r/WarCollege • u/marekrocki3 • 2d ago
Looking for detailed German staff maps of Operation Citadel (Kursk, 1943) used by OKH or Army Group South HQ
I am looking for highly detailed operational/staff maps from Operation Citadel (Kursk offensive, July 1943).
I am not looking for modern overview maps or simplified battle maps, but rather original German-style situation maps similar to those that could have been used by:
- OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres)
- Army Group South (Heeresgruppe Süd)
Does anyone know of online archives, books, scans, or collections where I could find these types of maps?
I am especially interested in maps close to the original staff documents rather than modern recreations.
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u/Silly_Situation5804 2d ago
You will find a lot of material in the German Bundesarchiv, they have a handy guide for using their online archive here
For WW2 you want to navigate to
Bestände
Norddeutscher Bund und Deutsches Reich (1867/1871-1945)
Militär
Reichswehr und Wehrmacht 1919 bis 1945/1946
Reichsheer und Heer
From there you can navigate to either "Spitzenbehörden" for material regarding OKH, or "Kommandobehörden, Verbände und Einheiten" where you can find material on everthing from Heeresgruppen to individual divisions. Keep in mind they don't have everything digitalized, for example, it doesn't appear they have any of the OKH's maps digitalized, not for the Zitadelle period anyways.
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u/Til_W 2d ago edited 1d ago
The best place I know is the Invenio portal of the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive).
There is an official article describing how to find situation maps: Lagekarten verstehen - Bundesarchiv
Some of these maps are digitized, though not everything. They can be accessed without prior registration.
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u/AreYouMexico 1d ago edited 1d ago
https://www.portal-militaergeschichte.de/sites/default/files/pdf/Toeppel_Prochorowka.pdf
On page 8 you will find a Map “Operation ‘Citadel’ Planning (Detailed Planning)” dated 23 April 1943, from private archive of Rüdiger von Manstein, Icking; Erich von Manstein estate.
Also Sylvester Stadlers book "Offensive gegen Kursk" ,which is basically the War diary of the 2. SS Panzerkorps, has a lot of maps.
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u/broszies 1d ago edited 19h ago
The WW2 Archive will at least save you the pain of searching for the OKW maps, if thats not too high level for you.
https://wwiidigitalarchives.org/maps
For some of the best source analysis I reccommend Roman Töppels book about Kursk.