The Waffen-SS alone claimed a huge number of tank kills – 1,149 in total – during
Operation Citadel, along with the destruction of 459 antitank guns, 85 aircrafts and 47 artillery pieces. SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser's men also took 6,441 prisoners. This, indeed, could be considered a great victory. However, from Soviet viewpoint the Battle of Kursk was a strategic success. Their defence tactics worked, preventing the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS breaking through into open and using their Blitzkrieg-style of warfare to outflank, confuse and surround the Soviets. But any hope the Soviets may have had of dealing a major defeat to the II.SS-Panzerkorps ended.
Prokhorovka was believed to have been a significant German defeat but was actually a stunning reversal for the Soviets. Careful study of the daily reports and combat records of II.SS-Panzerkorps, available on microfilm at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., provides information that the Germans may have been near a success on the southern flank of the Kursk salient. As Feldmarschall Erich von Manstein suggested, Prokhorovka may truly have been a lost German victory. However, Kursk ended any hope of a stalemate in the east. Top image: Leibstandarte men raising the SS runes in their camp on the Kursk salient in June 1943. Photo by SS-KB Waldbach. U.S. NARA. Bottom image: a Tiger of the SS moves forward on the exposed Russian steppe during Citadel. Credit: Wydawnictwo Militaria N°230. c. Bundesarchiv.
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