Operation Roland
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| Operation Roland | |
|---|---|
| Part of Operation Citadel and the Battle of Prokhorovka | |
 The crew of a Panzer III from the 2nd SS Panzergrenadier Division Das Reich rest after a rainstorm had poured over the battlefield during Operation Citadel. | |
| Operational scope | Local offensive |
| Planned by | Army Group South of the German Wehrmacht |
| Objective | To eliminate Soviet salient between two German panzer corps and destroy the soviet mobile reserves south of Prokhorovka |
| Date | Began July 14, 1943 |
| Executed by | |
| Outcome |
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Operation Roland was a local German offensive inside the Soviet Union during the Second World War on the Eastern Front. It was conducted as a local operation within the overarching German summer offensive, Operation Citadel, on the southern side of the Kursk salient. The German forces of the III Panzer Corps and the 2nd SS Panzer Division ''Das Reich'' of the II SS Panzer Corps attempted to envelop and destroy Soviet forces of the Voronezh Front. This operation was necessitated by the failure of the German II SS Panzer Corps to break through Soviet forces during the Battle of Prokhorovka on 12 July. Therefore, German commanders decided to first link up the III Panzer Corps, which had been lagging behind due to heavy Soviet resistance, with the II SS Panzer Corps, in order to consolidate the German positions into a continuous frontline without inward bulges and enable the two panzer corps to overrun Soviet forces defending Prokhorovka together. The linking up of the two German pincers was planned to effectuate the envelopment of the Soviet 69th Army and other supporting units.
The operation commenced on the morning of 14 July, and by the end of 15 July the two German pincers had linked up, but they failed to trap the majority of the Soviet forces, which by then had already fought their way out of the trap.
On the morning of 5 July 1943, the Wehrmacht launched its offensive, Operation Citadel, against the Soviet forces defending the Kursk salient. They made slow but steady progress through the Soviet defensive lines. After a week of fighting, the Soviets launched a major counterattack, which resulted in one of the largest clashes of armoured forces, the Battle of Prokhorovka. The attacking Soviet forces were decimated in the battle, but they succeeded in preventing the Wehrmacht from capturing Prokhorovka and breaking through the third defensive belt – the last heavily fortified one.[citation needed]
On 13 July Hitler summoned Field Marshal Erich von Manstein to his headquarters, the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia. The Allied invasion of Sicily on the night of 9–10 July, combined with the Soviet counteroffensive of Operation Kutuzov against the flank and rear of General Walter Model's 9th Army on the northern side of the Kursk salient on 12 July, and the attacks by strong Soviet forces at Prokhorovka the same day had caused Hitler to stop the offensive and begin redeploying forces to the Mediterranean theatre. He ordered his generals to terminate Operation Citadel.[citation needed]
Manstein was greatly disappointed. He argued that his forces were now on the verge of achieving a major breakthrough in the southern side of the salient. As he saw it, with his III Panzer Corps about to link up with the II SS Panzer Corps at Prokhorovka, and with the XXIV Panzer Corps available as his operational reserve, they would be halting the offensive just at the moment when victory was in hand. With an eye toward the west, Hitler was unwilling to continue the offensive. Manstein persisted, proposing that his forces should at least destroy the Soviet reserves in the southern Kursk salient before Citadel was finally terminated, so that the Soviet fighting capacity in the sector would be depleted for the rest of the summer. Hitler agreed to continue offensive operations in the southern salient until Manstein's goal was achieved.[citation needed]
After the meeting with Hitler on 13 July, Manstein hastily put together the plans for Operation Roland, realizing that he only had a few days to conduct the operation before he lost the II SS Panzer Corps due to redeployment.[1] The plan called for Das Reich to attack east and south and link up with III Panzer Corps, which would attack to the northwest. Totenkopf and Leibstandarte were to anchor the western and northern flanks of Das Reich, respectively. Once the link was achieved and the Soviet forces encircled, Prokhorovka would then be attacked shortly thereafter by the combined forces of the II SS Panzer Corps and III Panzer Corps.[1] The goal of the operation was to destroy the Soviet armoured reserves massed in the southern sector of the Kursk salient, and thereby check Soviet offensive capacity for the rest of the summer.[2][3]