XII. Army Corps (Wehrmacht)

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The XII. Army Corps was a major military association of the German Wehrmacht , which was used at the beginning of the Second World War in the Palatinate and in the western campaign . From 1941 until its annihilation in July 1944 , the General Command stood on the central section of the Eastern Front .

history

Lineup

The XII. Army Corps was set up in Wehrkreis XII in Wiesbaden in October 1936 and was mobilized at the end of August 1939 before the outbreak of war.

1939/40

At the beginning of the war in 1939, the General Command XII. in the west in the area of ​​the 1st Army . During the seated war on the Saar , the 34th , 75th , 79th and 214th Infantry Divisions were subordinate to the corps . During the first part of the western campaign, the command with the 60th , 75th, 252nd and 258th Infantry Divisions in the Saarbrücken area in front of the Maginot Line initially remained defensive. In the second phase of the attack, the troops (75th, 198th and 268th Infantry Divisions ) broke between June 15 and 19 together with the XXX. Army Corps to the Moselle in the area east of Nancy . In September 1940, the XII. Army corps to Poland ( Drohiczyn area on the western Bug ) and was subordinated to the 4th Army ; the 23rd and 31st Infantry Divisions were placed under command.

1941

At the beginning of Operation Barbarossa , the General Command was under General der Infanterie Schroth as part of Panzer Group 2 (Colonel General Guderian ) between the XXXXVII. Motorized Army Corps (left) and XXIV Motorized Army Corps (right) on June 22, 1941 against the fortress of Brest-Litovsk . The 45th Infantry Division (General Schlieper ) leading in the middle advanced against the fortress, while the 31st and 34th Infantry Divisions covered the left and right . The strong resistance of the Soviet 27th Rifle Corps (Lieutenant General WS Popow) could only be broken on July 2nd after the use of strong artillery and air strikes. The XII. Corps with the other two divisions resumed the advance via Rozano in the direction of Slonim in order to strengthen the boiler front south of Wolkowysk . In mid-July, the General Command at Novy Bychow was drawn across the Dnieper to reinforce the 2nd Army in the Gomel area . At the end of August regrouped in the Roslavl area and subordinated to the 4th Army , the command was assigned not only to the 31st and 34th but also to the 167th Infantry Division . During the Roslavl-Novosybkov operation it was possible to intercept the attack of the Soviet 13th and 50th armies on the right wing near Pochep and stabilize the Desna front there. On October 2, Operation Taifun saw the breakthrough of the Soviet front towards Spas-Demensk in the section of Panzer Group 4 . After participating in the clearing of the Vyazma pocket , the advance through Maloyaroslavz in the direction of Serpukhov , where the Soviet 43rd Army (General Golubjew) ordered a halt, took place until the beginning of December . As a result of the Soviet counter-offensive in front of Moscow , the retreat had to be started over the Ugra into the area west of Juchnow , where a positional war of years began.

1942/43

For the General Command XII there followed a long war of positions as part of the 4th Army . In the spring of 1942, the corps in the Vyazma area between the XX. (left) and XIII. Army Corps (right) established, parts of the 17th , 52nd , 98th , parts of the 263rd and 268th Infantry Divisions subordinated. In the second half of the General Command were under the command of General of Infantry GRAESSNER the 260th allocated and 268th Infantry Division. As a result of the buffalo movement (retreat from the front arc of Rzhev ) the corps was withdrawn north of Spas-Demensk behind the Ugra . At the beginning of April 1943, the XII. Army Corps (now General of the Infantry von Tippelskirch ) assigned to the 98th, 183rd, 260th and 268th Infantry Divisions. After the Soviet counter-offensive in the Orel area , the retreat to the Desna had to be started. The troops of the Soviet Western Front broke through the German defense line in Operation Suvorov on September 15. On September 23, Smolensk was liberated by the 72nd Rifle Corps (Major General Prokofiev) of the 31st Army and on 25th Roslavl by the Soviet 10th Army . In December 1943 the 35th , 131st and 342nd Infantry Divisions were subordinate to the General Command now standing on the Basja in the Tschaussy area .

1944

On 22 June 1944, the managed Stawka the Operation Bagration one. The main attack of the 2nd Belarusian Front took place on June 23rd, the XII standing on the right wing of the 4th Army. Corps had subordinated the 57th and 267th Infantry Divisions in the Bychow area . The 49th Soviet Army penetrated the XXXIX front by June 26th . Panzer Corps across the Dnieper in the direction of Mogilew , the 50th Army (General Boldin ) forced the XII. Corps to dismantle. The Soviet troops trapped the 12th Infantry Division in Mogilev on June 27. On June 30, General of the Infantry von Tippelskirch formed the " Müller Group " from a large part of the retreating troops of his army . Until July 3, when the 4th Army was completely enclosed by the Red Army , the withdrawal was still going according to plan. Despite heavy fighting with partisans, around half of the soldiers, they managed to withdraw via the Drut and Beresina to Cherven . Then the vanguard, which was supposed to pave a way to the west, made harder and harder progress. On July 3, the "Combat Group Müller" and the also cut off XXVII united . Army Corps (General of Völckers Infantry ) in the area east of Minsk. On July 6, the 49th and 33rd Soviet armies blocked the Berezino-Minsk retreat route and cut off the 110th Infantry Division, which was at the head of the cut off sections of the German 4th Army, from the rest of the unit. The 57th Infantry Division under Lieutenant General Trowitz tried in vain to break through at Michanowitschi, but failed because of the Soviet resistance. On the morning of July 8th, General Müller was captured. The remains of the XII. Army corps was destroyed in the pocket east of Minsk in early July 1944 and officially disbanded on July 20, 1944. The remains were used for the establishment of the high command of the 6th Panzer Army .

1945

In April 1945 a newly established XII. Army Corps activated, it was the Deputy General Command XII that was deployed in the final battles on the Middle Rhine and most recently in Thuringia . Its commander was General of the Artillery Herbert Osterkamp , Lieutenant General Ernst-Felix Faeckenstedt acted as Chief of the General Staff .

guide

Commanding generals

Chiefs of the General Staff

literature

  • 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.
  • Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in World War II 1939 - 1945 , Frankfurt / Main and Osnabrück 1966.
  • Rolf Hinze: The Army Group collapsed in mid-1944 , Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1992.
  • Rolf Hinze: Das Ostfront Drama 1944 , Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1987.