Did Hitler make the right decision for Germany when he called off Operation Zitadelle (during the Battle of Kursk)?

Question

On the night of 9/10 July, the Western Allies mounted an amphibious invasion of Sicily. Three days later, Hitler summoned Günther von Kluge and Erich von Manstein to his Wolfsschanze headquarters in East Prussia and declared his intention to "temporarily" call off Operation Zitadelle. Von Manstein attempted to dissuade him, arguing that Zitadelle was on the brink of victory: "on no account should we let go of the enemy until the mobile reserves which he had committed were decisively beaten". In an unusual reversal of their roles, Hitler gave von Manstein a few more days to continue the offensive, but on 17 July, he ordered a withdrawal and canceled the operation. He then ordered the entire SS Panzer Corps to be transferred to Italy.[87]

While Hitler often made notoriously poor judgments for all the wrong reasons, did he make the right decision for Germany (for the wrong reason) in this specific isolated case? Was Zitadelle really on the brink of victory as Von Manstein believed?

Answer 1

Hitler was right in this instance. It was Manstein that extended the battle too far.

The "official" reason for the offensive, was to recapture the city of Kursk. That was within the reach of the Germans.

The REAL purpose of the offensive was to cut off the Russian salient, of which Kursk was the tip. The reason this didn't work was that the Russians concentrated their defense lines at the BASE of salient (south and north of Orel and Belgorod), on either side, instead of concentrating their forces at Kursk, where they could be cut off.

What Manstein should have done was to "snap off" Kursk at the tip of the salient, then "declare victory and go home." What he actually did was to WIDEN the front by moving the German forces east to Prokhorovka. This turned the battle from one of decision (which favored the Germans) to one of attrition (which favored the Russians), who could trade their more numerous tanks for German vehicles at a rate of about one to one.

This was because Manstein had let the Kursk operation deteriorate from the [1] "set piece battle" to a "meeting engagement" in which Germany had no advantage.

So Hitler was right to stop the Kursk operation, with or without regard to what was happening in Italy.

[1] http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/48646/what-is-the-meaning-and-origin-of-set-piece-battle

Answer 2

The whole operation was doomed from the start because the Allies at Bletchley Park had deciphered the German plans for the attack.

The British gave the Russians ample warning time of this, although the Russians already knew about it as they had spies of their own within British intelligence.

http://www.colossus-computer.com/colossus1.html

Given that the Russians had several weeks forewarning, they amassed tanks, guns and soldiers in great number and prepared many layers of defence lines to defeat the German assault.

Had the Germans never launched Zitadelle they would have preserved their precious tanks and probably prolonged the war although the end result would have been the same. Hitler made the right decision on this occasion, by calling the operation off, but he should have done so sooner.