The Karteschewka-Prokhorokva road was the closest the German’s got to Kursk, and it was also the last gasp of the last major German summer offensive on the Russian Front in World War II. In fact, all the German forces participating in the offensive were in the same situation. Coupled with sheer exhaustion, mounting personnel losses, and the arrival of massive Soviet reinforcements, the panzer group could go no farther. The attack toward the Karteschewka-Prokhorokva road had cost Bachmann’s panzer group 45 tanks destroyed or damaged, nearly 50 percent of its total strength. Would one last successful German attack toward Prokhorokva unhinge the extensive Soviet defenses? Success would mean the death or surrender of thousands of Soviet soldiers, and Operation Citadel had reached a critical stage.
The Soviets would either be encircled or forced to retreat, and the Germans would break through one of the last major defensive belts protecting the Russian town of Kursk, the objective of Operation Citadel, the effort to encircle a large number of Red Army troops that occupied a salient, or bulge, deep in the German front line. The plan for the next day was to attack the rear of the Soviet forces defending the town of Prokhorokva, just three miles to the east. The Germans drove north toward the east-west road connecting the towns of Karteschewka and Prokhorokva.Īfter fighting through several Soviet defensive positions and advancing nearly five miles, the panzer group reached the road around midnight. At daybreak on Monday, July 12, 1943, SS Sturmbannführer Christian Bachmann, the panzer group commander of the 3rd SS Panzergrenadier Division, ordered his unit to cross the Psel River and attack.
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