VI. Army Corps (Wehrmacht)

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The VI. Army Corps was a major military association of the German Wehrmacht . With the start of World War II in 1939, it stood at the French border and took the 1940 French campaign in part, from the summer of 1941 until the war ended, it was on the Eastern Front used. In July 1944, the corps was temporarily referred to as Gruppe Weidling .

history

Lineup

In October 1934 the staff of the 6th Division of the Reichswehr in Münster became the General Command of the VI. Army corps formed.

1939/40

The VI. Army Corps was mobilized at the end of August 1939 and was on the Luxembourg border at the beginning of the war, the commander was General of the Pioneers Otto-Wilhelm Förster . The 16th , 69th , 211th and 216th Infantry Divisions were subordinated . During the seated war it was in the command area of ​​the 5th Army (General of the Infantry Liebmann ) in the area north of Trier , where the Eifel General Command (later General Commando XXIII. AK .) Acted as the left neighbor.

After the start of Operation " Fall Gelb " (1st phase of the French campaign) on May 10, 1940, the corps was part of the 12th Army in Army Group A and advanced behind the von Kleist Panzer Group through the Ardennes to the Meuse. The 16th and 24th Infantry Divisions were subordinated . In the second phase ( red case ) in June 1940, the corps on the Aisne section of the 2nd Army was subordinate to the 5th and 293rd Infantry Divisions . For the rest of the year, the large association was stationed on the Atlantic coast as part of the occupation forces. At the end of December the corps was subordinate to the 7th Army , with the 9th , 44th and 223rd Infantry Divisions assigned .

1941

In February 1941, the General Command was still in the Army Group B on the Atlantic coast and was taken off it and for the Operation Barbarossa on the northern section of the newly formed Army Group Center for East Prussia laid. The VI. Army Corps (6th and 26th Infantry Divisions ) was deployed in the Gumbinnen area during the attack on the Soviet Union from June 22nd, initially with Panzer Group 3 and then on the northern wing of 9th Army . On October 14, 1941, the order to advance to Rzhev was given as part of the double battle near Vyazma and Bryansk . The 206th and reconnaissance divisions of the 26th Infantry Division occupied Rshew for the first time in October 1941. After the Kalinin Front with the 29th , 31st and 39th Armies launched a major offensive on December 6th, the German 9th Army had to gradually withdraw withdraw from the Volga region reached between Kalinin and Klin to the southwest on Rshew. The main attack was directed from December 14th against the neighboring XXVII. Army corps under General Wäger . A front break in the section of the 110th Infantry Division was achieved on the southern bank of the Volga . In the first defensive battle for Rzhev , the front section of the 256th and 206th Infantry Divisions collapsed on December 31st due to increased Soviet pressure. The 26th and 6th Infantry Divisions were able to maintain their more than 25 kilometers long section of the front. In the Stariza area , the 26th Infantry Division on both sides of the Volga was twice outflanked by Soviet troops that had broken into.

1942/43

On January 4, 1942, the Red Army achieved the breakthrough on the new main battle line of the 9th Army by creating a gap of up to 20 kilometers between the VI. and XXIII. Army corps was torn up. Until September 1942, the Red Army repeated its mass attacks, which ended with innumerable casualties without any significant gain in terrain. On September 21, 1942, a motorcycle rifle battalion "Greater Germany" reestablished the connection to the isolated 6th Infantry Division in the northern Volga ridge of Rshew. The crisis of Army Group Center caused by the winter battle of 1942/43 could be defused. The VI. Army Corps was withdrawn from the Rshew area in October 1942 before the Soviet operation Mars , the previous positions fell under the command of the XXVII, which had proven itself in defensive battles . Army Corps . The VI. Army corps was re-established with the 197th , 206th and 256th Infantry Divisions to the south, alongside the 330th Infantry Division between Welisch and Demidow . Until the German withdrawal movement from the Rshew area, the Red Army did not succeed in any further noteworthy break-ins, flank thrusts or pursuits. In March 1943, the 9th Army cleared the entire front arc as planned and went back on the line Spas-Demensk - Dorogobusch - Duchowschtschina . Within 21 days, the 9th Army and parts of the 4th Army were able to move 160 kilometers behind the front line and move into a new line that was only 220 kilometers wide. During the Duchowschtschina- Demidow operation , which was scheduled for August 1943 , Welisch and Demidow were abandoned to the 39th Soviet Army on September 20 and 22, and they were forced to retreat to the area between Vitebsk and Orsha .

1944

On June 22, 1944, the Red Army began Operation Bagration against Army Group Center . The VI. Army corps under General der Artillerie Pfeiffer was captured by the Soviet summer offensive in the area of ​​the 3rd Panzer Army . The attack by the Soviet 5th and 39th Armies on the Luchessa section in the Bogushevskoje area smashed the following units by June 25:

The few remnants that were withdrawn to the Berezina River were largely captured and destroyed in the subsequent encirclements east of Minsk . The commanding General Pfeiffer was killed on June 28th. The commanders of the 256th and 197th Infantry Divisions, Wüstenhagen and Hahne, were also killed. General Michaelis was taken prisoner, 40–50,000 soldiers met the same fate. In July 1944, General under the new commander Weidling in space Lida for forming barrier Weidling , the remains of the still original units of the VI. Corps was renamed as Corps Weidling . On July 14th, the eastern Nyemen bridgehead at Grodno and on July 15th the city was lost to the Soviet 31st Army .

During the retreat to Augustów of the newly formed 4th Army, the General Command included the 50th Infantry Division (Lieutenant General Haus ), the 14th Panzer Grenadier Division (Lieutenant General Flörke ), and in September 1944 the 286th Security Division .

1945

During the Battle of East Prussia , the corps was part of the 4th Army and concentrated on both sides of Augustów . On January 23rd, Lyck and by 25th the Massurian lake position between Lötzen and the Spirdinger lake had to be given up. The retreat took place in the direction of Heilsberg . After the Soviet breakthrough to the Baltic Sea , the corps was thrown to the Passarge to build a new front . A counterattack by VI, which was regrouped on the Wormditt - Guttstadt line . On January 26th, the Army Corps tried in vain to open a corridor west towards Elbing with the 131st and 170th Infantry Divisions and the 28th Jäger Division . The corps was eventually pushed by the Soviets to the Baltic Sea coast on the Fresh Lagoon and, under General Großmann, was locked in the Heiligenbeiler Kessel .

On March 13, 1945 the following were assigned to the general command on the southern boiler front:

On March 14, the Soviet broke through the 48th Army , the main line of the 131st Infantry Division on both sides of Bohnau and broke after to 20 March Heiligenbeil by. The corps was broken up by the end of March, and the remainder of the troops were taken prisoner by the Soviets.

guide

Commanding general

Chief of the General Staff

literature

  • Percy Ernst Schramm (Ed.): War Diary of the High Command of the Wehrmacht 1940–1945 , on behalf of the Working Group for Defense Research, led by Helmuth Greinert.
  • Volume I: 1940/41 edited by Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwesen, Frankfurt am Main 1965.
  • Volume II: 1942 edited by Andreas Hillgruber, Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwesen, Frankfurt am Main 1965.
  • Volume III: 1943 edited by Walther Hubatsch, Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwesen, Frankfurt am Main 1965.
  • Volume IV: 1944/45 edited by Percy Ernst Schramm, Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwesen, Frankfurt am Main 1965.
  • Rolf Hinze: The Army Group collapsed in mid-1944 , Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart 1992.
  • Rolf Hinze: Das Ostfront Drama 1944 , Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart 1987.