Operation Zitadelle – the Southern Sector was to be the Major Theatre

SS-Sturmbannführer Christian Tychsen with fellow officer

LSSAH part of Paul Hausser's II.SS-Panzerkorps

The first attacks went in on schedule, with small groups of infantry and grenadiers infiltrating through minefields and rushing the Soviet trenches. In two hours of hand-to-hand combat, the Soviet outposts were captured and the main attack was ready to roll at just after dawn – 04:05 hours – on July 5 1943. In the north, Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model's 9.Armee blunted its spearhead against the Soviet minefields. The southern offensive, spearheaded by SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser's II.SS-Panzerkorps and the Großdeutschland Division made more headway, unlike in Model's sector, it was not halted, and broke through. Left image: Knight's Cross holder SS-Sturmbannführer Christian Tychsen, commander of the 2nd battalion of Das Reich's SS-Panzer-Regiment 2, seen here in conversation with an SS-Untersturmführer, certainly one of his company commanders. Tychsen is wearing the tanker's camouflage non-reversible coverall worn by the Waffen-SS. The Panzerbefehlswagen III's name likely reads Karracho - schnelle Bewegung. Photo taken by SS-Kriegsberichter Hermann Grönert during the Kursk battles in July 1943. Credit: Ghermán Mihály. U.S. NARA. Right image: a Leibstandarte SS soldier raising the SS runes in their camp in the summer of 1943. Photo taken in the southern sector of the Kursk salient by SS-Kriegsberichter Waldbach just days before one of the largest series of armored clashes in all history. U.S. NARA.