The Commander of the Southern Army Group thought the battle should have been scrubbed in June.
Von Manstein among others wanted to strike the Kursk salient no later than March, but was overruled by Hitler on the advice of some of his brain trust. /jk Hitler went to the battlefield HQ to direct it in person, and wouldn’t okay the crucial attack by troops held in reserve, because (again) he lost his nerve. The entire fiasco was engineered from beginning to end by Der Dolt himself. And as I’ve said, without him there would have been no WWII, but we were otherwise lucky that he was leading the Reich.