as not enough, and so the Germans were forced to engage in battle. The new German tanks were so much better that it was very common for the fanatical drivers of the Russian T-34 tanks to intentionally crash into the German tanks so as to destroy them. The fighting reached its peak on July 12, 1943 when both forces were very close to each other. The air forces and artillery guns stopped firing so that they would not hit their own men. Hundreds of tanks were lost that day and Hitler realized that defeat was inevitable; so on July 13, 1943 he ordered a withdrawal. This was not only because of the situation at Kursk, but also because the Soviets were advancing elsewhere. Also, at the same time the British and Americans had just landed in Sicily. The Battle of Kursk was the biggest tank battle in history. The defeat there, in addition to the defeat at Stalingrad, crippled the German military. This, as well as the fact that Soviet production overtook German production, led to the success of the Russian counter offensive, which led to Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad, and as a result, their successful defense against the German Operation Barbarossa, was definitely the decisive factor in the outcome of World War II. Because the Battle of Stalingrad gave the Soviets the initiative, the Red Army regained Russia's lost land and afterwards invaded Germany's land in a relatively short time. Russia gained more than just its former territory; it also gave the Soviet Union control of virtually every Eastern European country (with the notable exception of Greece). The victory at Stalingrad was celebrated with the construction of a statue of Mother Russia. The fifty-two meter statue was built to remember the more than one million Soviet troops that died defending the city. The great success of the Russian counter offensive gave the rest of the world fear of the Soviet Union and its leader-Stalin. This was due to...
