fifty

years ago...

JULY 12, 1943

The Kursk Salient

ON JULY 12, 1943, in the largest armored battle of World War II, the Russian forces dealt the German army a disastrous defeat. "Operation Citadel" was Hitler's last attempt at a major offensive on the eastern front.

At the onset of 1943, Germany had recovered remarkably well from previous setbacks suffered on the eastern front, and by spring, the German and Russian armies were once again facing each other along the banks of the Donets River. Russian forces occupied a large salient centered on the town of Kursk, the starting point of the German offensive in 1942. On April 15, 1943, Hitler issued a secret directive ordering the attack on Kursk with the overall goal of forging a path from Orel to Moscow. It was to be the first German offensive of the year, and Hitler declared, "The victory at Kursk must shine like a beacon to the world."

The attack was scheduled to begin in May, as soon as the ground had hardened from the spring thaw. A joint decision by Hitler and tank commander Gen. Walther Model to delay the attack and wait for the new Ferdinand Porsche tank virtually ensured a Soviet victory. This delay allowed a well-prepared Red Army three more months to fortify the front lines at Kursk and lay extensive landmines.

More important, for the first time, the Russians produced and used two new vehicles that outclassed Germany's Ferdinand and Panther tanks. The German tanks had been rushed through development and had hidden defects. Onequarter of the Panther tanks broke down on their way from the assembly line, while others stopped during battle due to engine fires. In addition, faulty optical instruments inhibited the use of a 7.5 cm.

cannon mounted on the tank. The Ferdinand, weighing seventy-three tons, had no machine gun to protect itself from skilled Russian soldiers who had learned to drop incendiaries into engine air intakes. The Russians, on the other hand, had succeeded in mounting a heavy gun on lightweight vehicles of superior quality, the Russian SU 122 and SU 152 tanks. In addition, Soviet intelligence discovered the exact day and hour that the German offensive was to begin. The Soviets were superior in manpower and materiel, and the Germans lacked any element of strategic or tactical surprise.

The attack began the afternoon of July 4, when German forces launched a massive air and artillery bombardment. On July 5, General Model and Gen. Hermann Hoth led tank attacks from the north and south respectively. Over the next few days, Model's forces came to a standstill, and Hoth continued to push slowly forward. On July 12, the Fifth and Sixth Tank Guards of the Red Army counterattacked and engaged several thousand tanks and assault guns in the largest tank battle of the war. The Russians struck their first main blow after the Germans had exhausted themselves in battle for over a week. Hitler ordered a retreat.

His reasoning for abandoning Operation Citadel was twofold. Two days earlier, Allied forces had landed in Sicily, making it necessary to transfer armaments and troops to Italy. This situation may have allowed Hitler to rationalize his army's total defeat at Kursk, the main reason for the retreat. Operation Citadel was a complete failure that cost the Germans men and equipment that they were unable to replace. The Battle of Kursk ushered in a new phase of mobile tank warfare, which had been invented and perfected by the Germans but was now dominated by the Russians and the Allies.

JULY 10, 1943

Operation Husky

THE ALLIES took the first step in their attack against the "soft underbelly" of Europe on July 10, 1943, with the invasion of Sicily. Initial plans for what was the largest amphibious assault of World

War II, Operation Husky, had been agreed to by Roosevelt and Churchill at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. Ultimately, the conquest of Sicily resulted in the overthrow of Mussolini and Italy's surrender to the Allies.

The attack on Sicily was an obvious strategic objective, and to throw the Axis off, the Royal Navy led the Germans to believe the invasion would take place in Greece. On April 30, 1943, a "lost" British courier was picked up off the coast of

These Italian soldiers look relieved as

they surrender in a small town near Messina, August 15, 1943.

Spain with "secret" documents that referred to Greece as the Allies' next objective. The Germans took the bait and reinforced the area. Yet neither the Italian High Command nor the German and Italian commanders in Sicily were put at ease, and even Mussolini still feared an attack upon the island. On July 10, Gen. d'Armata Alfredo Guzzoni, the Italian commander of all German and Italian forces on Sicily, had anticipated a landing and ordered a state of emergency in the southeastern part of the island when reconnaissance planes sighted the approaching Allied convoys.

Eight divisions landed from a thousand ships on a hundred-mile-long front. The British Eighth Army under General Montgomery landed between Syracuse and the southeastern tip of Sicily, while the American Seventh Army under General Patton landed in the Gulf of Gela.

F

or many genealogical researchers, the paper trail at the National Archives ends abruptly with a brief entry on a ship's passenger list for the country of origin: Prussia, Italy, Bavaria, Ireland, Croatia, Norway, Sweden, Wurttenberg. . . . The path is also shaded by the information that they embarked at Liverpool... or Bremen . . . or Hamburg. It is particularly disappointing when the trail disappears in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, a time when millions of immigrant families came from eastern Europe and Russia. The researcher will miss the excitement and satisfaction of traveling beyond that time through archival records available in the United States for homesteaders, soldiers, Revolutionary War patriots, even prefederal colonial settlers. While the generations of immigrants at the turn of the twentieth century are close enough that one may almost touch living relatives in the original country, it is a time far removed in terms of access to official information.

For some fortunate ones, there may be a continued link to the past through family journals, diaries, and locally published historical accounts of the immigrant experience in coming to America, with an occasional look back at the former life. However, the day usually comes when one wants to push beyond that arrival in a port and collect stronger evidence from original sources in the native country.

For those with ancestors from the former communist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the passenger list entry is usually a final note. Except for careful and complete records maintained for the nobility, genealogical information for the majority of people has never been compiled or even recognized as a legitimate subject during either tsarist or com

break from this pattern, the following is a description of a uniquely valuable project at the National Archives under the auspices of the National Archives Volunteer Association. It is called RAGAS, the Russian-American Genealogical Archival Service.

The groundwork for RAGAS was laid during glasnost. In the mid-1980s, along with a new openness in the political and economic scene in the Soviet Union, there appeared the unprecedented possibility of greater access to archival records. A joint commission of Soviet and American archivists was established by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) to provide for cooperation between the two nations in the area of archival affairs. In 1987 a protocol was signed providing for exchanges of archival delegations for training in conservation and preservation, computer technology, archival management, and the development of reference guides and finding aids. Several exchanges took place, administered by IREX (International Research and Exchanges Board) in Princeton, New Jersey.

By 1989, because of critical problems the Soviet archival administration was experiencing in trying to respond to several hundred requests from American and Canadian genealogical researchers, a protocol was added to arrange for the exchange of delegations to consider cooperation in the area of genealogical research. After an initial Moscow meeting in 1990, the American side, represented by the National Archives Volunteer Association and the Russian delegation, the AROS Society, Ltd. (Archives of Russia) met in Washington, D.C., in 1992. They signed a protocol on April 8, 1992, establishing a nonprofit joint venture service (RAGAS) to facilitate the flow of genealogical information between researchers and archivists of both countries. This agreement is valid for two years.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the transfer of the central Soviet archives to the Committee on Archival Affairs for the Russian Government (ROSKOMARKHIV), the work of the original ACLS commission has been suspended. However, an exception to this suspension is the agreement for cooperation in the area of genealogical searches. The advantages for the newly independent Russian archives in providing reference service for genealogical research are not only financial but also beneficial in terms of creating guides and finding aids for archival material of genealogical value and for training archivists in search methodology.

The six months following the creation of RAGAS were devoted to establishing systems to ensure a smooth flow of information. Research

Members of the National Archives Volunteer Association and AROS Society met in Washington, D.C., in 1992 to establish the Russian-American Genealogical Archival Service.

ers were notified of the new service through genealogical journals, newsletters, newspaper columns, and computer bulletin boards. Specially designed bilingual request forms were created to respond to inquiries.

There are two forms available for requesting information through RAGAS from AROS in Moscow. The Specific Information Form is a request for a single archival record or certificate and requires a nonrefundable fee of twenty-two dollars payable to RAGAS. The Fuller Genealogical Request Form is to be used to initiate a fuller and more complete genealogical search and requires a nonrefundable deposit of fifty dollars. The ensuing search will provide for a preliminary analysis of sources, including a search of Russian archival holdings and those of all affiliated republics except Lithuania and Latvia. In the event of a positive preliminary search, and the authorization to continue with additional research, the advance will be deducted from the total cost of filling the request. Subsequent research will be conducted at a rate of six dollars an hour.

Requests vary from a desire for a single document (birth, marriage, death, military or civil service record) to generational profiles. There have even been requests for broader information involving an entire village or an eighteenthcentury list of German immigrants. Some researchers are interested only in identifying and establishing contact with relatives who still reside in the former Soviet Union. While most requests are from Americans, some have originated in Canada, France, England, Switzerland, and Israel.

Authorized by ROSKOMARKHIV to handle genealogical inquiries, AROS is a research organization led by V. M. Pleskunov, director general, and includes Dimitri Panov and Vladislav Soshnikov, research historians specializing in