As it was, the chances were that the Germans would not be able again to seize the complete initiative and prevent the Soviet forces from getting in substantial blows of their own before the summer ended. Had Hitler been able to count on another year's respite in the south and west he might have made far more ambitious plans for the coming summer in the USSR. Although they would have been the last to admit it, the Russians were already benefiting mightily from the Allied operations in the Mediterranean and the threats of invasions there and on the Atlantic coast. In the spring of 1943 Soviet planning for the coming summer no doubt concentrated on two possibilities: a German offensive in the style of the previous two summers and, if that failed to materialize or could be stopped, a Soviet offensive similar in scale and conception to that of the last winter. After Z ITADELLE, in two and one-half months the Soviet Army erased the last lingering doubt inherent in the second. Could the German armies again shake off the effects of the winter battles and make a strong bid for victory? If not, could the Soviet Army prove itself master of the field without its old ally, "General Winter?" Z ITADELLE provided an explicit answer to the first question.
The First Soviet Summer Offensive Troops and TacticsĪs the war in the Soviet Union entered its third year the world watched, expecting summer to bring answers to two crucial questions.
HyperWar: Stalingrad to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East CHAPTER VIII
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