The Battle of Kursk – The End of the Western Legends

Beschreibung

The Battle of Kursk – The End of the Western Legends

by Dr. Karsten Heinz Schönbach

For decades, Western military historians have challenged Soviet and Russian accounts of the Battle of Kursk, branding them as myths. Yet, as Dr. Karsten Heinz Schönbach argues, Western historiography has constructed its own myths — primarily the Hitler Legend and the Siegfried Myth — which shape our understanding of this pivotal World War II battle.
The Hitler Legend originates from post-war German generals who blamed Hitler for the Wehrmacht’s defeat at Kursk. They argued that he devised a flawed plan, delayed the attack too long, and ended the battle prematurely, squandering potential victory. However, Schönbach presents extensive Wehrmacht documents revealing that Hitler was hesitant about Operation Citadel and that Germany’s top generals — rather than Hitler — were the driving force behind the offensive. The idea of an all-powerful dictator micromanaging every detail collapses under scrutiny.
The Siegfried Myth portrays the Wehrmacht as nearly invincible, with exaggerated enemy kill counts and unrealistically low German tank losses. Western historians claim that most German tanks lost in battle were merely „temporary“ casualties, soon repaired and returned to combat. Using war diaries and original Wehrmacht reports, Schönbach exposes the falsification of battle records. His research reveals that actual German tank losses were far higher than reported and that the repair backlog left hundreds of vehicles permanently out of action. He demonstrates how internal division reports often documented three times the tank losses officially recorded.
As the Soviet counteroffensive began on July 12, 1943, German command authorities manipulated reports to downplay their losses and cover up their failures, presenting a misleading picture of battlefield realities. Schönbach’s groundbreaking research reveals that even Nazi leadership was aware of this systematic falsification during the war.
For the first time, The Battle of Kursk uncovers the deliberate distortion of historical records and challenges long-held assumptions about one of World War II’s most significant battles. A must-read for military history enthusiasts, scholars, and anyone seeking the truth behind the myths.

About the author

Dr. Karsten Heinz Schönbach holds a doctorate in history and specialises in research into fascism and military history, particularly for the period of the Second World War. He is the last student of Professor Wolfgang Wippermann (* 29 January 1945 in Wesermünde; † 3 January 2021 in Berlin), the last chair holder among German fascism researchers.
Dr. Schönbach studied economics, German studies and history at the Humboldt University of Berlin and the Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald. In 2012, he completed his doctorate at the Free University of Berlin under Professor Wippermann with the thesis „Die deutschen Konzerne und der Nationalsozialismus 1926 – 1943“ [The German Corporations and National Socialism 1926-1943], which is regarded as the standard work on the relationship between large industrial cooperations and Hitler’s government. In total, he has produced more than ten publications on fascism research in recent years.
To date, Dr. Schönbach’s work has focused on the relationship between the Nazi leadership and industrial magnates before and during the World War II. In this respect, his research to date has concentrated on the organization of the war economy – in particular war financing and the balance of power in the Nazi economic apparatus.
Based on his previous insights and findings, Dr. Schönbach is therefore an opponent of the so-called „Hitler legend“ in research, which de facto declares Hitler to be the „lone perpetrator“ with regard to the central political and military plans and decisions of the Nazi leadership and the resulting crimes.
In 2022, Dr. Schönbach began to expand his research from the economic to the military side of German warfare. The book „The Battle of Kursk“, first published by Lander & Børg in German in January 2024, marks the start of a whole series of research projects on the second half of the war (1943 – 1945).