III. Anti-aircraft corps

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

The General Staff of the III. On January 25, 1944, anti-aircraft corps was mostly drawn from the command staff of the 11th Flak Division and was subordinate to the Air Force Command West . The establishment of this new anti-aircraft corps happened primarily against the background of the expected Allied invasion of northern France. For this purpose, the subordinate units of the corps should be used less for air security, but rather for mobile and therefore fully motorized anti-tank defense. First commanding general of III. Flak Corps was Major General Johannes Hintz , who died of his injuries only a few months later due to an accident on May 21, 1944 in Paris . His successor was Lieutenant General Wolfgang Pickert , who took over the fate of III. Flak Corps until March 20, 1945.

Pickert, who with his 9th Flak Division had previously shown in the Soviet Union , especially in the Battle of Stalingrad , what combat power the anti-tank units could demonstrate in fighting tanks, was shocked by the conditions he found on the expected invasion front. The intended (tank) flak units acting as mobile rapid commandos performed their tasks as permanently stationed airfield protection as well as air defense for the units of the Fieseler Fi 103 (V1 weapon) and also had no combat experience in ground combat. In the short time from the end of May 1944 until the Allied invasion on June 6, 1944 in Normandy, the subordinate units of the III. Flak corps only a few days to be trained in ground combat.

As early as the beginning of May 1944, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, as commander in chief of Army Group B , in whose command area the invasion took place, demanded that III. Flak corps under his command to pull together the corps with its anti-aircraft and anti-tank capabilities from northern and central France in the expected invasion area for an immediate fight against the landed enemy troops and their air support, but Hermann Göring as chief of the air force and commander-in-chief of the flak corps refused to be subordinated his corps under Rommel, so that the mass of III. At the start of the invasion, anti-aircraft corps were far removed from their future operational area.

It so happened that on June 6, 1944, only one regiment was actually stationed in Normandy . By June 9, 1944, however, all four subordinate regiments, Flak Regiment 36 (Flaksturm Regiment 2), 37 (Flaksturm Regiment 3), 79 (Flaksturm Regiment 4) and 431 (Flaksturm Regiment 1) as well as the General Staff itself could arrive in the assigned combat area west of Caen . On June 18, 1944, all four mentioned flak regiments were renamed Flaksturm regiments . However, it was only possible to partially achieve the full motorisation of the associations aimed at.

In the course of the hard and heavy fighting with the Allied forces, which initially reached their preliminary climax in the Falaise pocket at the beginning of August 1944 , brought the III. Flak corps and its flak storm regiments suffered high losses. These were so strong that the III. Flak corps had to be relocated to the area of the Rhenish Slate Mountains Hunsrück on September 3, 1944 to refresh . By the end of October 1944 there were a number of exits and additions in the area of the III. Flak corps, so that the corps, meanwhile with the command post of the General Command in Schloss Dyck , was structured as follows on December 1, 1944:

2nd Flak Division (division staff only)
- Flaksturmregiment 1
- Flaksturmregiment 2
- Flaksturmregiment 3
- Flaksturmregiment 4
16th Flak Division
- 18th Flak Brigade
- 19th Flak Brigade
1st Flak Brigade

In this structure, the subordinate associations of the III. Anti-aircraft corps also participated in the Battle of the Bulge , where they were characterized by high numbers of kills. For these services they were named in the Wehrmacht report on December 30, 1944 . After the failure of the German offensive, all units, involved in heavy fighting, withdrew gradually to the Reich territory until March 1945. At this time, the command post of the General Command was in the Lüdenscheid area . On February 26, 1945, the corps was then reorganized as follows:

2nd Flak Division
- Flaksturmregiment 1,
- Flaksturmregiment 2,
- Flaksturmregiment 3,
- Flaksturmregiment 4,
7th Flak Division
1st Flak Brigade as well as the
19th Flak Brigade

On March 21, 1945 there was a last change in the management level of the corps. On that day, Pickert's place was Lieutenant General Heino von Rantzau , who then held this position until the end of the war. However, not all associations of the corps came in late March 1945 in the vortex of the Ruhr Pocket in the area of Army Group B . When the collapse finally loomed in mid-April 1945, von Rantzau ordered in his command post near Ratingen :

"Shoot ammunition and then let it roll over with a decent closed handover!"

- Karl-Heinz Hummel : The German anti-aircraft cartillery 1935 - 1945

On April 17, 1945 at 4:15 p.m. von Rantzenau surrendered with part of his General Command in front of the American armed forces in his command post.

Individual evidence

^ Hans Speidel: Invasion 1944 . Ullstein publishing house. Frankfurt, Berlin, Vienna 1975. ISBN 3-548-03051-3 . Page 24
^ Karl-Heinz Hummel: The German flak cartillery 1935-1945. Your major formations and regiments. VDM, Zweibrücken 2010, ISBN 978-3-86619-048-1 , pp. 28, 29, 30, 31.

[1] Hans Speidel: Invasion 1944 . Ullstein publishing house. Frankfurt, Berlin, Vienna 1975. ISBN 3-548-03051-3 . Page 24

[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. 28, 29, 30, 31.