap article reads! Rubbish articl written by closet-neo nazis. We see the same crap with Timothy Snyder, neo nazi 'historian for the US State Department in their effort to whitewash the new regime of post-Maidan Ukraine. Face it: the Nazis lost. No amount of 'would have/could have/should have' will change this fact, written in stone.

German casualties in Soviet archives

The article notes that the Soviets seized German unit records at the end of the war and declined to confirm they had done so. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the opening of the archives, surely this information is now available? If so, this sentence should be amended to reflect this.204.116.217.18 (talk) 23:17, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Records from the 9th Army conducting the northern assault were lost when the army was destroyed and the command elements captured during Operation Bagration. These are still not available for review, nor have they been used as source material as far as I am aware. Materials from the 4th Panzer Army are available through the US National Archives. Gunbirddriver (talk) 04:17, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

German casualties report

Please see: ww2stats.com/cas_ger_okh_dec43.html.

Total German casualties = Army Group centre + Army Group south. Yundra counted only one Army Group, but he always revert edit113.190.46.130 (talk) 08:29, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

No, Total German losses:2 armies from group South plus 2 armies from group Center, not whole army groups! you even do not know what the German armies took part in the battle!Yura2404 (talk) 21:35, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kursk_order_of_battle. 4 armies from group South plus 3 armies from group Center (not incluld Luftwaffe), and the other Army (which you didn't count) also joined in later phases (when Soviet counter-attack)113.190.46.130 (talk) 07:03, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

your link: 3 armies of army group center and two armies from army group south. their losses 198,000. and any other german armies was not in battle. And: you are blocked MiG29VN :-)Yura2404 (talk) 21:14, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Please, you didn't count Army Group Reserve42.113.98.85 (talk) 13:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, because losses of Army Group Reserve including at losses of German armies. Therefore there are no losses of Army Group Reserve in the German reports on this site:ww2stats.com/cas_ger_okh_dec43.html. You can write something like: Soviet estimate German losses 500,000. These data I will not delete. That is, put two figures: According to German data 198000, according to Soviet data 500,000. Yura2404 (talk) 21:19, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

OK1.55.244.204 (talk) 03:26, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Article Content and Rating

  Perseus 71 ^talkAfter recently reading the book "Armor and Blood: The Battle of Kursk: The Turning Point of World War II" By Dennis E. Showalter, I came to this page to see how much of the information has made it in this article. That book is a comprehensive account citing first hand information from Memoirs of the Belligerents from this conflict. I understand the scope of this article is about Operation Citadel the German Offensive and does not / should not cover the Counter Offensive. Based on the discussion I see above, it seems Editors are /were working on this article. If such is the case, I will let them utilize the reference and continue. (I have added the reference partly). Otherwise I'll be happy to add from the book since I still have it. My intention is to get it beyond the C-Class.

I've read some of that and though there were aspects that I thought were helpful, in general I did not have tremendous confidence in it as a reference. I did use him as a reference a couple of times for the Battle of Prokhorovka page. Anyway, that doesn't really matter. If you have something you think should be added go ahead. If you can support it with a reference all the better. People may change it if they do not agree. Then we would want to discuss the issue here on the talk page (Bold Edit - Revert - Discuss). The first part is Bold Edit, so by all means. Gunbirddriver (talk) 22:35, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, would you care to elaborate on why you think this book isn't a good reference ? I thought the troop movements and Orders of Battle were pretty detailed in that book. Admitted, due to deeply divided nature of Waffen SS coverage here on Wiki, those details would have to be in moderation.

Honestly speaking, my specialty is on Luftwaffe and particularly western front. But JG 51 drew me to the book and here.

In response, an example would be this discussion of the German situation in the spring of 1943. Showalter writes (p. 51):

Hitler obsessively saw himself as working against time. In contrast with Marxist-based radicalism, which ultimately understood itself to be on the side of history, Hitler's clock was always at five minutes to midnight. That in turn reflected Hitler's increasing sense of his own mortality, combined with the self-fulfilling paradox that Hitler's self-defined role had no place for a genuine successor. But the reflexive compulsion to action was in this case arguably balanced by Model's photographs.

It makes for an interesting read. And though I believe many of the suppositions made above are close to being true, they are nevertheless the author's conjecture. Statements about Hitler's state of mind are not supported with any reference, and in all truth how could they possibly be? The work simply is not written in an academic style. The narrative is interesting and engaging, but I personally would not be citing anything from above as being authoratative on what compelled Hitler to make the decisions he did. Gunbirddriver (talk) 18:19, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

  Perseus 71 ^talk 13:51, 13 September 2014 (UTC)Thank you. Valid point. Guess I kind of glossed over that one. But the part I liked was the explicit details on Order of Battle that's backed with Quoted German Documents. While on the subject, I'd like to know what you'd think of John Mosier's Deathride Hitler vs. Stalin: The Eastern Front ? Too Revisionistic/controversial ? BTW my Speciality is Luftwaffe as well. But curousity regarding the huge Luftwaffe claims on Eastern front brought me to those two books.

In this case I must confess I have not read it, but looking at a review of the work by Joseph Bishop we see:(http://inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2010/volume_2/number_4/deathride.php)

Mosier points out that in nearly all cases, Hitler was right in his decisions while his generals were wrong. The German officer caste was trained to seize major cities and especially capitals, but Hitler understood that modern wars were more economic in nature—conflicts to seize resources both to deny the enemy the ability to wage war while at the same time increasing one's own ability to do so. The author states that Hitler's generals simply could not comprehend this view. One of Hitler's accurate complaints about his generals was they understood nothing about 'the economic aspects of warfare'; the generalization could be extended into areas outside of economics. "The army commanders from the very first had envisioned the objective of a war with Russia in a traditional way: destruction of the armies and occupations of the old and new capitals, especially Moscow.", Mosier citing from Heinz Guderian's Panzer Leader: "[Hitler] said that the raw materials and agriculture of Ukraine were vitally necessary for the future prosecution of the war. He spoke once again of the need of neutralizing the Crimea, 'the Soviet aircraft carrier for attacking the Rumanian oilfields.' For the first time I heard him use the phrase: 'My generals know nothing about the economic aspects of war.'"

There is some truth to what he says, and this was partly due to Seeckt's construction of the General Staff and even more so due to the intent of Adolf Hitler. Hitler was insecure and sought to dominate the politics of the German people. He routinely placed one party in conflict with another, making it difficult for an individual or group to attain the power and means to compete with him. As to the war effort, with his generals he purposely kept them in the dark on many issues. For instance, he told them Germany could not continue in the war if they could not secure the Caucasus oil fields to fuel her war effort. In making that case he justified his insistence on advancing the German army far beyond its means of support. His claim was false, for those oil fields never produced fuel for Germany, and yet Germany continued the fight for another three years. Furthermore, the effort to achieve them cost the 6th Army at Stalingrad and nearly cost the 1st Panzer Army and 17th Army as well. The Geo-political solution to the war the German generals assumed was a goal Hitler would steer Germany towards was never one Hitler would consider. Thus it was never in the cards for Germany. Hitler preferred fighting to utter destruction. If the German people could not produce the great triumph he insisted on, than it was best that Germany be destroyed. This was unknown to the German generals until the last year of the war. The result was Hitler got pretty close to the result he insisted upon.

In summary, it looks interesting to me but I do not believe the broad conclusions are supported by the record. Thanks. Gunbirddriver (talk) 06:03, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

It Was Bletchley Wot Won It Honest To Goodness It Was

Sir Harry Hinsley, who worked at Bletchley Park during the war and is a professional historian, has noted the following:

Information decrypted by Ultra was given to the Soviets, which helped them prepare for the offensive. The Soviets had a spy at Bletchley Park (John Cairncross), who gave them decrypts of German military communications. Hinsley speculates that without Ultra, Germany would have won at Kursk, and "Hitler could have carved up Russia".[309]

The reference is link not substantiated. Regardless, is it necessary for Britain to claim the victory of Kursk for itself and have the last word on the matter in what has become the foremost public archive or record. I suggest a rewrite so that victory is not ascribed to a non-combatant in the last words of the article. Even if the statement "Hitler could have carved up Russia" could in any way be verified (it can not ) I would argue that their spy is a product of their military actions thus it is a self-refuting arguement — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.254.148.163 (talk) 11:32, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

No, it is not necessary nor correct to end the article with a British claim for credit for the victory. The last section you are referring to is an "analysis" section which essentially quotes the opinions of a number of authors, somewhat unusual for an article and in my opinion both woefully incomplete and entirely unnecessary. Generally, Wikipedia makes a statement and then the source that supports it is cited. In this case the Wikipedia article goes straight to the source, unvarnished, and quotes three of them. The article would be better off if the section were removed. Gunbirddriver (talk) 21:55, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I think you are being a tad over-sensitive here. It is not giving the "last word", merely the last of an extensive list of various aspects of the battle. In my experience, coming last in a list of this nature reflects on its importance. I would say keep. I am assuming we are discussing the BP former operative. If there are others scattered in the list i've missed, apologies. I hear yer GBD however. Irondome (talk) 22:03, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

But if Hinsley's own words are red into properly - he does not actually state that in a way of personal speculation - he attributes said speculation to a "Russian counter-factual historian would say that if we didn't have the Ultra which we got in various ways, then we wouldn't have been able to win the battle of Kursk and Hitler would have been able to carve up Russia. This is perhaps another case . . ." - this is taken from the source cited within the article as the basis for the "carve up Russia" phrase - what Hinsley is saying here is quite different from speculation and an assertion he therefore makes is the one to the effect of "It is counter-factual to say that without Ultra decrypts Russia would have lost the battle and the war". I hope this understanding can be somehow better reflected within the article.

So can someone explain to me why "Sir Harry Hinsley, who worked at Bletchley Park during the war" gives him any credentials? If you check his bio here on Wiki, you find that he worked in traffic analysis. That would most likely not give access to actual decrypt content and certainly not to content analysis. Further, the kind of traffic that went via Enigma, i.e., Ultra intelligence, was at the low to medium level. This would reveal say some troop dispositions ... which were already evident to the Soviets from regular recon and their own sources apart from the obviousness of the benefit of removing the salient. Strategic intentions would only come from Tunny whose distribution was very restricted ... unlikely that a traffic analyst would be given access.kovesp (talk) 16:58, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Result Info Box

The current Result Infobox is a little lengthy, not in alignment with Wikipedia guidelines (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_military_conflict), and reads a little like a personal commentary/assessment of the results: "Despite greater losses of men and materiel, a decisive Soviet victory Germany's offensive power on the Eastern Front is crippled"

I suggest changing it to "Strategic Soviet Victory". "Strategic" implies that it was not tactical (to account for the stalemate and greater loss of material) and addresses what I think is the main concern of the current description (i.e. to get across the point that the Soviet Union won but with heavier losses). Also leaves any debate as to the extent to which German offensive power was "crippled" to the more detailed discussions in the article itself.

Any objections? 159.18.26.96 (talk) 15:06, 9 February 2015 (UTC)