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| 1943, Jan. 1–18 |
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| The list of German defeats mounted to a debacle. Soviet forces recaptured Velikiye Luki (Jan. 1), entered Mozdok (Jan. 3), and relieved Leningrad from a 17-month siege. Twenty-two German divisions, cut off at Stalingrad, and reduced to 80,000 men, were forced to capitulate by Feb. 2. This second Soviet winter offensive then rolled on, with the capture of Kursk (Feb. 8), Belgorod (Feb. 9), Rostov (Feb. 14), Kharkov (Feb. 16), Rzhev (March 3), and Viazma (March 12). The losses of the Germans and their allies, in killed and captured, exceeded 500,000 for three months of winter fighting. | 1 |
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| March 15 |
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| Despite these casualties the Germans were able to open a spring drive, wresting Kharkov from the Russians once more (March 15), and retaking Belgorod (March 21). This checked the Russians temporarily, and the lines were more or less stabilized. The Axis armies had been driven back halfway from the Don to the Dnieper. When they attempted to open a summer offensive in July, they found that the Russians had also been gathering men and materiel for a renewal of the struggle. | 2 |
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| July |
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| Military supplies from Great Britain and the United States helped materially to arm the Soviet forces for the campaigns of 1943. The U.S. shipped 4,100 planes, 138,000 motor vehicles, shiploads of steel, and industrial machinery for Soviet arms factories. Part of the equipment went by northern convoy routes to Arkhangelsk, part in Russian ships to Vladivostok, part via the Persian Gulf. Shipments through Iran increased to 100,000 tons a month by July 1943. | 3 |
| The Soviet summer campaign of 1943. The Germans and their allies had 240–60 divisions, the Soviet armies had grown to 250–75, and the advantage in materiel had passed to the Russians. Anglo-American bombing was crippling German industry, greatly reducing the output of German planes, and this unhinged the plane-tank combination of mechanized warfare which had won earlier successes for the Wehrmacht. The output of Russian factories had increased greatly, and the U.S. shipments of planes to Russia, mounting to a total of 6,500 by the autumn of 1943, deprived the Germans of their superiority in the air. | 4 |
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| July 5 |
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| The Germans opened an offensive in the Orel-Belgorod sector but were checked after a week's fighting. | 5 |
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| Aug. 23 |
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| Broadening and gathering momentum, the Soviet drive swept on to Kharkov. In the south, Tanganrog fell (Aug. 30); in the center, Bryansk was recaptured (Sept. 17), as was Smolensk (Sept. 25). By October the Russians had reached the Dnieper at several points, capturing Kiev (Nov. 6). The year closed with the reconquest of Zhitomir (Dec. 31). | 6 |
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