Fall Blau failed in spectacular fashion and the 6th army alongside multiple other Axis armies was gone by early 1943.. Despite their massive losses in manpower, equipment, and territory Germans did manage to gather enough strength to counter-attack on Kursk salient during Summer-1943.
So my question is why Germans didn’t concentrate their forces to re enter Caucasus once again.? They needed Caucasus oil wells to keep their war machine intact and by the summer of 1943, they had a force to launch a major offensive (Operation Citadel) . Germans could have diverted those forces towards Caucasus and Stalingrad. However, They for some reason focused on Kursk salient which offers no such strategic advantage and is heavily defended by multiple lines of fortifications.
Let me know your thoughts
Because they weren’t capable of such an offensive.
They assembled a big force for Kursk but they didn’t have the ability to launch a wider offensive by that point.
Manstein wanted to let the Soviets attack and bleed themselves dry, the polar opposite to what Hitler authorised at Kursk. Give Germany the chance to build up strength again.
It was always doomed to failure realistically because Germany just did not have the reserves, logistics and manpower for ongoing war on that scale by mid 1943.
And they continuously, right from June 1941 through to Kursk, under-estimated the level of Soviet reserves and equipment.
Hence why after the Kursk offensive stalled and failed, they never recovered and remained on the backfoot the entire way until May 1945 and could never regain any sort of initiative.
In order for Kursk to mark any sort of meaningful turn for Germany in July 1943, it would have to be an overwhelming, complete destruction of the opposing Soviet armies.
That was realistically never going to happen. Stalingrad was the major turning point, Kursk was the final nail in the coffin.