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Operation Citadel
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Books about Operation Citadel
Below are some books about Operation Citadel and the Battle of Kursk:
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By David L. Robbins
Bantam
Released: 2004-04-27
Mass Market Paperback (560 pages)
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One nation taking a desperate gamble of war.
Another fighting for survival.
Two armies locked in a bloody cataclysm that will decide history. . .
David L. Robbins has won widespread acclaim for his powerful and splendidly researched novels of World War II. Now he casts his brilliant vision on one of the most terrifying--and most crucial--battles of the war: the Battle of Kursk, Hitler’s desperate gamble to defeat Russia, in the final German offensive on the eastern front.
Last Citadel
Spring 1943. In the west, Germany strengthens its choke hold on France. To the south, an Allied invasion looms imminent. But the greatest threat to Hitler’s dream of a Thousand Year Reich lies east, where his forces are pitted in a death match with a Russian enemy willing to pay any price to defend the motherland. Hitler rolls the dice, hurling his best SS forces and his fearsome new weapon, the Mark VI Tiger tank, in a last-ditch summer offensive, code-named Citadel.
The Red Army around Kursk is a sprawling array of infantry, armor, fighter planes, and bombers. Among them is an intrepid group of women flying antiquated biplanes; they swoop over the Germans in the dark, earning their nickname, “Night Witches.” On the ground, Private Dimitri Berko gallops his tank, the Red Army’s lithe little T-34, like a Cossack steed. In the turret above Dimitri rides his son, Valya, a Communist sergeant who issues his father orders while the war widens the gulf between them. In the skies, Dimitri’s daughter, Katya, flies with the Night Witches, until she joins a ferocious band of partisans in the forests around Kursk. Like Russia itself, the Berko family is suffering the fury and devastation of history’s most titanic tank battle while fighting to preserve what is sacred–their land, their lives, and each other–as Hitler flings against them his most potent armed force.
Inexorable and devastating, a company of Mark VI Tiger tanks is commanded by one extraordinary SS officer, a Spaniard known as la Daga, the Dagger. He’d suffered a terrible wound at the hands of the Russians: now he has returned with a cold fury to exact his revenge. And above it all, one quiet man makes his own plan to bring Citadel crashing down and reshape the fate of the world.
A remarkable story of men and arms, loyalty and betrayal, Last Citadel propels us into the claustrophobic confines of a tank in combat, into the tension of guerrilla tactics, and across the smoking charnel of one of history’s greatest battlefields. Panoramic, authentic, and unforgettable, it reverberates long after the last cannon sounds.
From the Hardcover edition. |
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By David Schranck
Helion and Company
Released: 2014-01-19
Kindle Edition (612 pages)
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After the defeat at Stalingrad, Hitler had lost his momentum and was looking for a way to regain it. Operation Citadel was the intended means to fulfill that objective. If successful, a number of Soviet armies would be destroyed and the front line shortened, allowing for a better disposition of troops and a chance to rebuild Germany's exhausted reserves.
This book provides comprehensive coverage of the operational events on both salients. It also includes critical analysis of both sides that points out errors of judgment or application that collectively had an important impact on campaign results. The book is highly annotated to give the reader additional sources to study and to provide additional perspectives to gain as complete an understanding of this critical campaign as possible.
Besides an extensive text, the book's key strength is its mapping - 32 full-page color maps are accompanied by 7 large foldout sheets of maps, also in color. Together these specially commissioned maps provide a remarkably detailed guide to the combat operations. Thunder at Prokhorovka is destined to become an important reference to the Battle of Kursk. |
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By Robin Cross
Endeavour Media
Released: 2015-05-20
Kindle Edition (256 pages)
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It was the greatest armoured clash in the history of the world - and the decisive battle of World War II. Two vast armies engaged one another on land and in the air, in a conflict that included the most costly single day of aerial warfare of all time.
This was the battle of Kursk - a battle so terrible that even Hitler confessed it made his ‘stomach turn over’.
Citadel was the last great German offensive on the Eastern Front; its aim was to claw back the initiative after the surrender of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad in January 1943.
The location chosen by Hitler was the Kursk salient in the heartland of the Ukraine. The date was 5 July 1943, the codename ‘Citadel’. The Red Army, warned of the German plans by the ‘Lucy’ spy network in Switzerland, was prepared to defend the salient in massive strength and depth. Against its breakwaters Hitler launched his finest armoured divisions, only to see them mangled beyond repair.
No sooner had the German thrusts been contained, while within the tantalizing grasp of success, than the Red Army delivered a series of crushing counter-blows with were to drive the Wehrmacht back beyond the River Dnieper.
Characteristically, Hitler had gambled all on a throw of a single dice and had lost the initiative in the East - never to regain it.
'Citadel' provides a detailed picture of the Battle of Kursk, from the strategic tug-of-war waged within both high commands in the agonizing months which preceded the German offensive, to the first-hand experiences of the troops on the ground and the airmen flying over the blazing steppe as the battle reached fever pitch.
Robin Cross places the battle firmly within the wider strategic context of the spring and summer of 1943, months in which Hitler and Stalin steeled themselves to take decisions which would decide the course of the war and the shape of the peace which followed.
Praise for 'Fallen Eagle':
"Mesmerising account of those final, bloody weeks of war ... Cross's account of the final hysterical days in his Berlin Bunker is masterful." Sunday Express
Robin Cross is a distinguished journalist and military historian whose books include VE Day: Victory in Europe, The Bombers: Strategy and Tactics and The US Marine Corps. |
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By David M. Glantz
Glantz, David M./ House, Jonathan M.
Paperback (485 pages)
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Immense in scope, ferocious in nature, and epic in consequence, the Battle of Kursk witnessed (at Prokhorovka) one of the largest tank engagements in world history and led to staggering losses—including nearly 200,000 Soviet and 50,000 German casualties—within the first ten days of fighting. Going well beyond all previous accounts, David Glantz and Jonathan House now offer the definitive work on arguably the greatest battle of World War II.
Drawing on both German and Soviet sources, Glantz and House separate myth from fact to show what really happened at Kursk and how it affected the outcome of the war. Their access to newly released Soviet archival material adds unprecedented detail to what is known about this legendary conflict, enabling them to reconstruct events from both perspectives and describe combat down to the tactical level.
The Battle of Kursk takes readers behind Soviet lines for the first time to discover what the Red Army knew about the plans for Hitler's offensive (Operation Citadel), relive tank warfare and hand-to-hand combat, and learn how the tide of battle turned. Its vivid portrayals of fighting in all critical sectors place the famous tank battle in its proper context. Prokhorovka here is not a well-organized set piece but a confused series of engagements and hasty attacks, with each side committing its forces piecemeal.
Glantz and House's fresh interpretations demolish many of the myths that suggest Hitler might have triumphed if Operation Citadel had been conducted differently. Their account is the first to provide accurate figures of combat strengths and losses, and it includes 32 maps that clarify troop and tank movements.
Shrouded in obscurity and speculation for more than half a century, the Battle of Kursk finally gets its due in this dramatic retelling of the confrontation that marked the turning point of the war on the Eastern Front and brought Hitler's blitzkrieg to a crashing halt. |
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By Andrew McGregor
Released: 2017-03-16
Kindle Edition (322 pages)
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With the onset of the Russian Spring Rasputitsa or ‘muddy season’, the German assault to the north of Army Group South grinds to a halt having completed the objectives of recapturing Kharkov and Belgorod. The thaw of snow adds to logistical problems, wheeled and tracked vehicles virtually unable to move on all but tarmacked roads. The front line across Russia now virtually mirrors that of the previous year before the drive on Stalingrad, Von Manstein having stunned the Red Army with a dazzling counterstroke or ‘back hand’ offensive, destroying several Russian Armies and perhaps resetting the balance as enemy offensives are reluctantly cancelled.
The Germans resupply, eager to maintain the initiative and drive further into the Soviet heartland. The Russians dig in, awaiting the next move of Axis forces, their own divisions heavily depleted and in need of resupply. ‘General Mud’ may have once again come to the rescue of the Red Army.
Before the Germans lies a large salient with Kursk in the centre of the Russian defences…destroying this ‘bulge’ will not only shorten the front line sparing up desperately needed divisions, but may once again prove to be the decisive blow that finally finishes the ‘Russian Bear’, or at least cripples it. With British Intelligence breaking the German codes…the Russians may even be forewarned.
Leutnant Hausser and a replenished squad, now attached to Grossdeutschland Division with Army Group South, will continue in a bitter struggle for survival as the Axis leadership deploy new tanks, assault guns, and ground attack aircraft for the forthcoming operation…factories in Germany now producing at a frantic rate to assemble the strongest force available.
Virtually all armoured vehicles and aircraft on the Russian Front will be deployed for the coming offensive…on the Axis side, nearly 800,000 men and 5,200 tanks will attack, faced by just short of two million Soviet soldiers and a similar number of armoured vehicles…the Germans could muster approximately 2,200 aircraft against the Soviet 3,000.
These were odds that would have favoured the Wehrmacht in the past, but this is 1943, approaching the third summer of campaigns in the east…opportunities have been squandered, some of the most experienced troops killed, the enemy more competent and with improved weaponry. The war is now turning ominously against the Axis states as heavy allied bombing begins to reap dividends and a deteriorating if not precarious situation in North Africa heads towards conclusion. More and more fighter aircraft are being transferred back to the Reich to protect industry.
The clock of war is ticking and time may be running out…could this be the final throw of the dice in Russia? Time is short for a final victory…perhaps too short.
The author aims to provide a thoroughly enjoyable and imaginative reading experience at an affordable price for the reader. The WW2 series is historically accurate, placing fictional characters in the maelstrom of war amongst accurate equipment and units. All three works from the author's World War 2 Stalingrad Series have achieved Best Seller status on Amazon in the UK and many more stories are outlined.
Imagination is personal, free and to be cherished.
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By Nik Cornish
Pen and Sword
Released: 2017-06-26
Paperback (160 pages)
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The third volume in Nik Cornish’s photographic history of the Second World War on the Eastern Front records in vivid visual detail the sequence of Red Army offensives that pushed the Wehrmacht back across Russia after the failure of Operation Citadel, the German attack at Kursk. Previously unpublished images show the epic scale of the build-up to the Kursk battle and the enormous cost in terms of lives and material of the battle itself. They also show that the military initiative was now firmly in Soviet hands, for the balance of power on the Eastern Front had shifted and the Germans were on the defensive and in retreat.
Subsequent chapters chronicle the hard-fought and bloody German withdrawal across western Russia and the Ukraine, recording the Red Army’s liberation of occupied Soviet territory, the recovery of key cities like Orel, Kharkov and Kiev, the raising of the siege of Leningrad and the advance to the borders of the Baltic states.
Not only do the photographs track the sequence of events on the ground, they also show the equipment and weapons used by both sides, the living conditions experienced by the troops, the actions of the Soviet partisans, the fight against the Finns in the north, the massive logistical organization behind the front lines, and the devastation the war left in its wake. |
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By Robin Cross
Penguin Global
Released: 2005-05-16
Paperback (288 pages)
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Citadel was the code name for the German attack on Kursk in 1943 and marked the last major German offensive to be launched in the East. However, the advantage had swung towards the Soviet forces and they never let it go. The German thrusts were contained within tantalizing grasp of success, but the Red Army delivered a series of crushing counterblows that drove the Wehrmacht back over the Dneiper. Kursk was the greatest clash of armoured forces in history and the decisive land battle of WW2. |
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By David Porter
Brand: Amber
Hardcover (192 pages)
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In the early summer of 1943, following the German defeat at Stalingrad, Hitler sought a decisive battle that would turn the struggle on the Eastern Front in the Germans’ favour. On the 5th July 1943, the Wehrmacht launched Operation Citadel. Attacking with a force of 3000 tanks and assault guns, the Germans faced a well dug-in force of more than 3900 Soviet tanks, with another 1500 tanks in reserve. The tanks advanced with as many as 50 vehicles packed together per kilometre of line. What followed was the largest tank battle the world has ever seen, with both sides suffering heavy casualties. On the 12th July, three SS divisions – Totenkopf, Das Reich and Leibstandarte – attempted to break through the Soviet lines at the village of Prokhorovka, and so force the flank of the Soviet defensive position. Facing them was the newly deployed Soviet Fifth Guards Tanks Army. It was the Germans’ last chance for a potential breakthrough on the Eastern Front. The battle raged all day, with German attack followed by Soviet counterattack. By nightfall the Germans had lost more than 300 tanks and the Fifth Guards Tanks Army 50 percent of their strength. Despite their heavy losses, the Soviet defenders had achieved their aim: the German attack had been halted and all hope of their regaining the initiative lost.
Fifth Guards Tank Army at Kursk has an eight-page gatefold depicting one of the brigades from the Soviet Fifth Guards Tank Army in an innovative and fresh manner. This brigade is shown in battle deployment, with reconnaissance units, advance companies, the main body, the brigade command section, plus all the supporting engineers, signallers, artillery etc to provide a visual guide to exactly how many tanks and other armoured vehicles were advancing on the 12th July. The book itself is broken down by these sections, looking at each component part of the brigade in turn, their structure, equipment and what they did on 12th July. Maps indicate the location of each element on the battlefield. The description of each part includes action reports, organization, equipment, unit commanders and much more. |
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By Robin Cross
Barnes & Noble
Hardcover
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A bright fine hardback with no wear or markigns to book or jacket. |
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By Rupert Matthews
Arcturus
Released: 2015-10-31
Kindle Edition (138 pages)
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Beginning with the strategic situation in 1943, this compelling tale recounts the circumstances that led to this decisive battle that was a key turning point of the Second World War on the Eastern Front. Considered by both the Germans and the Soviets to be a highly unpromising place to fight a battle, Kursk would prove the undoing of the Germans. Never again would they be able to mount a major offensive to the east and never again was the end result of the war in doubt. The road to Berlin was open, even though another two years would pass before the Red Army marched into the German capital. Recalling the various stages of the fighting, the early tactical advantage of the Germans and the subsequent Soviet victory, The Battle of Kursk is a fascinating account of a major campaign that involved more than 3 million men, 8,000 tanks, 40,000 guns and 5,500 aircraft. |
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