Third Battle of Kharkov by Army Groups South and Center against the protruding Kursk salient. Because of Hitler's obsession with preserving the front, he chose the "forehand method", which led to the Battle of Kursk. Further reading Third Battle of Kharkov The Third Battle of Kharkov was a series of battles on the Eastern Front of World War II, undertaken by the German Army Group South against the Red Army, around the city of Kharkov (or "Kharkiv") between 19 February and 15 March 1943. Known to the German side as the Donets Campaign, and in the Soviet Union as the Donbas and Kharkov operations,
Battle of Prokhorovka Kursk salient, becoming the first time in the Second World War that a major German offensive was halted before it could break through enemy defences and penetrate into their operational or strategic depths. With the end of Operation Citadel, the strategic initiative permanently swung over to the Soviet Union for the rest of the war. The battle has been widely described as the largest tank engagement or battle in military history, involving 1,200–1,500 tanks and sometimes up to 2,000, but this is incorrect as the battle did not involve that many tanks. The exaggerated figures originated from erroneous Soviet intelligence