![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() It was also hoped that large numbers of Soviet prisoners would be captured to be used as slave labour in the German armaments industry. Hitler believed that a victory here would reassert German strength and improve his prestige with his allies, who were considering withdrawing from the war. The plan envisioned an envelopment by a pair of pincers breaking through the northern and southern flanks of the salient. The Kursk salient or bulge was 250 kilometres (160 mi) long from north to south and 160 kilometres (99 mi) from east to west. The Germans hoped to weaken the Soviet offensive potential for the summer of 1943 by cutting off a large number of forces that they anticipated would be in the Kursk salient. Germany's extensive loss of men and tanks ensured that the victorious Soviet Red Army enjoyed the strategic initiative for the remainder of the war. As the Allied invasion of Sicily began, Adolf Hitler was forced to divert troops training in France to meet the Allied threats in the Mediterranean, rather than use them as a strategic reserve for the Eastern Front. For the Germans, the battle was the final strategic offensive that they were able to launch on the Eastern Front. The German offensive was countered by two Soviet counter-offensives, Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev ( Russian: Полководец Румянцев) and Operation Kutuzov ( Russian: Кутузов). The deliberate defensive operation that the Soviets implemented to repel the German offensive is referred to as the Kursk Strategic Defensive Operation. Operation Citadel ( German: Unternehmen Zitadelle) was the German offensive operation in July 1943 against Soviet forces in the Kursk salient, proposed by Generalfeldmarschall Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Manstein during the Second World War on the Eastern Front that initiated the Battle of Kursk. ![]()
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