What battle was the most costly to the Germans and resulted in defeat due to a tactical error?
Taking into account total axis casualties and before the Wehrmacht was practically defeated.
Hmm, I'm afraid to tell you that your question is still very unclear:
-Should we only account the German casualties or the total axis casualties, for instance the battle of Tunis costed the axis over 200 000 soldiers but a huge part of them were Italians.
-Should we only consider the absolute number of casualties and not the relative ratio of casualties between the 2 opponents? (For instance, the battle of Stalingrad costed the soviet more men than the axis).
-Should we stop considering the conflict after the conflict become too one sided. For example Berlin is impossible to defend after the battle of Seelow heights (the battle costed the Wehrmacht over 500 000 captured and killed soldiers ) so retreating was the logical tactical move from a military point of view. But Berlin has a huge political importance obviously....
-And the last and more debatable point: what is a battle? Since WW1, there is no more decisive battle like we can see at the time of Napoleon or the secession war where the battle was strictly located in a precise point of the map, the front is several hundred (or even thousand) of km wide and the assault are large scale one on multiple points. Most of the so-called battle in WW2 especially on the eastern front were not composed of a single battle but several one. For exemple the battle of Kursk can be divided into the following battle: The struggle between Model and Rokossovky ont the northern part of the pinch, the battle between Manstein and Vatoutine on the southern part of the pinch, with the notorious battle of Prokhorovka. Some historians (especially in the Russian side) include the operation Kutuzov and the Belgorod-Kharkov.