VIII Army Corps (Wehrmacht)

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The VIII Army Corps was a major military unit of the German Wehrmacht , which was deployed in Poland at the beginning of the Second World War , in the west in 1940 and on the eastern front from 1941 .

history

Lineup

The General Command was established in October 1934 under the camouflaged name of "Heeresdienststelle Breslau", but was not designated as General Command VIII. AK until May 1935.

1939

After the mobilization, the VIII. Corps under General Ernst Busch was deployed as the left wing of the 14th Army in Army Group South on the Upper Oder during the attack on Poland , subordinate to the 8th , 28th Infantry and the 5th Panzer Divisions The 239th Infantry Division followed as reserve . The XVII acted as the right neighbor . Army corps with which the advance via Pless on Cracow was forced in the area of Ratibor and Teschen on both sides of the lower Vistula .

After the attack on Poland in October 1939, the General Command was transferred to the Western Front and established in the Eifel region together with the 4th Army (General Günther von Kluge ).

1940

At the beginning of February 1940, the 8th , 28th, 251st and 267th Infantry Divisions were subordinate to the General Command. After the start of Fall Gelb on May 10, the large formation operated on the northern wing of Army Group A and accompanied the advance of the XV. Panzer Corps on the south bank of the Meuse towards Namur , then on via Arras to the Lys . During the second attack phase, Fall Rot, the corps with the 8th and 28th Infantry Divisions remained standing as reserves of Army Group B in the Lens and Douai area .

After the Armistice of Compiegne , the command acted in the area of ​​the 9th Army in the Le Havre area in order to be ready for Operation Sea Lion , with which Army Group A was entrusted. After the company was canceled, the General Command remained on the Channel Coast until April 1941.

1941

From May 1941, the VIII. Corps under General Walter Heitz was transported to East Prussia to the newly established Central Army Group to take part in Operation Barbarossa . On June 22nd, the assigned 8th, 28th and 161st Infantry Divisions led the advance towards the Nyemen in Grodno . In the unit of the 9th Army fighting on the northern front of the Bialystok-Wolkowysk pocket followed . In August 1941, the corps took part in the Kesselschlacht near Smolensk , from August 17 after a front break-in by Soviet troops in the section of the 161st Infantry Division near Dukhovshchina , a crisis broke out at the end of August when parts of the 7. Panzer Division and 87th Infantry Division was mastered.

At the beginning of September the general command was in the area northeast of Smolensk , the left neighbor was the V Army Corps in the Velish area , as the right neighbor to the south, on the Dnieper , the IX. Army Corps . At the end of September the following were subordinated in the Jarzewo area : 28th Infantry Division (Lieutenant General Sinnhuber ), 8th Infantry Division (Major General Höhne ) and 87th Infantry Division (Lieutenant General von Studnitz ). After participating in the Kesselschlacht von Vjasma the subordinate troops accompanied on the left wing of the VI. Army Corps advance towards the Volga towards Rzhev . At the beginning of November 1941, the corps was detached from the front and transported with its subordinated troops to Army Group D in France. By February 1942, the 8th and 28th divisions in the Paris area were converted to Jäger divisions and the 5th light division was also assigned.

1942

In March 1942 the corps was relocated back to the Eastern Front and made available to Army Group South in the Kharkov area as part of the 6th Army . During the Battle of Kharkov , the Donets Front of the VIII. Corps (113th, 260th and 305th Infantry Divisions) and Romanian VI. Corps thrown back on May 12 between Balakleia and Isjum by the Soviet 6th and 57th Armies. The General Command VIII was able to stop the Soviet breakthrough by mid-May with the 62nd Infantry , 454th Security and Hungarian 108th Hungarian Divisions. In the course of the summer offensive ( Operation Blau ), the corps was deployed from the Belgorod area against the Oskol sector at the end of June . Parallel to the advance of the XXXX. Panzer Corps , the advance was carried out by mid-July on the southern bank of the Don over the Tschir section to Kletskaya. In mid-November 1942, the General Command with the 76th and 113th Infantry Divisions held the Don section between Shishikin and Kotluban. After the Soviet breakthrough in the Serafimowitsch area , the VIII Army Corps had to go back to the Rossoshka sector. The last subordinate troops (remnants of the 44th, 76th, 113th, 376th and 384th Inf.-Div.) Were destroyed in the Stalingrad pocket by January 1943 and were taken prisoner by the Soviets.

1943

In March 1943, in the section of the 16th Army , a group or general command z. b. V. Höhne set up a new corps designated and established in the Staraya Russa area under the leadership of the X. Army Corps (General of the Artillery Christian Hansen ). After the Brückenschlag operation, the command south of Staraya Russa included the 21st Air Force Field, the 32nd , 329th and, from June, the 122nd Infantry Division . On July 20, 1943, the staff of Army Group North was renamed General Command VIII again and on September 12, it was designated VIII Army Corps. In mid-September 1943 the command in the Cholm area was subordinate to: 21st Air Force Field Division , 32nd Infantry Division and 5th Jäger Division .

On November 19, the VIII AK also took over the combat group of Lieutenant General Thumm and the police group of Major General Wagner (Estonian 132nd SS Volunteer Brigade and Latvian SS Police Regiment Riga) to work on the threatened section between Pustoschka and Idriza to be able to lead consistently. The subordinate 329th Infantry Division managed to recapture the lost area between Lake Rudo and Lake Uschtsho. At the end of 1943, the 81st , 132nd and 329th Infantry Divisions were subordinate to the command.

1944

Until March 1944, the corps was deployed with the 16th Army in the Newel area, assigned to the 83rd and 329th Infantry Divisions, 28th Jäger divisions and the 12th Panzer Divisions .

In April / June the corps acted in the section of the 2nd Army and covered the retreat to Brest-Litovsk after the break-up of Army Group Center . In July 1944, command of the 4th Panzer Army with Army Group Northern Ukraine was transferred to the Bug . In August 1944 it transferred to the 9th Army on the Vistula front in the Warsaw area for the positions of the XXXX. Panzer Corps to hold on both sides of the Pilica opposite the Soviet bridgehead at Magnuszew. In November 1944, the 6th and 45th People's Grenadier Divisions and the 251st Infantry Division were assigned to the General Command.

1945

From February 1945 belonging to the 17th Army , the VIII. Corps was relocated to the area south of the cut off fortress of Breslau . Early March the General Command in space Neisse the 45th Volksgrenadier- , the 100th fighter - and the 254th Infantry Division assumed. At the end of April the 100th Jäger and combat group were assigned to the 20th SS division . The corps capitulated to the Soviets in the pocket east of Prague .

guide

Commanding generals

Chiefs of the General Staff

  • Colonel i. G. Curt Bernard March 15 to October 15, 1935
  • Major General Erich Marcks October 15, 1935 to November 5, 1939
  • Colonel i. G. Bernhard Steinmetz November 5, 1939 to November 1, 1942
  • Lieutenant Colonel i. G. Ulrich November 1 to December 10, 1942
  • Colonel i. G. Friedrich Schildknecht December 10, 1942 to January 1943
  • Colonel i. G. Eberhardt von Schönfeldt September 12, 1943 to September 1944
  • Colonel i. G. Hans-Adolf von Blumröder September 20, 1944 to May 1945

literature

  • Percy E. Schramm (Ed.): War diary of the High Command of the Wehrmacht , Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwesen, Frankfurt am Main 1965.
  • Volume I: 1940/41 edited by Hans-Adolf Jacobsen .
  • 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.
  • Georg Tessin: Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in World War II 1939-1945 , Volume 3, Frankfurt / Main and Osnabrück 1966, pp. 91-92.