This essay on the precedents and consequences for world politics of the battle of Kursk, turning point of World War II – in light of new sources – places in a different perspective, not only the relationship of the western allies and the Soviet Union, but also the impact of the battle of Kursk on the politics of the Great Powers concerning the post-war settlement.

The man who inflicted the most serious defeats on the empire of Hitler is the least known figure among the most prominent and victorious military leaders, both in the West and in Hungary, too. This article tries to give a (more) authentic portrait of the marshal – the commander, politician and human being, whose figure, similarly to that of Suvorov, has been transformed into a national hero in the eyes of the Russian people.

The nazi Germany – consistently with its racist ideology – pursued a totally different type of war in the East than in the West. According to the author, this difference was not reflected in the western european image of the war, which attempted to create a collective, national experience of the sufferings that in reality was the share of only some segments of the society, most importantly of Jewish citizens. In this way, common national remembrance is necessarily illusory: the fragmented and disrupted experience of World War II can only leave behind a fragmented and disrupted remembrance in Western Europe.

Anthony Beevor: Berlin: The Downfall, 1945. Penguin Books, London, 2003.