The Soviet 5th Armored Army had gone into action with all the ardor of an experienced troop that had waited too long in its reserve positions. The vanguard of the Panzer S.S. corps rolling towards Prokhorovka fell on all of this fresh and fiery force. With slightly fewer manpower but more heavy tanks, Hausser's exhausted tank crews found someone to reckon with.
Thick dust prevented the Tigers from taking advantage of their superior firing range; many fell victim to the T34s. The battlefield was strewn with burning carcasses - each of the two sides lost more than 300 tanks. But it was the Germans who suffered such heavy losses least easily. The furious Panzer attack ended. By evening, the Soviets had recaptured Berezowka and isolated the 3rd Panzer Division and much of the Gross Deutschland, which had charged through the woods to its aid.
For the Germans, it was clear that the battle was lost. All the ground between Belgorod, where the 7th Guards Army had broken through to the rear echelons of the SS Corps, and Orel to the north, was in Soviet hands. Only small groups of isolated Germans were visible in the villages.
With the three heights for which we had so fiercely fought and which were now abandoned by the Germans, the Russians benefited from privileged firing positions.
The Germans had failed, and the immediate cause of their failure was an order from the Führer himself, transmitted through Manstein and by microwave to the headquarters of Army Group South:"Operation 'Zitadell' is canceled as soon as now. »
It is, of course, impossible to instantly stop a raging battle unless both sides receive the same order. Withdrawing imposed a rearguard fight and it took two weeks before the Hoth forces returned to their initial positions, at the cost of further considerable losses.
To the north, the 9' Model's army, which had advanced very little, consequently had few miles to cover to withdraw.
But the situation at Orel was still critical and Manstein had to order two Panzer divisions to withdraw. bear north.
He sent two more south to the increasingly threatened Taganrog-Stalino sector.
During the entire “Zitadelle” operation, the advances made by the two jaws of the pincers were never able to reduce the breach made at the base of the salient to less than 96 kilometers.
Twenty Panzer divisions, the pride of the Wehrmacht, had been bled dry and although an extraordinary number of prisoners and enormous booty could be credited to them, it was only too clear that with the help of the Allies, the Russians could sustain huge losses much more easily than the Germans could. The "Death Ride" of the 4th Panzer Army announced the approaching end of the fighting in Russia.
By December, the reconstituted 9th and 4th armies had withdrawn to the Dnieper and beyond.