I. Flak Corps

Troop registration of the 1st Flak Corps

Graphic representation of the areas of operation of the German Flak Corps (Luftwaffe) in World War II without special instances

The I. Flak Corps was a major combat unit of the German Air Force in World War II .

Foundation and installation

The staff of the I. Flak Corps was set up on October 3, 1939, partly from the permanent staff of Luftgau Command 3 in Berlin under its first commanding general, General of the Flak Cartillery Hubert Weise , as part of Air Fleet 3 . In the initial period from October 1939 to the end of 1940, the two flak corps established at that time were initially still called Flak Corps I and Flak Corps II. The following units were subordinate to the (still) Flak Corps I:

Anti-aircraft regiment 101 ,
Flak Regiment 102 ,
Flak Regiment 103 (only until November 1939, then II. Flak Corps ),
Flak Regiment 104 and that
Air regiment 101 together with the supply officer I .

After the successful conclusion of the attack on Poland , the previously known Army Group South under the command of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt was used in the west under its new name Army Group A at the end of October 1939 . There, in the event of a German attack, the Flak Corps I was supposed to secure the air defense and the defense of any occupied airfields. However, the German attack did not materialize. It finally ended in the seat war .

Western campaign

With the beginning of the Red Case , the western campaign , regiments 101, 102 and 104, which were still subordinate at this time, were involved in the successful advance over the Maas and the German tank attacks by the von Kleist and Guderian tanks . On May 31, 1940 the Flak Regiment 103 was again subordinated to the I. Flak Corps. After the fighting was over, the corps and its subordinate units were entrusted with protecting the airspace in the greater Paris area and other cities, as well as protecting important ports in northern France. By this time, the units of Flak Corps I had shot down 372 aircraft in the sky, 252 aircraft on the ground and 47 tanks. There were also 30 bunkers and a destroyer . At the end of September 1940, the General Command and regiments 101 and 103 were relocated to Central Germany, particularly to protect Berlin. There, the General Command was initially carried out under the designation Commander of Air Defense in Luftgau III (General Command I. Flak Corps) in November 1940 and from March 24, 1941 Air Force Commander Center . The old General Command had ceased to exist at this point.

Eastern campaign

1941

Even before the attack on the Soviet Union , a new staff (from the command staff of the 1st Flak Brigade ) was set up on March 11, 1941 , and the command of the 1st Flak Brigade, Major General Walther von Axthelm, took over. From this point on, the corps was renamed I. Flak-Korps. Under Axthelm's leadership, the I. Flak Corps saw the start of the Eastern campaign in June 1941. With the start of this operation, however, only the two regiments 101 and 104 with which the corps in cooperation with Panzer Group 2 in Army Group Center were under Destination Moscow was used. Until December 1941, when the German advance ended at the gates of Moscow, the units of the I. Flak Corps were involved in numerous tank battles against the Red Army . So among other things in the battles for ( Bialystok / Minsk , Smolensk , Kiev , Vyasma / Brjansk ) and finally in the battle for Moscow . At the turn of the year 1941/1942 the units of the corps were then in the area east of Orel . On December 19, 1941, Axthelm gave command of the corps to Richard Reimann, who was initially entrusted with the command from December 20 to January 11, 1942.

1942

On January 12, 1942, when the I. Flak Corps was relocated to the southern section of the Eastern Front, the expected change in leadership took place. Major General Richard Reimann, who was initially only entrusted with the command of the corps, became the commanding general on January 12, 1942. The I. Flak Corps was under at the time of the Air Fleet 4 . In view of the Blau case , the German summer offensive that began on June 26, 1942, the I. Flak Corps was enormously reinforced. As early as May 1942, the corps was structured as follows:

9th Flak Division , (destroyed in Stalingrad )
10th Flak Division (only until November 1942),
15th Flak Division and the
17th Flak Division .

On April 19, 1942 Reimann was replaced as commanding general of the I. Flak Corps and entrusted with the leadership of the 18th Flak Division . For him came General der Flieger Otto Deßloch . Under his leadership, the corps' units distinguished themselves again until the end of the year and were able to destroy over 1,000 tanks by December 9, 1942.

1943

After the lost battle for Stalingrad , the corps' units were involved in the hard fighting over the Kuban bridgehead and in the retaking of Kharkov . Then from July 1943 on at the Citadel company . On October 1, 1943, Richard Reimann again took over the fate of the corps. He then held this command until the end of the war. In November 1943 the corps was structured as follows:

9th Flak Division, (reorganized)
10th Flak Division,
15th Flak Division and the
17th Flak Division.

1944

Until June 1944, the units of the I. Flak Corps were involved in fierce defensive battles until the entire Army Group collapsed in mid-August 1944 due to Operation Bagration . During this time the divisions of the corps were in the following combat areas:

9th Flak Division: almost destroyed in the retreat fighting in the Crimea ( Sevastopol ),
10th Flak Division: Greater Lemberg ,
15th Flak Division: Romania ,
17th Flak Division: almost destroyed in the Kamenez-Podolski battle in March 1944 .

1945

With the start of the Vistula-Oder operation , the last major winter offensive of the Red Army on the already weakened divisions of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front began on January 12th. The remaining units of the I. Flak Corps fought in the Upper Silesia area in the Mährisch-Ostrau area (11th Flak Division), the 10th Flak Division at the Oder crossings in the Opole - Breslau area and the 17th Flak Division in Central and Lower Silesia. On March 25, only 59 flak divisions were operational in the area of the I. Flak Corps. Due to the increasingly sensitive earth situation, the command post of the I. Flak Corps had to be relocated several times, for example at the end of March 1945 in Schweidnitz ( Lower Silesia ), at the end of April 1945 near Prague and finally at the end of the war in Königgrätz , where he became a prisoner of war .

Individual evidence

^ Karl-Heinz Hummel: The German flak cartillery 1935-1945. Your major formations and regiments. VDM, Zweibrücken 2010, ISBN 978-3-86619-048-1 , pp. 19, 20, 21.
^ Karl-Heinz Hummel: The German flak cartillery 1935-1945. Your major formations and regiments. VDM, Zweibrücken 2010, ISBN 978-3-86619-048-1 , pp. 19, 20, 21, 22.

[1] Karl-Heinz Hummel: The German flak cartillery 1935-1945. Your major formations and regiments. VDM, Zweibrücken 2010, ISBN 978-3-86619-048-1 , pp. 19, 20, 21.

[2] Karl-Heinz Hummel: The German flak cartillery 1935-1945. Your major formations and regiments. VDM, Zweibrücken 2010, ISBN 978-3-86619-048-1 , pp. 19, 20, 21, 22.