On the battlefield of the Battle of Kursk in July 1943, a German soldier was killed in a bloodbath in the southern part of the Central Russian Highlands. Both armies suffered heavy losses, and the Wehrmacht, not the Soviet Army, was responsible for the bloodshed.

　　In July 1943, on the battlefield of the Battle of Kursk, a German soldier was killed in a bloodbath in the southern part of the Central Russian Highlands. Both armies suffered heavy losses, and the Wehrmacht, not the Soviet Army, was responsible for the bloodshed. The Russians had completed the rebuilding of the Eastern Front, which had begun at Stalingrad. The Wehrmacht's attempts to cut off the Soviet frontal advance from Kursk and regain strategic initiative ended in failure within days.

　Although the Soviets had crushed the Germans at the Battle of Stalingrad, they had yet to push back the Wehrmacht's summer offensive. The Soviet Red Army won the Battle of Moscow in January 1940 and the Battle of Stalingrad in March 1942. However, it fell into a disturbing pattern of defeat against the Germans in the early invasion in the summer of 1941 and in Operation Blue in the summer of 1942; only in the Battle of Kursk in the hot summer of 1943 was there to be a decisive victory.

　Armed with valuable military intelligence, the Soviets constructed six lines of defense behind their own front lines. They laid some 4,000 mines and dug some 3,000 miles of incredible trenches. About 1.3 million or more Soviet troops awaited the German attack.

　A German tank commander who fought at Kursk said the Germans crossed the river and entered the minefield shortly after. The 12th Tiger tank disappeared; by July 9, 1943, the German advance was halted in the north. Three days later, the Soviets launched a counterattack. In the south, however, the Red Army had a harder time with the German tank corps. Soviet tanks rushed toward the German group's tank columns to counter the range of the German tanks, and everywhere the tanks of both armies were burning. by mid-July the fighting was over, with the Soviets losing about 300,000 men and the Germans about 100,000 killed in action.

　Militarily, the two armies were evenly matched, but morale-wise, it was a great victory for the Soviet Red Army. Stalin promised at the end of 1943 that Kursk would be the last major offensive on the Eastern Front by the Germans; in June 1944, the Soviets launched a major offensive on the Eastern Front, and the Red Army finally drove the Germans out of the Soviet Union; in July 1943, on the Russian battlefield, the rebuilding of the Eastern Front that had begun at Stalingrad was completed. The rebuilding of the Eastern Front, which had begun at Stalingrad, was completed. The German military leaders' attempts to cut off the Soviet frontal advance from Kursk and regain strategic initiative failed within days. Damage was so severe that the Wehrmacht, not the Soviet Army, suffered bloodshed.