Artillery commander

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Artillery Commander ( Arko ) was a military post in the German Army , the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht , initially with the service designation artillery leader in the infantry divisions , with the beginning of the Second World War in the corps .

First World War

From 1915 the position of the artillery commander was established in the staffs of the German army corps and divisions , who was now responsible for the tactical command of the field and heavy artillery . In the divisions of the Bavarian Army , the staffs of the existing field artillery brigades were renamed in February 1917 to "Artillery Commanders".

Reichswehr

Flag of Artillery Leader IV, 1925–1927

From 1921 was in the infantry divisions of the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht, the official position of the artillery guide (AFhr), which at the executive level of the brigade , the artillery led the division, according to the infantry leader in the infantry regiments of the division. From the beginning there was the possibility, which was later used, to outsource two further divisional staffs from one division. The original artillery commanders I to VII were responsible for the training and tactical leadership of the artillery regiments and driving departments of the seven infantry divisions of the 100,000-man army . The artillery commander was directly subordinate to the division commander and usually had the rank of colonel or major general . His staff consisted of up to seven officers, two technical officers, seven non-commissioned officers and 20 crew ranks.

Wehrmacht

At the beginning of the expansion of the Reichswehr after the Nazi takeover of power , the artillery commanders I to VII were expanded to divisional staffs in 1934, but retained the designation artillery commanders until October 1935 for reasons of confidentiality and camouflage. In the already existing and newly established divisions, they were immediately replaced by new staffs now called artillery commanders (Arko) with the same staff and the same tasks.

At the beginning of the war in 1939, these Arko staffs were removed from the divisions. Six of them were converted into divisional staffs for infantry divisions of the 2nd wave (Arko 1 → 61 ID , Arko 4 → 56 ID , Arko 5 → 78 ID , Arko 8 → 62 ID , Arko 16 → 69 ID , Arko 32 → 75th ID ). The others were assigned to the army corps, and all corps were now given an arko, which could also have the rank of lieutenant general . During the war, the Arkos were therefore always artillery commanders deployed at the level of the corps. Some of them belonged to the army troops, others were permanently assigned to a specific corps. In the latter case they had the number 400 with the ordinal number of the corresponding corps (e.g. Arko 464 in the LXIV. Corps).

On October 1, 1939, 14 artillery commanders (101 to 114) were set up at the Potsdam War School , with slightly smaller staffs than those of the existing artillery commanders. They were primarily intended for the guidance of stationary artillery units, but some were also used as artillery commanders in higher commandos, which were also of limited use. These artillery commanders were also reclassified to Arko in the spring of 1940.

So-called higher artillery commanders existed in armies and army groups .

Web links

literature

  • Wolf Keilig: The German Army 1939-1945 , (Volume II, Part 112, pp. 1–48, Higher Artillery Commanders and Artillery Commanders Spring 1945), Podzun, Bad Nauheim, 1956.