With the unexpected development of the situation in the Kursk area. Hitler summoned Kluge and Manstein to his H. Q. at Rastenburg on July 13. Kluge left the Fiihrer with no illusions: the 9th Army, which had lost 20,000 men in a single week, was both incapable of advancing further and at the same time obliged to relinquish part of its remaining strength to bolster the defence of the Orel salient. Manstein was less pessimistic, yet in order for him to be able to compel the Russians to continue to fight, as he proposed, on this altered front in the Kursk region, Kluge had to pin down the maximum Soviet forces in his sector. The argument was thus circular.
Hitler decided matters by simply abandoning the operation. Yet-and this has been insufficiently remarked upon his decision was motivated not so much by the local situation or by the Russian offensive in the Orel salient as by the fact of the Anglo-American landings in Sicily.
According to Manstein, the Fiihrer took a particularly gloomy view of the immediate outlook in this new theatre of operations: "The situation in Sicily has become extremely serious,” he informed the two field-marshals. "The Italians are not resisting and the island will probably be lost. As a result, the Western powers will be able to land in the Balkans or in southern Italy. Hence new armies must be formed in these areas, which means taking troops from the Eastern Front, and hence calling a halt to 'Zitadelle’.” And there is the proof that the second front in the Mediterranean, derided by President Roosevelt, by Harry Hopkins, and by General Marshall, achieved what none of them expected of it: relief for Russia.
World History
