X. Army Corps (Wehrmacht)

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The X. Army Corps was a major military unit of the German Wehrmacht , which was used at the beginning of the Second World War in the attack on Poland , in 1940 in the western campaign and from May 1941 on the northern eastern front . The General Command saw the end of the war in the Kurlandkessel .

history

Lineup

The General Command X was set up in mid-May 1935 from the existing command of the cavalry division and charges of the military district II in Hamburg .

1939/40

After the mobilization on August 28, 1939, the General Command under General Ulex was used on the right wing of the 8th Army (General Blaskowitz ) during the attack on Poland . Together with the XIII. Army corps from the Breslau area , the thrust was directed towards Kalisch on the Prosna . After the advance on the Bzura via Lodz , the front of 30th Inf. Div. (General von Tippelkirch) into the main attack area of the Polish counterattack of the Armia Poznań , which was carried out from the Kutno area , and was pushed back between Piatek and Leczyca . The 24th Infantry Division on the Piątek - Bielawy - Łowicz road , on the right of it, came to the rescue. After the battle of the Bzura , at which the X. Corps narrowed the front in the Żychlin area, command was transferred to the ring of enclosure in Warsaw .

In the western campaign (May 1940) assigned to the northernmost section of the 18th Army , the 227th Infantry Division , 1st Cavalry Division and the SS Brigade "Leibstandarte" were subordinate. The breakthrough at the Dutch IJssel position led the troops to Amsterdam . During the second phase of the attack (the red case ) , the 208th , 225th and 254th Infantry Divisions were concentrated on the North Sea coast in the Dunkirk area . During the armistice , the General Command was in the area of ​​the 4th Army in Normandy , with the 61st , 57th , 216th , 251st and 256th Infantry Divisions assigned .

1941

In April 1941 the General Command was transferred to East Prussia to take part in Operation Barbarossa . Deployed on the northern eastern front as part of the 16th Army , the 30th , 126th and 290th Infantry Divisions were subordinate to the corps .

The attack took place on June 22nd from the Ragnit area across the Memel towards Kedainiai . The advance in the area east of Schaulen took place after the tank battle near Rossienie on the right wing of the XXXXI. Corps (mot.) In the direction of the Düna on Jakobstadt . In mid-July the troops advanced through Opochka on both sides of the Velikaya. The 126th Division marched on Orsha and then northwards on Rjelbitzy, the 30th Division on the right on Morina. In the second phase, the south-west corner of Lake Ilmen was reached in the Staraja Russa area . The 30th and 126th Divisions tried to advance eastwards via the Polist . A counter-attack by the Soviet 34th Army (General Kakhanov) to the northwest threatened to cut off the X Corps east of the Lowat from August 15 . The LVI. Corps (motorized) had to be regrouped from the Luga in order to push into the flank of the Soviets that had broken through. By August 20, the union of the SS Totenkopf Division with the 30th Inf. Division was established and the crisis averted. Together with the II Army Corps , the Soviet resistance was broken south of Lake Ilmen and advanced further east. At the end of August the X. Corps was able to extend a bridgehead over the Pola, the left wing had reached the Kolpinka. The 126th Division was after the beginning of the war of position to the Volkhov Front transported.

1942

A major Soviet offensive with the 11th Army broke through the front of the 290th Division on January 8, 1942. The Soviets pushed through in the south of Staraya Russa and interrupted the railway line to Schimsk , Ostashkov in the area of ​​the II Army Corps was lost. The 32nd and 123rd Infantry Divisions made a makeshift construction of a new southern front. By the beginning of February 1942, the X. Corps, together with the II. Army Corps, was enclosed in the Demyansk pocket.

In the " Operation Brückenschlag " of the Seydlitz relief group (two Jäger and three infantry divisions), the connection to the cut off corps was restored at the end of March 1942, but the front arch had to be held until March 1943 on the orders of the High Command. The 18th motorized division was now securing at Staraya Russa and parachute units from Group Meindl were securing on the right wing of the Redja.

1943

From the middle to the end of February 1943 Demyansk was evacuated and its own general command z. b. V. under Lieutenant General Hoehne additionally subordinated to the X. Corps. On March 14th the Soviet Northwest Front renewed its attack on Staraya Russa, where the 30th, 126th and 329th Infantry and the 5th and 8th Jäger Divisions were now defending. After the withdrawal of the VIII Army Corps to Newel , the II Corps again bordered the right wing of the corps in the Cholm area .

1944

After the lifting of the blockade of Leningrad by the offensive of the fronts under Army Generals Govorov and Merezkov and the loss of Novgorod to the Soviet 59th Army in January 1944, the withdrawal of the 16th Army became necessary. In mid-February the corps took up an intermediate position on the Schelon sector and continued its retreat on Opotschka until the beginning of March .

After Operation Bagration , the Army Group was about to collapse in mid- June, and the 16th Army had to surrender its last reserves in the Polotsk area . As far as the Novosokolniki area , the X. Corps, together with the VI. SS Army Corps (SS-General Krüger ) the left flank of the 16th Army (now under General der Inf. Laux ), now subordinated to the 23rd, 329th and 263rd Infantry Divisions and the 281st Security Division . The Sieckenius Combat Group of the 263rd Division had a makeshift connection to the I. Army Corps , which in the rear tried desperately to cover the Dune Line against the troops of the broken-through 2nd Baltic Front . On July 16, Opotschka fell into the hands of the Soviets; in the south, Daugava was lost on July 26; and on August 19, the front of the worn-out divisions of the X Corps on Lake Kalu was breached. On both sides of Ergli and west of Modohn the 24th , 132nd , 121st , 329th and 126th Infantry Divisions were now defending .

After the defeated Army Group North had withdrawn from Riga , the X. Corps came under the command of the 18th Army (from September 5th under Gen. Inf. Boege ); at the beginning of October 1944, the General Command was assigned the 24th, 32nd and 132nds. Assigned to Infantry Division. After the breakthrough of the Soviet 51st Army (General Kreiser ) on October 10th near Polangen to the Baltic Sea. The X. Corps took over the command on the line Prekuln - Moscheiken with the 11th, 30th and 61st Infantry Divisions on the southern front of the Kurlandkessel . From October 27 to November 2, 1944, the X. Corps was in the main field of attack of the 5th Guards Panzer Army , the Soviet goal of pushing through Libau and Windau was thwarted, but the corps suffered losses of over 4,000 men.

1945

As a result of further attacks by the 2nd Baltic Front (from February 1945 under Marshal Goworow), the troops of the General Command were crushed, especially in the 4th and 5th  battles of Courland . The last commanding General Thomaschki was to hold in the area south of Libau to southwest of Durben, where the I Army Corps was joined. When the 18th Army surrendered in Courland on May 8, 1945, only the remnants of the combat groups that had previously been designated as the 30th, 132nd and 126th Infantry Divisions were subordinate to the X. Corps.

guide

Commanding generals

Chiefs of the General Staff

literature

  • 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. 163-164.
  • Percy Ernst 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.