Army detachment Fretter-Pico

Army detachment Fretter-Pico
active	December 23, 1942 to February 3, 1943
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Wehrmacht
Armed forces	army
Insinuation	last Army Group Don
Second World War	German-Soviet War

The Army Division Fretter-Pico was a major German unit during World War II , which was briefly deployed on the southern section of the Eastern Front in the spring of 1943 .

history

The association was at the end of December 1942 from the General Command of XXX. Army Corps deployed to Army Group B under the command of Colonel General Maximilian von Weichs on the Eastern Front to fill the gap between the. After the Soviet breakthrough on the central Don (December 16 and 17, 1942) and the smashing of the Italian 8th Army Army Groups B and Don to close.

The newly formed army division Fretter-Pico was named after its commanding general and the general of the artillery , Maximilian Fretter-Pico , who led it from the formation to the dissolution. The Army Division operated between the remnants of the Italian 8th Army and the Hollidt Army Division .

At the beginning of January 1943 the German withdrawal began via Millerowo behind the Donets near Voroshilovgrad . By mid-January the assigned 3rd Mountain Division and several alarm units, as well as Italian labor battalions, had been enclosed in the Millerowo area. Withdrawal battles against Soviet forces in the Donets followed by January 21. The 304th Infantry Division , which had previously been used as coastal protection, came from France, had no experience on the Eastern Front and was discharged in Voroshilovgrad. The Italian "Ravenna" division, which provided cover on the Donets, had to support the 304th division. On the left wing, the newly added 335th Infantry Division secured the Donets Line to the north of Pervomaisk . From January 23, the association was subordinate to Army Group Don under the command of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein .

On January 29, during the Voroshilovgrad operation, the major offensive of the Soviet 1st and 3rd Guards Army on Kamensk-Shakhtinsky began with two rifle corps and four tank corps. A break-in at the 304th Infantry Division collapsed the Donets Line, and Soviet troops were able to widen the Donets bridgehead at Voroshilovgrad on a large scale. The dissolution of the federation took place on February 3rd, 1943 after the assumption of command by the 1st Panzer Army , i.e. one day after the surrender in the Battle of Stalingrad , with the subordinate units again in the XXX. Army Corps were incorporated, which was subordinated to the 1st Panzer Army.

literature

• Paul Klatt : The 3rd Mountain Division 1939-1945. Podzun, Bad Nauheim 1958, p. 130 f

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomas Schlemmer (Ed.): The Italians on the Eastern Front 1942/43: Documents on Mussolini's war against the Soviet Union . Oldenbourg, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-486-57847-2 , p. 121. (Footnote 128, Maximilian Fretter-Pico )