This operation was necessitated by the failure of the German II SS Panzer Corps to break through Soviet forces during the Battle of Prokhorovka on 12 July.

The attacking Soviet forces were decimated in the battle, but they succeeded in preventing the Wehrmacht from capturing Prokhorovka and breaking through the third defensive belt – the last heavily fortified one.

[citation needed] On 13 July Hitler summoned Field Marshall Erich von Manstein to his headquarters, the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia.

The Allied invasion of Sicily on the night of 9–10 July, combined with the Soviet counteroffensive of Operation Kutuzov against the flank and rear of General Walter Model's 9th Army on the northern side of the Kursk salient on 12 July, and the attacks by strong Soviet forces at Prokhorovka the same day had caused Hitler to stop the offensive and begin redeploying forces to the Mediterranean theatre.

[4][7] Following a brief artillery barrage, the 4th SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment Der Führer of Das Reich struck out for the high ground south-west of Pravorot, evicting the remnants of the 2nd Guards Tank Corps from the village of Belenikhino following violent house-to-house and hand-to-hand fighting.

[8] Operation Roland failed to produce a decisive result for the German side,[9] and Totenkopf began withdrawing from its positions north of the Psel, following orders issued late on 15 July, as the II SS-Panzer Corps assumed a defensive stance along its entire front.

[12][13] In the early afternoon of 17 July, Operation Roland was terminated with an order for the II SS-Panzer Corps to begin withdrawing from the Prokhorovka sector back to Belgorod.