Some years ago I read a World War Two history that claimed, in passing, that a major tank battle in Russia never actually happened. Due to poor planning, poor communication and low visibility the Soviet tanks actually ran into their own anti-tank defenses, resulting in significant losses. Rather than admit what had happened, the generals involved announced a hard-fought victory over the Germans. Obviously, no one would believe German claims to the contrary, and while Stalin knew, admitting that no battle happened and his generals lied would be a terrible embarrassment, so he went along (at least publicly).
I can remember no other significant details. So, is the story true, and what battle was the book referring to?
There’s some similarity to the Katyn massacre. That wasn’t a mistake by the Soviets. After the Soviets invaded eastern Poland in 1939 in accordance with their agreement with the Nazis, they rounded up a number of Poles who they thought might form the base of a resistance movement; military officers, police, local government officials, teachers, etc. They executed over twenty thousand Poles and buried the bodies in mass graves in the Katyn Forest.
A couple of years later, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union and occupied the Katyn Forest. They found the graves in 1943 and brought in observers from neutral countries like Switzerland to inspect them. It was a propaganda move to show how evil the Soviet regime was and thereby help justify the German invasion.
Stalin denied everything. He said the Soviets had been welcomed by the Poles and hadn’t executed anyone. He said the Germans had killed all those people and then moved the bodies to make the Soviets look bad.