The Battle of Prokhorovka: Facts Against Fables

Abstract

ABSTRACT The battle of Prokhorovka on 12 July 1943 is a historical event that can excite passions like almost no other battle of the German-Soviet war. Time and again, Russian historians use old and new arguments to try to maintain the narrative of the Red Army’s supposed victory at Prokhorovka. The following article takes a critical look at some of the recent allegations about the battle of Prokhorovka. It is intended to counteract the ongoing myth making about this battle by juxtaposing the circulating fables and speculations with verifiable facts and figures and shows that there are two main reasons for the persistence of these legends: politics of memory and a lack of knowledge of the available German sources.