German 168th Infantry Division

The 168th Infantry Division served with Army Detachment Kempf on the southern face of the Kursk salient in July 1943, holding and extending the infantry positions from which the German panzer spearheads launched. Its regiments assaulted the Soviet forward zone along the Donets, clearing trenches and strongpoints so that the armour could pass through, and then guarded the lengthening flanks of the penetration against Soviet counter-attacks. The division took heavy casualties to artillery and dug-in tanks and never saw the open ground its efforts were meant to create. During the August withdrawal it fell back with the detachment towards the Kharkov defensive lines, much reduced in strength. Like the other infantry divisions of the detachment, it was essentially a holding formation asked to do a breakthrough task, and the mismatch showed in every casualty return. It finished the summer holding trench lines west of Kharkov. This entry is a schematic order-of-battle record; positions are approximate headquarters-area locations, and subordinate regimental movements are not recorded here.