XIII. Army Corps (Wehrmacht)

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The XIII. Army Corps was a major military association of the German Wehrmacht . It was used in the Polish and Western campaigns in 1939/40 and took part in the attack on the Soviet Union as part of Army Group Center from June 1941 . The advance to Moscow was followed by a long position battle on the Central Eastern Front and, in 1944, the destruction in the Brody pocket . On January 19, 1945, the General Command was reorganized on the Western Front through the renaming and reorganization of the Higher Command Vosges and broken up in April 1945.

history

Lineup

The establishment of the XIII. Army Corps took place on October 1, 1937 in Nuremberg . The general command was formed as a territorial command for the new military district XIII . The first commanding general was General of the Cavalry Maximilian von Weichs , who carried out the occupation of the Sudetenland in 1938 .

1939

After the mobilization , which began at the beginning of August 1939, the corps was used in the attack on Poland . At the beginning of September the XIII. Corps together with the Xth Army Corps on the left wing of the 8th Army in the area northeast of Breslau , subordinated to the 10th , 17th and 221st Infantry Divisions . On September 12th, the XI. Army Corps , which had already won the Sochaczew and Łowicz line after a strong Polish counterattack from the Kutno area , had to be supported by the 17th Infantry Division (with parts of the SS Leibstandarte ) advancing via Ozorkow . The 8th Army grouped the XI. Army corps to the north and let the 24th, 10th, 17th and 30th Infantry Divisions counterattack the Bzura from the south. On September 13, the Polish general Kutrzeba had to withdraw his troops again between Bielawy and Leczyca . During the following Battle of the Bzura , the command held the hard-pressed southern front of the containment ring. From September 25, 1939, the corps took command of the 31st, 10th and 46th Infantry Divisions on the southern ring of confinement of Warsaw . In December 1939, the general command was transferred to the west and placed under the 16th Army of Army Group A in the Trier area .

1940

During the western campaign , the corps commanded by Colonel General von Vietinghoff advanced on May 10, 1940 with the subordinate 17th and 34th Infantry Divisions as part of the 16th Army through Luxembourg to the Meuse . In the second phase of the attack, Fall Rot, assigned to the 12th Army in Champagne , the 17th, 21st and 260th Infantry Divisions were subordinate to the general command concentrated in the area to the west and near Rethel . The breakthrough over the Aisne took place in the direction of Chalons-sur-Marne and reached the Chalons-sur-Saone area at the time of the armistice . From July 1940 the XIII. Corps first with the 9th Army in northern France and from July 17th with the 16th Army near Ostend for the planned Sea Lion operation . From January 1941 at the latest, it served as an occupying force in the Netherlands .

1941

By March 1941 the transfer to East Prussia took place in the section of the 18th Army . After the start of Operation Barbarossa (June 22, 1941), the divisions of the XIII marched. Corps (Gen. of Inf. Felber ) with the 17th and 78th Infantry Division as the second squadron of the 4th Army behind the IX. Army Corps on the lower bow . During the Battle of the Bialystok and Minsk via the Nurzec section to the Narew, the troops participated together with the XXXXIII. Army Corps (Gen. Inf. Heinrici ) at the enclosure of the pocket near Wolkowysk . At the beginning of July the General Command joined the 2nd Army (General von Weichs ) and advanced south across the Dnieper into the Gomel area. At the end of August 1941, the corps accompanied the XXXXIII's actions. Army corps to Chernigov . The subordinate 131st , 134th and 260th Infantry Divisions , covered with the divisions of the XXXXIII. Corps in the north of Kiev opened the eastern flank against the Soviet 5th Army . After regrouping in the Roslavl area , the 98th and 197th Infantry Divisions advanced over the Desna in early October as part of Operation Taifun . In the formation of Army Group Center , it took part in the advance to the Oka in the Tarussa area , proceeding via Kirov and Kaluga . At the end of December, the command together with the XII. Army Corps retreat from the western bank of the Oka via Medyn behind the Ugra after the counter-offensive in front of the Soviet 33rd and 49th Army .

1942

In January 1942, the General Command in the area of ​​the Ugra knee north of Juchnow was responsible for the 52nd , 260th and 268th Infantry Divisions . In the trench war , the XII closed on the left . and on the right the XXXXIII, pushed back to Juchnow by the 2nd Panzer Army . Army Corps. In April the General Command led the 52nd, 137th , 263rd and 260th Infantry Divisions in the 4th Army sector. After being refreshed, the General Command was transferred to Army Group South in the association of the 4th Panzer Army . At the beginning of the summer offensive ( blue case from June 28th) the XIII. Corps as part of the Weichs Army Group (AOK 2) with the 82nd and 385th Infantry Divisions across the Tim section on Liwny , which was reached by July 8th. The southern neighbor, the VII Army Corps , fended off Russian counter-attacks in the area from Kastornoje to Voronezh. In August 1942, General Command XIII had placed the 82nd , 88th , 68th and 377th Infantry Divisions under its command, and in December 1942, when the front was extended to the south, the 340th Division also came into the corps area.

1943

After the collapse of the Hungarian 2nd Army , it became impossible to hold the eastern Don bridgehead near Voronezh on January 21st. The 2nd Army withdrew the VII. Army Corps via Kastornoje when the Soviet 13th Army (General Puchow ) launched the offensive against the front of the XIII. Corps initiated and thrown back on Wolowo and pursued on both sides of the Olympus. The thrust wedge of the Soviet 40th Army (General Moskalenko ) penetrated from the east on Stary Oskol and cut off large parts of the retreating Hungarian and German troops (VII AK) in the Gorshetnoye area. By January 29th, encircled parts of the 68th, 340th and 377th Infantry Divisions were able to break out in the Kastornoje area. Counter-attacks by the incoming 4th Panzer Division made it possible to move across the Tim section ( Voronezh-Kharkiv operation ). On February 8, Kursk fell into the hands of the Soviet 60th Army (General Tschernjachowski ). Between Dmitrijew-Lgowski to Lgow and on the Raut section, the XIII. Corps to build up a new front with the 327th and 340th Infantry Divisions by mid-February, where at Sudscha the connection to the VII Army Corps, which was still hard pressed on the Psjel sector , could take place. After the German counter-offensive near Kharkov and during the Battle of Kursk (first half of July 1943), the corps was entrusted with holding the Sevsk to Rylsk line , and the 82nd, 340th and 377th Infantry Divisions were subordinate to it. As a result of the failure of the German offensive, the general retreat via Konotop to Desna took place from August 1943 . When the XIII. Corps until the Dnieper north of Kiev again holding could section, the command were the September the Association of 4th Panzer Army was, the 82nd, 208th and 340th assigned Infantry Division. On the northern wing as far as the Pripjet, the LIX was also installed after the main thrust of the 1st Ukrainian Front (Army General Watutin ) was recognized . Army corps pushed into the front. At the beginning of November a Soviet offensive broke through the corps section south of the Teterew and broke through in the direction of Korosten. On November 11th, Zhitomir was lost to the 1st Guard Armored Army , but was regained on the 19th after a counter-offensive by the XXIV Panzer Corps . After another major Soviet offensive, which Army General Watutin initiated on December 24th, the latter successes became useless, the 4th Panzer Army was thrown back to Volhynia in weeks of fighting across the front .

1944

In mid-January, the XIII. Corps under General der Infanterie Hauffe with the remnants of the 68th and 340th Divisions and the 454th Security Division were makeshift on the new Rowno - Shepetovka line and were consequently pushed back further to the old frontier of Galicia . In March 1944 the ailing corps in the area between Dubno and Tarnopol was redirected to the 349th and 361st Infantry Divisions. On July 13, the 1st Ukrainian Front launched a pincer attack on Lemberg in the Lemberg-Sandomir operation . On July 15, Marshal Konev deployed the 1st Guards Tank Army (Colonel General Katukow ) and the mobile group Baranow to attack from the Lutsk area over the Styr in a south-westerly direction. At the same time, the 3rd Guard (General Rybalko ) and 4th Panzer Army (General Leljuschenko ) pushed forward with the Sokolov mechanical group directly towards Lemberg. The entire XIII. Corps with subordinate Corps Division C, 349th and 361st Infantry Division surrounded by the rifle corps of Generals Cherokmanov (27th SK), Kirjuchin (24th SK) and Puzikow (102nd SK) in the Brody area and completely destroyed by July 22nd . The attempts to break the enclosed associations towards the Zlota Lipa failed after the space in Busk scheduled to relieve III. Panzer Corps has already been outflanked.

On August 5, 1944, the General Command was disbanded, and the remnants were used to set up the "Greater Germany" tank corps .

1945

A new General Command XIII AK was activated on January 8, 1945 by renaming and reorganization of the Higher Command Vosges (Corps Group Felber) on the western front and established in the area of ​​the 7th Army in the Trier area. At the beginning of March 1945, in addition to the 2nd Panzer Division , the corps in the Heilbronn area were assigned the remnants of the 9th, 79th, 276th and 352nd Volksgrenadier Divisions . The breakthrough of the 10th US Panzer Division near Crailsheim took place on April 6 , thus creating the seam to the neighboring XIII. SS Army Corps torn up and the corps pushed to Günzburg . In mid-April 1945 the corps was subordinated to the 1st Army and had subordinated the remnants of the 198th Infantry Division as well as the 19th and 553rd Volksgrenadier Divisions. The remnants of the no longer operational commando were pushed back to the northern Alps by the end of April .

guide

Commanding generals

Chiefs of the General Staff

  • Major General Wilhelm Stemmermann , October 1937 to February 5, 1940
  • Colonel Rudolf Hofmann, February 6 to October 27, 1941
  • Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich Gäde , November 3, 1941 to January 6, 1942 (representative)
  • Colonel Sigismund-Hellmuth von Dawans, January 6 to March 22, 1942
  • Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Köstlin, March 22 to July 1942
  • Colonel Gerhard Kühne, July to December 24, 1942
  • Colonel Kaulbach, December 24, 1942 to February 15, 1943
  • Colonel Zerbel, February 16 to March 20, 1943
  • Colonel Karl Körner, March 20 to November 1943
  • Colonel Hans-Werner von Hammerstein-Gesmold, November 1943 to June 10, 1944

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. 260–261.
  • 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.
  • Manfried Rauchsteiner : The War in Austria 1945 , Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1985.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ OKW-KTB, Schematic Organization of War of April 30, 1945, Volume IV. P. 1145.
  2. ^ Rauchsteiner: The war in Austria 1945, map supplements.