The Red Army’s Plans in Documents of German Intelligence Agencies Prior to Operation Citadel

Previously unstudied documents of the Wehrmacht for 1943 are examined. The documents, kept in the Federal Archives of Germany, are used to analyze the activities of Foreign Armies East, an intelligence branch of the German army’s General Staff, in processing intelligence information from special services and preparing reports for the Supreme Command and personally for Adolf Hitler during the conceptual development and planning of Operation Citadel, the key operation in the summer campaign of 1943.

The participation of German intelligence organizations in the planning of Operation Citadel presents a major research problem in the history of the Battle of Kursk, a problem that has yet to be studied comprehensively by Russian researchers. It is known that at war, intelligence is and has always been a crucial instrument of the military and political leadership of any country. Intelligence bodies within the armed forces are key military units, which are formed within all the main headquarters and directorates of army field forces. Undoubtedly, intelligence data were used on a mandatory basis by the Third Reich in developing a military operation of any scale, including Operation Citadel.
The recently published documents of the German troops; of the Central and Voronezh Fronts, operating at Kursk; and of the Steppe Military District (StepMD) provide evidence that, as early as at the end of April 1943, even the command of one of the Wehrmacht strike groups at the Kursk Bulge considered the conditions to be unfavorable for carrying out a major offensive. 1 By the end of the first third of May 1943, the quantity and condition of the Soviet troops were such that it became impossible to achieve the goals set out in the Citadel plan. 2 Nevertheless, the decision to carry out the operation was not revoked, which led to a failure of the Wehrmacht with major consequences.
Thus, after 12 days of heavy fighting in the southern part of the Kursk Bulge, Army Group (AG) South, the stronger one of the two formations that participated in the offensive, was able to move only 35 km forward (out of the planned 145). On the night of July 17, AG South was forced to begin the withdrawal of its forces from Prokhorovka to their original positions, 3 and on September 22, the Voronezh Front, which had forced the enemy to retreat by 400 km, reached the Dnieper River.
Soviet military historians noted that one of the factors that had influenced the attempt to carry out such an adventurist plan as Operation Citadel could have been the overly optimistic reports of German intelligence about the state and potential of the Red Army at Kursk. G.A. Koltunov and B.G. Solov'ev even cited several quotations from the reports prepared by the key center for processing and analyzing intelligence information within the German army's General Staff (Oberkommando des Heeres, OKH), i.e., by Branch 12 "Foreign Armies East" as of March and April 1943. 4 However, these small excerpts were given without a clear indication of the source, which largely complicates their interpretation. In addition, we should not forget that the German side had been preparing the operation for more than three months, and its start was postponed at least four times. Therefore, the fragments of two or three reports prepared during the ini-tial phase of the planning are insufficient to evaluate the quality of intelligence information received from April to June. Moreover, they give no clue about the changes in the opinion of the intelligence leadership on the rationale for carrying out Operation Citadel and the Wehrmacht's capabilities to fulfill the task assigned to it, considering the Red Army's active forces.
For a long time, Soviet and post-Soviet historians lacked access to the materials necessary to investigate this problem. Although the main part of the Wehrmacht's documents for 1943 had been available in the public domain from the Federal Archives of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesarchiv) since the early 1960s, it was almost impossible for Soviet scholars to gain access to them during the Cold War-it was believed that such studies might have had an adverse effect on our understanding of the significance of our victory and of the Red Army's achievements. An exception was made only for a few sources that reflected the planning of unsuccessful strategic operations by the German command or testified to the Reich's aggressive plans and the war crimes committed by German troops in the occupied territories. It is no wonder that, from the early 1970s, historians in the Soviet Union virtually ceased their attempts to analyze crucial aspects in the history of the Great Patriotic War. Meanwhile, it was argued that these problems had been supposedly well understood 5 and the main attention had to be directed to creating a fundamental history of the Second World War in general.
In the 1990s-2000s, Russian researchers expanded their knowledge about German intelligence mainly by working with the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), from which they could obtain, relatively inexpensively, photographic films with captured war materials. Even today, working with NARA remains the easiest and most accessible way to gain access to the documentation of the Wehrmacht troops from a division to an army group. However, NARA keeps only the papers of Ic grassroots units (mainly at the division-army level), whereas the reports prepared by the Abwehr intelligence network, by military attachés, and even more so the summarizing reports prepared by OKH officers for the supreme command and personally for Adolf Hitler are stored in the various files of the Federal Archives of Germany.
In 2013, D.Yu. Khokhlov worked with previously unstudied materials from the archive of the Russian Federal Security Service and published the first domestic study examining the structure, personnel, information acquisition methods, and daily activities of the OKH branch "Foreign Armies East." However, this study did not analyze the results achieved during the planning and preparation of the Kursk offensive. 6 Thus, over the entire postwar period, not a single study appeared in the Soviet and post-Soviet historiography regarding the actions of German intelligence agencies aimed at providing the supreme command of the Wehrmacht with information about the Red Army during the preparations for the 1943 summer campaign.
Meanwhile, in 2019, two files (RH. 2/1979 and RH. 2/2585) were discovered in the Freiburg branch of the Federal Archives of Germany that contained several reports of Branch 12. These reports were submitted to the leadership of both the OKH headquarters and the Reich, including in connection with the planning of Operation Citadel. The documents are especially valuable because they date back to the most complicated periods in the development of the operation: the initial phase (from the second half of April to the first days of May 1943), when both the OKH and Hitler's Headquarters were vigorously debating the feasibility of conducting the operation, and the final one (a few days before the troops went on the offensive). 7 By the spring of 1943, Germany had several powerful intelligence agencies with an extensive network of residencies, undercover agents, intelligence schools, etc., which were subordinate to different departments. The largest ones of those operating against the Red Army were the Abwehr military intelligence, field unit intelligence, and counterintelligence (from a division and beyond) on the Eastern Front (Ic), and the 6th Directorate of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). They supplied the most important and verified information to OKH Branch 12, which had been headed for almost a year by Colonel Reinhard Gehlen . Later he would recall, "On April 1, 1942, I was appointed head of Branch 12 of the German army's General Staff. This branch was known as Foreign Armies East (Fremde Heere Ost), and it was primarily concerned with gathering intelligence on our Soviet enemies. My appointment resulted from the chief of staff's desire to see a change in the leadership of the branch. He was dissatisfied with my predecessor, and we were on the threshold of launching a major offensive in Russia  Appointing Gehlen proved to be a good decision. The colonel not only possessed good professional competence and military experience but also had an incisive mind, a broad outlook, and outstanding organizational skills. He was a far-sighted man, distinguished by his purposefulness and dedication as well as great cautiousness. These qualities allowed him not only to fulfill his tasks successfully but also to remain in his post almost until the end of the war although his reports on the Red Army's capabilities sometimes ran counter to the Fuhrer's opinion. After the defeat of Germany, he managed to keep a substantial array of valuable data about the Soviet Union and the agent network and to use these data to gain the interest of US intelligence agencies, which in turn helped him set up a new agency in Germany, i.e., the Gehlen Organization. This organization was subsequently transformed into the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), which became under his leadership one of the most powerful and effective intelligence agencies worldwide.
Branch 12 was, in fact, an analytical rather than intelligence center within the OKH headquarters. Its task was to conduct in-depth processing of information collected by military attaches, the Luftwaffe, 1С service, and the Abwehr and RSHA agents. As a result, the command of the German Army received reports on certain subjects and areas. In these reports, selected intelligence data were "fused" into blocks, which in turn were put together to form a picture of events along the entire front and on the various sectors of the front. In addition, the department sought to identify signs of the preparation of operational and strategic reserves in the Soviet Union and to predict the most important military decisions taken in Moscow. Gehlen's branch had strong analysts on staff, as well as officers with extensive practical experience; their conclusions regarding the further development of events and the likely steps of the Soviet side were highly objective and very accurate. Gehlen later wrote the following.
In peacetime, the branch's job had been to build up the most comprehensive picture it could of the defense and armaments potential of the eastern countries under its surveillance. This was done in conjunction with other agencies both inside and outside the army's General Staff. The branch had circulated reports to keep officers and men adequately informed on conditions they must expect-for example, geographical or meteorological data. Of particular value was any data we could gather on the so-called fighting quality of each enemy unit-the beginning of what we now refer to as a psycho-political appreciation of the enemy. The information we had filed on the Soviet fighting man in this respect during peacetime was to be wholly confirmed during the first year of the Russian campaign: we had predicted that the Russian soldier would be tough and frugal, and that his modest material needs would enable him to fight on long after the battle itself was lost. We anticipated, too, that indoctrination would affect the officer corps but not the bulk of the recruits, and this also proved correct. Moreover, we correctly predicted that when Soviet defeats occurred the desertion rate would increase." 9 The conceptualization of the 1943 summer campaign began at Hitler's Headquarters (and, on his orders, at the OKH) at the end of January 1943, but it was only a month later that he realized where and with what forces he would like and be able to carry out the first major operation of that year in the East. In the late spring, the idea of launching a large-scale offensive at the Kursk Bulge, i.e., the territory occupied by the Red Army in February 1943 west of Kursk, was literally floating in the air. It was first proposed on March 8 in a report to Hitler by AG South's commander Field Marshal Erich von Manstein. Taking into account the shortage of forces, the difficult position of AG Center's troops, and the thaw expected in the coming weeks, he proposed to confine the operation to cutting the Kursk Bulge into two parts with strikes from the west and from the south, which were to converge near Kursk. But Hitler did not accept this proposal because he believed that after the catastrophe in Stalingrad, he needed a successful operation on a larger scale. It should be expected that when the winter and the spring thaw is over, the Russians, having created stocks of material resources and partially replenished their formations with people, will resume the offensive. Therefore, our task is to preempt them in the offensive in certain areas in order to impose our will upon them at least on one of the sectors of the front as we do now on the front of AG South. In the remaining sectors of the front, the task is to bleed out the advancing enemy. Here we must build in advance a particularly strong defense by using heavy arms, improving our positions in engineering terms, setting minefields where necessary, equipping stronghold positions in the rear, creating mobile reserves, etc. The preparations should begin immediately on the fronts of all the army groups. They must include, first of all, the replenishment of the personnel and equipment of the formations intended for the offensive operations, which must be given rest and an increase in their combat training, and the maximum strengthening and fortification of those sectors of the front where purely defensive actions are expected on our part. Since the thaw period will end earlier than usual this year, it is important not to miss a single day in the preparations and plan the work sequence especially thoroughly. 11 Initially, it was not intended to develop a single operation plan for both AGs. The headquarters of each AG had to contemplate their actions independently, taking into account the terrain features, the state of the troops, and the data received from their operational and tactical reconnaissance and from the 1st and 4th air fleets. The coordination and concurrence of the main parameters of the two plans (the tasks of the strike force troops, combat formations, etc.) was entrusted to the OKH headquarters. In this "technological chain," Gehlen's branch fulfilled two crucial tasks: it provided the OKH command with updated (rechecked) intelligence information about the state of affairs in certain sectors of the front at the Kursk Bulge and compiled analytical reports to form an overall (strategic) view of the situation along the entire Soviet-German front (the length of which was 2100 km at that time) and deep inside the Soviet Union.
The campaign planning was complicated by the fact that despite the acute shortage of resources, Hitler intended to conduct a partial offensive operation in the zone of AG South in April, even before the launch of Operation Citadel, in order to inflict maximum damage on the Southwestern Front (two alternative versions of this operation-Hawk and Panther-were considered simultaneously). 12 Fearing the dispersal of the hard-won forces needed to strike at Kursk, the majority of the generals opposed this operation, but the Führer insisted on it, and the headquarters of the OKH and AG South and its armies had to work vigorously on two operations concurrently as well as prepare the troops and defense. Moreover, throughout the entire period of the preparations for Operation Citadel and especially in their initial phase, when the formations at the Kursk Bulge had been largely bled out after the winter battles, Berlin was expecting every day that the Red Army could go on a powerful offensive and had to reckon with the growing threat from the Anglo-American troops in Europe. Therefore, from mid-April to early July, the information coming from Branch 12 was essential and highly sought after. Moreover, in response to the Abwehr's reports, Gehlen's subordinates analyzed not only the situation at the Kursk Bulge but also the possibility of Moscow striking Finland or the Baltic states. 13 Judging by the documents found in the Federal Archives of Germany, it is likely that the branch submitted its reports regarding Citadel upon requests from the OKH headquarters rather than on an adopted schedule. As a rule, it did so at the most critical or tense times in the planning of the operation or before discussing its key aspects in Hitler's presence. Sometimes Gehlen could present his own thoughts on what he considered especially important, but this rarely happened.
On April 15, Hitler signed Operations Order 6. This document concretized, for the first time, the goals and objectives of the two AGs and the air fleets involved in carrying out Operation Citadel, pointed out the key factors to be taken into account during the operation, and set approximate dates for the beginning of the concentration of forces (April 28) and for the strike (May 3). 14 Signing this order marked the start of the main phase in preparing the offensive at Kursk, which began on July 5.
Instead of Kluge, Hitler put Colonel General Walter Model, the commander of the 9th Army (A), in charge of the actions in the north of the Kursk Bulge, which further aggravated his already tense personal relationship with the field marshal. Meanwhile, Model's troops proved to be more battle-bled and exhausted after the winter fights than Manstein's formations and required a greater replenishment both of people and of heavy weapons. However, the OKHpromised marching battalions and echelons with armored vehicles had not arrived to 9A by mid-April; nonetheless, the date for starting the concentration of the strike force according to Operations Order 6 was approaching. Model's repeated requests to Smolensk did not change the situation since Kluge had no reserves either and could only get them from Berlin. The unfulfilled promise to replenish the forces coupled with the tensions between the field marshal and the colonel general, the OKH's vague stance on the most part of pressing issues, and Hitler's continued ambivalence on whether or not to carry out Operation Citadel exacerbated the situation to an extreme level. Seeing no other way out, Model even announced on April 17 that he was ready to give up command of the army because, under such conditions, the operation would only lead to unnecessary deaths and he alone would be held responsible. 15 Colonel General Kurt Zeitzler, who replaced Halder as the OKH chief of staff in the autumn of 1942, was at that time an ardent supporter of Operation Citadel and believed that its plan had to be implemented as quickly as possible. However, he was well aware of 9A's difficult position and was afraid that Model, given his explosive nature, would get through to Hitler and make a scandal that might end in abandoning the planned encirclement of Soviet troops with strikes from Belgorod and Orel onto Kursk. In addition, immediately after signing Order 6, the Führer again became interested in Manstein's idea of a "lightweight" offensive, i.e., cutting the Kursk Bulge with a strike from the west (from the 2A zone) and from the south. Zeitzler was categorically against such a change in the plan, rightly fearing that, in this case, the results would be far below the expectations.
In order to rely on weighty arguments when discussing the final version of the operation with Hitler, Zeitzler ordered Gehlen to report the available information and the opinion of the intelligence on "whether the Red Army would be holding the Kursk Bulge in the event of a German offensive" and "whether Moscow itself was preparing to strike at Kursk." On April 19, the staff of Branch 12 prepared a report "Likely Behavior of the Enemy in the Face of Army Groups South and Center." Based on the data of all the German intelligence agencies, they argued, We must count on the intention of the Russians to hold the Kursk area in the event of a possible German offensive against the encirclement. General. At this meeting, it was decided to assume a deliberate defensive, including in the area of the Kursk Bulge, by building there a strong multilane defense line to repel a possible German offensive. Before that, the Supreme High Command (SHC) Headquarters had already set the task of creating large strategic reserves both for defense and for the planned summer offensive, during which it was intended to liberate the entire occupied territory of the Soviet Union by the end of the year. On April 6, Stalin signed a directive on the formation of the Reserve Front and the deployment of its field office in the Voronezh area. 17 Soon after, it would be renamed the Steppe Military District (StepMD). It concentrated the main part of the strategic reserves of the SHC Headquarters, including a large formation that was new to the Red Army-the 5th Guards Tank Army of a uniform composition under the command of Lieutenant General Pavel Rotmistrov. This army had been formed since the end of February 1943 in the Voronezh area, and it was discovered by German radio intelligence as early as in April. It was brought into battle for the first time at Prokhorovka on July 12. Notably, the armies and corps transferred to the StepMD were concentrated precisely in those areas that were indicated in Gehlen's report. Thus, its staff gave generally correct answers to S742 HERALD OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Vol. 92 Suppl. 8 2022 ZAMULIN the questions posed to them: Moscow was preparing to defend the Kursk Bulge, and, after fending off the strike, it would go on the offensive, for which it was already building large reserves in the rear. Moreover, this conclusion was made a week after the SHC Headquarters itself finally decided on that plan of action. Subsequently (e.g., in early May), the branch reasonably insisted that the Red Army was preparing a defensive in the Kursk area; moreover, it was doing so on a large scale and with success. This meant that it would be extremely difficult and costly to carry out the Citadel plan, and one had to prepare for very intense battles and for breaking through well-prepared defensive lines. However, Gehlen demonstrated in this report not only accuracy in appreciating the intentions of the Soviet side but also diplomacy. He noted the desire of the defenders to hold the Kursk Bulge, which did not contradict the views of the generals led by Zeitzler, who believed that the stubborn defense by the Soviet troops of their positions would help the Wehrmacht to encircle and then destroy a large group of Red Army forces. Consequently, if the operation had to be carried out, then it had to be done as quickly as possible, i.e., in early May as per Hitler's order. However, the report also confirmed the opinion held by the opponents of the Kursk offensive, i.e., by the Headquarters of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW), headed by General Alfred Jodl, and the Chief Inspection of Armored Troops, headed by General Heinz Guderian. For instance, the report stated that Moscow was expecting a German offensive at Kursk and was preparing to repel it. This could not but increase doubts about the feasibility of the operation.
It cannot go unmentioned that it was only at first glance that such efficiency and accuracy in appreciations could be regarded as evidence of a great amount of work performed by the German intelligence in advance; of a fairly wide network of agents working in different areas in the rear of the Soviet troops (250-300 km from the line of contact), primarily on the railway; and of the effective work of pilots and radio operators. Individual accounts cited by the authors of the report to confirm their opinions appeared completely unconvincing and often did not fit the reality. One can only wonder how the branch analysts were able to draw correct conclusions on major issues from those accounts.
Thus, on April 3, according to "general unreliable sources," a message was received "from communist circles": Before the opening of a second front by the Anglo-Saxons, the Soviet Union goes on the defensive. Two large reserves are grouping behind the Russian front: at Moscow and behind the line of the southern sector of the front, at Voronezh-Tambov. Very low combat effectiveness of the untrained poorly equipped units, mostly recovered wounded; their mood depressed. The supplies for this group are coming through Kuibyshev from East Asia. The losses in manpower and equipment in winter were much heavier than was previously thought. Another "generally unreliable source" informed about the "appreciation of the enemy's situation at the Russian headquarters": The Germans will launch an offensive on the southern sector of the front much earlier this year than last in order to make the most of summer and autumn. Based on the estimates by the Russian headquarters, its forces on the southern sector are insufficient to repel a large offensive. There is a lot of talk about the technical support of the army and the opening of a second front. The Russians are inclined to give up the attack on the northern front because of the critical situation on the southern one. The failure to capture Tunisia, too, delays action in the Balkans.
On April 16, the branch learned about the "Russian headquarters' report on the enemy situation," which stated: "At Balakleya, up to 100 km behind the German line, substantial movements are observed of the army units. The fact that German aviation has been covering for several days the railroad tracks near Balakleya indicates that the German command is conducting special preparations on a 150-km-wide front with the main direction at Balakleya for the start of the German spring offensive." The next day, an account was received "from a military attaché (possibly an unreliable source)," who learned "from two independent sources" that "Stalin is concentrating two large reserve groups: one at Moscow and the other at Voronezh, Samara, and Saratov. The concentration of the Moscow reserve is complete. This one is about 40 to 50 divisions of good army forces. This reserve was originally intended for an offensive in the Baltic and against Finland. The plan, however, was abandoned for fear of a large German offensive through Kharkov. Now both reserves are intended to repel the German offensive." Finally, a "reliable agent" stated that "Stalin appointed a meeting of all the commanders of the fronts and commanders of the armies in Moscow on April 23. The issues planned for discussion: (1) Signs of a German offensive. (2) Improving the interactions between different branches of the army. (3) Moods in the army units. (4) Technical and mechanized support of the army units." 18 In fact, the "reliable agent" was misinformed: there was no such large-scale meeting in Moscow on April 23. Moreover, the SHC Headquarters had never held such meetings before. When preparing an offensive, meetings were held only of those commanders of the armies and fronts who were to take part in a given operation (usually three to five weeks prior to launching the operation, depending on the scheduled dates and on the situation in which it was planned). In some cases, tasks were assigned to each general individually by the front commander himself or by a representative of the SHC Headquarters without any meetings. It is hard to believe that the intelligence of a country that had been at war with the Soviet Union for two years did not know that. Therefore, it seems that Gehlen attached those accounts to his report, rather than to confirm the conclusions, in order to demonstrate clearly to Zeitzler what low-grade assets he had to work with when completing that task.
One way or another, false information was coming though the Abwehr channels throughout the entire period of preparing and carrying out Operation Citadel. For example, on July 5, Abwehr Group 103 with the AG Center Headquarters submitted a statement according to which on June 18 "a reliable agent reported," referring to the radio interception of "talks between Kuibyshev and Tbilisi," about Stalin's return to Moscow on June 17 after a "short trip to Voronezh." 19 On July 9, the same agency noted that on July 7 "Marshal Zhukov and Marshal Vasilevskii with their headquarters arrived in Valuiki on two heavy bombers." 20 Both statements were considered reliable and were included in the intelligence digest of the AG headquarters although it is known that Stalin did not visit Voronezh in 1943 and did not leave the Moscow area in June. The marshals, in turn, had been staying since July 4 with the troops defending the Kursk Bulge: Zhukov on the Central Front and Vasilevskii on the Voronezh Front. 21 Moreover, they arrived straight at the airfields located near their command posts and could not possibly have been in Valuiki (on the Southwestern Front) on July 7.
On July 8, a "reliable agent" ("Olaf") reported to Group 103 that the day before "a train with 140 tanks (mostly heavy ones), of which 50 were American, and many antitank and antiaircraft guns was sent to the area of Staryi Oskol-Skorodnoe (50 km south[west] of the town of Staryi Oskol)." 22 In addition, on July 8, one "motorized and mechanized strike army," likely number 4, was alleged to have pulled into the area of the town of Tim (65 km southeast of Kursk), including four tank, mechanized, and cavalry corps and two rifle divisions. On this day, the 5th Guards Tank Army was indeed moving from the Voronezh area past Staryi Oskol towards Prokhorovka, but it was going on its own rather than by rail. had more than 700 tanks and self-propelled artillery vehicles. 23 At that time, there was no such thing as the "4th motorized and mechanized army" at all in the Red Army-Tank Army 4 (4TA) did exist, but it was concentrated in the Moscow Military District, and the SHC Headquarters did not plan to transfer it to the Tim area (and there were no cavalry corps in that army). 24 What explains the correctness of the estimates made by Gehlen's staff in the report? The key factor explaining the high quality of the work of Foreign Armies East was the high professionalism of its analytical staff and their knowledge of the situation in the field army. The branch had analysts and intelligence agents with a military education, who were career officers with experience of serving in combat units and at the headquarters of large formations and knew well the nature of warfare and had even participated in combat action. At the same time, they widely used the information and conclusions of other OKH divisions (and, above all, the operations directorate), comparing them with intelligence data.
The second document presented by Branch 12 to the OKH Headquarters on April 19 was entitled "Regarding Statements on Planning a Large Defensive Campaign by the Soviet Union for the Summer of 1943: The Heads of Report." This way the branch presented their answer to the question: "Does the Kremlin have the capability and plans to go on a large-scale offensive, or will it wait for the opening of a second front in Europe?" Thus, this document was about Moscow's strategic plans, which, obviously, could not but influence the decision on the feasibility and timing of Operation Citadel.
The heads of report commented on the statements received from the German military attaché in Stockholm (on the account received from the Swedish military attaché in London and on the conversation with the Finnish attaché Colonel Stevens) and on the message from the Abwehr agent Stex "from communist circles." All three sources agreed that in 1943 the Soviet Union decided to go on the defensive, intending to repel the expected German offensive and prepare large reserves in order to make a decisive breakthrough to Ukraine and Belarus after the opening of the Second Front. Gehlen's branch did not agree with this conclusion, assessing Moscow's intentions more objectively: "(1) The current pattern of distribution of the forces does not meet the requirement of defensive warfare. From the distribution and regrouping of the Russian forces, an opportunity emerges of conducting large-scale offensive operations in several key areas, which, however, does not bind the Russian leadership In addition, the planning may also take into account weather conditions, which greatly influence the decisions of the Russian leadership." 25 In this document, too, the analysis of the intentions of the Soviet side relied on the data about the concentration of the tactical and strategic reserves in the rear, which were regarded by Branch 12 as strike groups prepared for large-scale offensive operations. Thus, it was the rules and criteria of operations art, rather than speculations and rumors gleaned by intelligence agents in military and diplomatic circles, that played a decisive role in their appreciations and predictions.
For example, the same German military attaché in Stockholm learned "from an Abwehr source" that "the report of the Swedish military attaché in London to the Swedish General Staff contains" information that "a British military observer had a meeting with Stalin," who, "while drunk, talked about his further plans for waging the war": In the summer, the Soviet army will use the tactics of retreat. Because of these maneuvers, very few units will be engaged in battles. The enemy of the Soviets may strike again at the Soviet territories. The Soviets do not fear that the Germans will take up their last year's positions or even move further inland. The next winter will be the winter of the Soviet offensive. The Soviet armies will very soon be on the border with Germany. The summer will be used to strengthen the technical support of the Soviet army. that is a big question. The most important thing, however, is that the alliance against Germany has someone who can hold on and deal the Germans a decisive blow. 26 This small text contains strategic information of great importance, which, of course, no head of state would share in a private conversation even with his marshals, not to mention a representative ("observer") of the allies. The creators of this disinformation understood that very well; therefore, they tried to explain the reasons for the strange revelations of the Supreme Commander in the very first lines. However, the OKH headquarters knew very well in the spring of 1943 that those "revelations" had nothing to do with the Kremlin's actual plans. As early as by mid-April, several hundred thousand soldiers and tens of thousands of heavy weapons and equipment units of the Reserve Front had concentrated on the Don River. New trains were arriving there every day. In other places, in the operational depth of the Soviet fronts, large groupings of troops were also forming for the summer offensive. It is not possible that special units of the Wehrmacht, Abwehr, and Luftwaffe could have ignored those forces for months. Therefore, it is not surprising that Gehlen's staff considered all such messages as unreliable.
The second high-intensity period for Branch 12 in preparing Operation Citadel was the turn of April and May. Having failed to obtain the necessary replenishment of 9A from Kluge, Model sent a letter to the OKH on April 24, requesting to pass on his letter to Hitler. In it, he quite objectively outlined the deplorable state of affairs in his troops prior to the planned operation and described the big changes that had taken place over the last month in the area where his army planned to strike the main blow. He reported that the troops of the Central Front were rapidly strengthening their positions in engineering terms and provided evidence of the approach of large reserves. Attached to the letter were photographs of the defense line taken by a reconnaissance aircraft. Summing up, the colonel general asked Hitler, if the offensive was still extremely important, to provide 9A with everything that was promised earlier by mid-May and to set aside not a day, as planned, but two days to break through the lines of the Central Front. If it had been impossible to strengthen the army quickly, the operation should have been canceled or postponed until the troops received everything they needed. Otherwise, one should not have expected to succeed. 27 The letter made a great impression on Hitler, both by its content and by the fact that it was written by Model himself, whom he regarded very highly.
Two days later, the Führer ordered that the preparations for the attack on Kursk be suspended and that the commanders and chiefs of staff of AGs Center and South, 9A, and OKH be summoned to a conference in Munich on May 4. In this regard, Gehlen's branch was ordered to submit to Zeitzler a report on the issues of Operation Citadel that were revealed by Model and, above all, on the substantial strengthening of the defense zone of the Central Front and on the presence of large Soviet reserves in front of the southern wing of AG Center (2PA's zone).
On May 3, Gehlen reported: As in our previous assessments, we believe that the command of the Red Army has begun preparations for a large offensive operation in front of the northern wing of AG South towards the Dnieper, but the final decision has not yet been taken. In this regard, we believe that before this decision is made and the date for the start of the offensive is set, the Russians will accumulate a sufficient tactical reserve, the location of which is not yet clear. Replenishment of large (especially mobile) units in the area of Kupyansk-Starobelsk-Valuiki and Korocha-Volokonovka-Novyi Oskol as well as near Kursk and in the Livny-Yelets area as possible reserve groups of the fronts has not been identified reliably yet. In some places west of Belgorod and, probably, at Izyum-Balakleya, the enemy seems to be pulling up new forces from the depths. Further, the location of the 5th (?) Tank Army (until recently recorded in the Ostrogozhsk area) is not clear; for the past four days, there has been no activity at all on the radio. In some new places, based on unverified data, we do not rule out the possibility that the enemy has revealed the German offensive plans and prioritized preparing a defensive in its general plans, which is observed in the known patterns of distribution of its forces. This possible yet unconfirmed scenario may indicate both that the Russians were preparing to repel a large German offensive with goals far advanced in depth and that they are preparing their own offensive. This may also indicate that in order to reduce losses, the enemy will first wait for the German offensive while constantly strengthening the defense and then go on the counteroffensive, having transferred reserves from the rear to achieve the goals of the offensive. A possible goal of the Russian command is to use the events in the eastern theater of operations to push the allies to launch an offensive from the west, which is delayed due to the fighting in Tunisia. The replenishment of the units drawn deep into the rear, which began in mid-March, is continuing vigorously so that these units could be constantly increasing their combat effectiveness. In addition, according to numer-ous reports, the enemy is constantly forming new units in the rear and reserve forces in front of the northern wing of AG South and the southern wing of AG Center. Therefore, we must expect a constant increase in enemy units and forces as well as high defensive capabilities of the Russian units located in the zone of the planned German offensive. The defense ahead of the southern front of 2PA, given the measures already taken by the enemy, may reach a very high level. 28 Thus, the branch stated the same as before, on April 19: the Soviet command continues to strengthen vigorously the defense of the Kursk Bulge and to accumulate large reserves at several sites. At the same time, Gehlen's subordinates clearly reflected the ambiguity of Moscow's plan for the spring-summer period. Indeed, the only thing that was discussed in detail at the meeting with Stalin on April 12 was how the situation at Kursk would be changing until the end of the thaw, i.e., until roughly the beginning of May, and all the decisions made at that time and all the orders given spoke of defense. Therefore, the commanders of the Voronezh (Army General Nikolai Vatutin) and the Central (Army General Konstantin Rokossovskii) Fronts, having agreed with the General Staff the first versions of the plans of the Kursk defensive operation, a unified one for their troops, presented them to the SHC Headquarters for consideration on April 25 and 28, respectively, and received approval. 29 However, when discussing these documents in the Kremlin, the generals received an order: if the Germans kept postponing the start of active operations for too long, then both fronts had to strike first. Therefore, they had to prepare to repel the enemy attack by May 10 or attack themselves no later than on June 1. 30 At the same time, the military councils of the Western, Bryansk, and Southwestern Fronts received orders to begin conceptualizing an offensive of their troops, which was supposed to begin either in the final phase of the Kursk defensive operation or immediately after its completion, i.e., when Vatutin's and Rokossovskii's armies move forward.
The preparation of a large-scale offensive involves not only the development of its plan by the front and army headquarters; the main part of the preparation, the most difficult and costly one in all the respects, is to form the strike groups, i.e., to perform the transition of reserves from a state of rest or defense into a readyto-attack mode (including the transfer of forces and weapons to certain areas). This part also involves a lot of work to ensure the effectiveness of artillery fire (determining targets, delivering ammunition, etc.), numerous reconnaissance activities, camouflage mea- sures, etc. In order to identify and confirm their conclusions on whether the Red Army troops were going to defend or attack, the Germans needed serious intelligence capabilities or highly skilled analysts who could accurately determine the enemy's plan from indirect or very modest (scarce and scattered) data. Therefore, the May 3 report is of interest not only for its appreciations but also for the fact that it reflects the degree of awareness of German intelligence and, at least in general terms, its undercover network capabilities in that geographical area. The tentative tone of the document, a feature that immediately draws attention to itself, testifies not so much to the complexity and scale of the task set for its authors but to their obvious lack of information. Apparently, over the past two weeks, the branch had not received any new significant accounts to confirm their previous assumptions convincingly; therefore, as noted in the first lines of the text, their conclusions did not change and relied on the previous information, which was only slightly supplemented with new data received in the last weeks of April, which were obtained from unreliable sources. It seems that the report was based, rather than on facts obtained by intelligence officers, upon the standard military logic that Gehlen's analysts used to predict the possible steps of the Red Army command under the conditions of April 1943.
The appendix to the report cited, as usual, several accounts that the authors believed to be the most convincing. Thus, on April 27, a "reliable agent" communicated that "the following forces have arrived in Valuiki: incomplete rifle divisions, one tank brigade, two tank battalions, and two artillery regiments from Saratov. Every day, the tank factories in Kazan and Gorkii produce tanks, engines, and tank weapons, which go to the Kupyansk-Kursk-Orel section of the front." The next day, an "as of yet unverified agent (conditionally reliable)" notified that "the Soviets are expecting an imminent major offensive of the Germans in the Kharkov-Kursk region. The provision of troops in this sector is especially insufficient. Newly trained groups of soldiers are constantly arriving in Voronezh." On April 30, it became known from the "assistant company commander of the 248th Rifle Brigade" that "there is a danger of encirclement from the north and south, so the Russians have gathered their tanks near Belgorod and Orel." Finally, on May 1, information was received that "the Soviet command has gathered two tank divisions, one motorized division, five tank brigades, three cavalry divisions, and a lot of heavy and light artillery as a reinforcement of the Kharkov-South-Belgorod section of the front to prevent German operations in this area. All available infantry and tank units in the Volga region are moving to the region between the Don and Donets. The aviation reserves are on alert." 31 However, tank and motorized divisions were disbanded in the Red Army in the second half of 1941, so there could not have been any such divisions at the Kursk Bulge in the spring of 1943. This detail was clearly not in favor of the agent. More valuable was the news from the 248th Rifle Brigade, which was then located on the Central Front. But at that time there was no full-time position of "assistant company commander" in the Red Army; these duties could be performed by the company starshina (sergeant major) or a deputy company commander (lieutenant or senior lieutenant). In the Wehrmacht, the commander of an infantry company had several assistants in the rank of under-officers. Most likely, Ic called their source in the 248th brigade by analogy. But could a starshina or even a junior officer have known about the distribution of strategic reserves by the Soviet command? Obviously not, and the high-ranking intelligence officers could not but understand that. Then why was it included in the report and not even marked as untrustworthy? Apparently, the branch simply had nothing else, and its staff had to submit to the OKH even data of dubious quality unless their sources had compromised themselves.
Nevertheless, in general, during the first phase of planning the attack on Kursk (in April and early May 1943), despite the low quality of information coming from intelligence agencies, the reports prepared by Foreign Armies East stood out for their objective appreciations and accurate predictions. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that German intelligence (in the broadest sense of the word) could have been mistaken or could have taken an overly optimistic stance out of touch with reality.
But how were these reports utilized by the OKH and possibly by Hitler himself, the initiator of the operation? Did they have a substantial impact on the development of Operation Citadel? It is difficult to judge about that without having all the reports submitted by Gehlen's branch in the spring and early summer and all the planning materials developed by the OKH during the three months of preparing the operation. Nevertheless, the available documents allow for some preliminary speculations.
The goals and objectives of the offensive proposed by Manstein on March 8 were of a purely military nature (like the plan of a big pincer operation at Kursk put forward by Schmidt). It was planned to make two powerful strikes at the center and at the southern part of the Kursk Bulge against the troops of the Voronezh Front, who had been fighting continuously in heavy combat for three months, had been bled out, and had a minimum of heavy weapons and equipment. It was the weakened state of these troops that the field marshal considered the key to success. The plan of Operation Citadel was prepared under completely different conditions, and while developing it, Hitler ignored factors that were crucial for the field army. By mid-April, the troops of Rokossovskii and Vatutin had already occupied the defensive lines and begun to strengthen them; the commanders had put their formations in order and had been receiving reinforcements and weapons from the rear; and repairs had been made on an increasing scale. Moreover, even before Hitler signed Operations Order 6, Moscow had learned from its intelligence about the intention of the Germans to go on an offensive at Kursk immediately after the thaw, which contributed to the timely organization of defense on the dangerous axes.
By May 4, before the conference in Munich, both the high-ranking generals familiar with the concept of Operation Citadel and Hitler himself had been aware that they had to prepare for breaking through wellorganized positions held by formations that had been able largely to restore their strength after the winter. This is why the date of going on the offensive was shifted from May 3 to June 12 and subsequently postponed several more times. The Führer never gave up on his desire to strike precisely at those areas of the Kursk Bulge that were identified in April although from the end of April until July 5, he could have seen from aerial photographs systematically received by the OKH the high pace and large scale of the defensive work on the Central and Voronezh Fronts. On May 10, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel unequivocally explained it to Guderian: "We must attack for political reasons." 32 These words were said in the presence of Hitler, who did not react to them in any way, i.e., in fact agreed with them. Thus, from the very beginning, Operation Citadel was of a political, rather than military, nature although Berlin, of course, needed the Wehrmacht to succeed.
Under these conditions, information about the enemy, which was summarized by Gehlen's branch for the OKH, was of great importance. It helped to create a fairly objective picture of the events along the entire Soviet-German front, to assess the potential capabilities of the Red Army and its groups on individual sectors of the front, and to predict the most likely decisions taken by Moscow. However, since Hitler aimed primarily to solve political problems, without taking into account military realities, the reports prepared by Branch 12 could not influence the key decisions, no matter what evidence or considerations they provided. As noted later by General Kurt von Tippelskirch, who served for some time at the OKH headquarters, Hitler unceremoniously rejected the results of processing intelligence data by the Army's General Staff as he 32 Guderian, Heinz (1952) Panzer Leader. It is also telling that when preparing the offensive, Major General Walther von Hünersdorff, commander of the 7th Panzer Division of AG South, said that the entire operation "violated the ground rules of leadership" and called it, when speaking among his officers, nothing but "idiotic" (Cross, R. (1993) The Battle of Kursk: Operation Citadel 1943, New York: Sarpedon, p. 117). believed that they exaggerated the enemy's forces and laid on the color too thickly. 33 After the war, Gehlen wrote: "I had taken every opportunity, as the files of Foreign Armies East show, to warn the German command against the plan for this major offensive. Since Hitler refused to be dissuaded, on July 3 I wrote an emphatic warning of the likely outcome, under the title 'Appreciation of the Enemy's Moves if Operation Citadel is Carried Out'." 34 Further in his book, he cited this document, which is now stored in the German Federal Archives. 35 The document presented the two alternatives that the Red Army would then actually carry out at Kursk. True, they were considered as independent scenarios in the document while in reality they were parts of a single plan of Moscow. The first one (Gehlen believed it to be less likely) assumed that after the start of the Wehrmacht offensive, the Soviet command would concentrate all its efforts on blocking it, but they would do so in the Citadel operational area only, pulling up reserves from neighboring fronts. The second alternative was that simultaneously with defensive battles (against AGs Center and South), Moscow would begin to prepare forces for a general offensive in the Orel area and toward the lower Dnieper. In addition, Gehlen expected increased activity of the USSR allies in the Mediterranean after the start of Operation Citadel. "We therefore have to expect," he thought, "that, probably soon after our offensive begins, the Russians will mount strong diversionary attacks and counterattacks in those sections of the front held by Army Groups South and Center where we have detected their preparations to attack… Taking into account the enemy's assessment, we should count on the possibility of his offensive actions with the aim of capturing the 6th Army and the 1st Panzer Army toward the Donbass and with a strike from Kupyansk toward Kharkov in order to penetrate deeply into the flank of the advancing German troops." 36 The quality of the analysis-like in the previous reports of the branch-is stunning. Indeed, during the first stage of the Battle of Kursk, the SHC Headquarters will focus its main efforts only on containing Model's and Manstein's groups, pulling tank formations and then several armies from the Southwestern Front and the StepMD. Simultaneously, already during the defensive battles, the Red Army will begin the long-planned offensive on July 12, as indicated by Gehlen, in the area of the Orel salient and on August 3 toward the lower reaches of the Dnieper (the Kutuzov and Polkovodets Rumyantsev operations). The staff of 33  And with their customary energy they have done everything in their power-constructing line upon line of fortifications one behind the other, and moving up the necessary forces-to halt our offensive as soon as it begins. Thus, there is little likelihood that the German offensive will achieve a strategic breakthrough. Taking into account the total reserves available to the Russians, we are not even entitled to assume that Citadel will cost them so much in strength that they will later be incapable of carrying out their general plan at the time they choose. On the German side, our reserves, which will become so desperately necessary as the war situation develops (particularly in the Mediterranean!), will be tied down and thrown away uselessly. I consider the operation that has been planned a particularly grave error, for which we shall suffer later. 37 One cannot but agree with Gehlen's arguments. It should be noted, however, that, at that time, all the opponents of the offensive who were involved in preparing the operation were talking about the issues that would not allow Citadel to succeed in the first place.
Perhaps, the most difficult thing is to determine from the surviving documents how the German intelligence could estimate the quantity of the Soviet reserves accumulated by the beginning of the July bat- tles or at least at some stage in preparing the operation. Of some help may be the document "Estimated Soviet Tank Forces in Known Tank Units as of April 21, 1943, and the Estimated Stock of Enemy Tanks until May 1, 1943." 38 The document contains a large body of statistical material on the number of tactical tank formations in front of all the four German AGs operating on the Soviet-German front. For example, it says that on April 21, in front of the Wehrmacht troops from Leningrad to the Caucasus (except for the Karelian Front), the Soviet command allegedly positioned 164 tank brigades, 87 tank regiments, and 30 separate tank battalions, which allegedly possessed 4300 tanks (i.e., less by 7400 than they were supposed to 39 ). In reality, as of May 1, the eleven fronts and the 7th separate army, which were retaining the defense in the face of AGs North, Center, South, and A, were comprised of 96 tank brigades (including 58 separate brigades and 33 brigades that were part of tank and mechanized corps), 74 tank regiments, and 26 separate tank battalions. Consequently, the quantitative data provided by Gehlen's branch were overestimated by 68 units (58.5%) for brigades, by 13 units (8.5%) for regiments, and by four units (8.7%) for battalions. 40 "Furthermore," the report noted, "it can be concluded that, by May 1, 1943, in the process of ongoing new production and utilization of the stocks, another 1900 combat-ready tanks will have arrived at the front, of which 1500 tanks (likely three-quarters) will be used as replacements and one-quarter, 400 tanks, will be distributed between new formations." 41 It is difficult to say which source gave the German intelligence such large numbers of armored vehicles that were supposedly expected to arrive within the next ten days and how the Germans learned about the intended uses of those vehicles. Directive 3107ss of the USSR State Defense Committee of April 1, 1943, stated that according to the plan, all the tank factories of the Soviet Union were to produce within a month 2205 tanks of all types, including 1630 T-34 and KV 42 (the rest were T-70 and T-80). Both the German and the Soviet defense industry kept records of the produced equipment on a daily (weekly, monthly, etc.) basis. Consequently, by April 21, a certain number of combat vehicles must have arrived to the troops, and it can be assumed that this number was no less than expected in the last decade. However, it is clear that these figures are largely overestimated. In April 1943, right after the end of the winter campaign, during which Soviet mobile formations played a key role but also were suffering heavy losses every day, separate corps with a staff of about 200 tanks were withdrawn to the rear, having only 10-15 combat vehicles at their disposal. Therefore, the Soviet command sent all the newly produced equipment to the field army, leaving no more than a few hundred tanks in reserve. Consequently, the report constructed an objective view neither about the capacity of the armored forces of the 11 Soviet fronts nor about the real capabilities of Soviet industry. Nevertheless, it was these data that the OKH generals had been working with when planning Operation Citadel. It is not surprising that Hitler considered these data unreasonable and chose not to take them into account.
The information on the number of tank and mechanized corps (TC and MC) in the reserve of the SHC Headquarters was somewhat better although not significantly. The reconnaissance of both sides paid special attention to identifying the presence of large mobile formations (tank, motorized, or mechanized corps, divisions, and brigades), their encampment sites, numbers assigned, quantity, etc., on a given sector of the front. Moreover, in mid-1943, the German command still regarded the Soviet cavalry corps, despite their vulnerability, as a substantial force with high maneuverability and combat capabilities. Therefore, their movements, too, were closely monitored by the Abwehr.
The same attitude was also reflected in the document "General Appreciation of the Enemy in Front of Army Group South as of July 13, 1943," which was prepared by Gehlen's branch immediately after the large-scale clash between the 5th Guards Tank Army and two German panzer corps at Prokhorovka. Specifically, it stated the following: On the offensive front of the army group, after the first strike and breaking through the first and second lines of defense, the enemy is trying to stop our offensive using his front-line reserves (the 69th Army) at Army Detachment Kempf and throwing forward his attacking operational reserves (the 1st Tank Army, composed of the 3rd Mechanized Corps and the 6th and 31st Tank Corps and two more tank corps: the 2nd and 5th Guards Tank Corps) at the 4PA. It should be noted that the enemy keeps trying, again and again, to attack our assault spearhead from the front and is attacking it much less from the flanks. In heavy battles, the enemy fails to prevent a breakthrough, and Army Detachment Kempf is destroying his divisions. In front of the 4PA, the enemy's operational formations, which take turns in attacking, are already badly battered. After pulling up rifle and tank units from the depths, the enemy launched a coun-teroffensive on July 12. In front of Army Detachment Kempf, he attacked mainly with infantry units and separate independent tank units on a 20-km wide front, but against the 4PA, the enemy launched a concentric offensive with fresh tank units (10th, 18th, and 29th TC) mainly at the flanks and with infantry frontally. This attempt failed with heavy losses for the enemy, especially in tanks. Since the enemy threw at least two or three tank armies (1st Army, 5th Guards Army, and 3rd Tank Army) into the battle against 4PA with eight tank corps and one mechanized corps, he now retains only a very limited operational reserve (4th Guards MC, 3rd Guards TC, 1st and 6th Guards Cavalry Corps, possibly 11th TC, and, if restored, 4th Guards TC) in the depths. As to the other units, he will have to transfer them from other fronts. To sum it up, with all the operational formations already thrown into battle, the enemy has failed to achieve success. 43 The authors of the report listed all the mobile formations put into battle by the command of the Voronezh Front and the SHC Headquarters during the first eight days of the Battle of Kursk, with the exception of the 5th Guards MC. Such a high level of accuracy was due to objective data obtained from prisoners of war and from documents collected from those killed on the battlefield. This is confirmed by the fact that the report does not mention the 5th Guards MC, which was at that time also part of the 5th Guards Tank Army 44 and participated in the battles on July 12, but on that very day not a single one of its servicemen was captured, and the bodies of those killed remained on the territory occupied by Soviet troops. 45 Therefore, the Germans would find out about its presence in the offensive zone of AG South a little later.
However, the allegation that despite putting large forces into battle, the Soviet command failed to succeed in the south of the Kursk Bulge and "now retains only a very limited operational reserve in the depths" was absolutely untrue. On July 13, the very day when Gehlen signed the report, Hitler summoned Kluge and Manstein to the Headquarters and announced to them that Operation Citadel was to be closed. This decision can hardly be explained by anything other than the successful actions of the Red Army. Moreover, in addition to the four mobile formations listed in the report, which, according to Branch 12, had not yet  (the 4th Guards MC, 3rd Guards TC,  4th Guards TC, and 11th TC), the StepMD also had the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Guards MC and the 5th Guards MC, which had approached the Voronezh Front. In total, these formations had more than 800 tanks. The 5th MC and 25th TC (more than 320 tanks) were also directly subordinate to the SCH Headquarters. In addition, the StepMD commander had at his disposal not two cavalry corps, as stated in the report (1st and 6th Guards Corps), but three (3rd, 5th, and 7th Guards Corps); another two corps (2nd and 6th Guards Corps) were subordinate to the SCH Headquarters. 46 Therefore, when the Germans began closing down Operation Citadel, the Red Army was able to use eleven (rather than six) mobile formations at the Kursk Bulge: five cavalry corps and six tank and mechanized corps with more than 1120 tanks (in addition to several combined-arms armies). The Red Army suffered great losses in the defensive battles at Kursk, but they could not disrupt its summer campaign, a goal highly sought after by Berlin. Subsequently, Manstein frankly admitted that they had never expected from the Soviets such great organizational skills as those they showed in that matter [formation of reserves.-V.Z.] as well as in the deployment of military industry: "We confronted a hydra: for every head cut off, two new ones appeared to grow." 47 The reason for the noticeable difference in the accuracy of the reports prepared by Foreign Armies East on the Red Army's strategic planning and on its combat potential lies primarily with the high efficiency of the Red Army's command as well as the Smersh front and army counterintelligence agencies, which managed to ensure the secrecy of encampment of fresh forces and were able to prevent enemy agents from approaching them. For example, as early as in the beginning of May, the Abwehr and Luftwaffe identified a large grouping of reserve troops, including the 5th Guards Tank Army, between the Don and the Orel-Kursk-Kupyansk line. However, they failed to reveal the entire system of strategic reserves and their locations. Gehlen's analysts, too, were powerless. Without the necessary information about the enemy plans, they could make use of their personal knowledge, the fundamentals of operational art, and the experience of the previous years of the war with the Soviet Union to make a correct prediction about the decisions and actions of the Soviet command, but when it came to determining the quantity and composition of the troops, the availability of accurate data was a critical issue. However, acquiring that kind of information was getting increasingly difficult, be it by undercover means or through technology (radio and air reconnaissance). Walter Schellenberg, head of the RSHA intelligence, wrote, "The enormous size of Russia's territory enabled our agents to move about without hindrance, sometimes for months on end, although finally most of them were caught by the NKVD." 48 To sum it up, the OKH Branch 12 Foreign Armies East pointed out many times during the planning and preparation of Operation Citadel that the Soviet command considered an attack by the Wehrmacht at the Kursk Bulge as very likely and was vigorously preparing to repel it. The staff of Branch 12 had no doubts about the intention of the SHC Headquarters to hold their positions at all costs and then use them as a convenient springboard for a large-scale attack on Orel and Left-Bank Ukraine. The documents presented by Gehlen to the OKH headquarters also revealed the main means for achieving those goals, i.e., strengthening the defense at the Kursk Bulge and the accumulation of strategic reserves. He also indicated the encampment sites of the latter quite accurately. Nevertheless, given the position of Branch 12 within the strategic planning apparatus and its limited ability to collect information about the potential of the Soviet Union (specifically, the lack of informed sources in the military and political circles of the Soviet Union and the weak undercover network in the operational rear of the fronts), he could not present an objective analysis of the strength and combat composition of the Red Army's field troops and the amounts of reserves formed by the SHC Headquarters in the spring and in the first month of the summer of 1943. The figures he cited were greatly exaggerated.
Thus, if the German leadership had taken a more balanced and less politicized approach to planning the Wehrmacht summer campaign, Gehlen's reports could have contributed noticeably to adjusting the tasks set for the troops and changing the nature of the hostilities.

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