The Lake Norman Brief
World War II
World War II history from The Lake Norman Brief, beginning with the Battle of the Bulge collection.
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The Cost and the Memory of Kursk
How many men died at Kursk, and how has the battle been remembered? Soviet and German losses by phase, with sources and…
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Behind the Front: The Waffen-SS, the Einsatzgruppen and the Occupied East
Behind the Kursk battles lay a second war: the record of the Waffen-SS divisions, the Einsatzgruppen and Babi Yar, the burning of…
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Citadel Called Off: Kutuzov, Rumyantsev and the Liberation of Orel, Belgorod and Kharkov
How Hitler called off Operation Citadel on 13 July 1943, and how the Soviet Kutuzov and Rumyantsev offensives liberated Orel, Belgorod and…
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Prokhorovka, 12 July 1943: The Battle and the Legend
On 12 July 1943 Rotmistrov’s 5th Guards Tank Army struck the II SS Panzer Corps at Prokhorovka. The march, the anti-tank ditch,…
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The Air War over Kursk
How the Luftwaffe and the Soviet air armies fought over the Kursk salient in July 1943: the failed Soviet dawn strike, the…
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The Southern Face: Panthers, the SS and the Road to Oboyan
From 4 to 11 July 1943 Hoth’s Fourth Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf broke two Soviet defensive belts on the southern…
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The Northern Face: Model, Ponyri and the Olkhovatka Heights
On 5 July 1943 Model’s Ninth Army attacked the northern face of the Kursk salient. In a week of fighting for Ponyri…
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The Soviet Fortress: Minefields, Strongpoints and the Waiting Armies
How the Red Army turned the Kursk salient into the deepest field fortification of the war between April and July 1943: eight…
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After Stalingrad: Kharkov, the Salient and the Decision for Citadel
How the Soviet winter offensive of February 1943 took Kharkov, how Manstein’s counterstroke and the SS Panzer Corps retook it in March,…
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The Cost and the Memory of Kasserine
What Kasserine and the Tunisian campaign cost, by the numbers and with the sources’ ranges, and how the battle was remembered: the…