XVIII. Mountain Corps (Wehrmacht)

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XVIII. Mountain Army Corps

active April 1938 to April 1945
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Type army
Butcher Second World War
attack on Poland
Western campaign
Greece campaign
Lapland front

The XVIII. Army Corps of the German Wehrmacht was a major military unit that was used in World War II . It was first set up in March 1938 in the Salzburg military district and on January 15, 1941 as XVIII. Mountain Army Corps reorganized.

history

Activated in Military District XVIII after the Anschluss of Austria in April 1938 , the General Command was mobilized at the beginning of the Second World War in August 1939 for the attack on Poland .

Under the commanding General Eugen Beyer , the 1st , 2nd and 3rd Mountain Divisions on the outer right wing of the 14th Army (Colonel General List ) broke across the Slovak border into western Galicia . After the breakthrough at the Jablunka Pass and the bunker line between Wegierska and Gotka, the enemy was pursued to the San . On September 10th the Dunajec was crossed at Neu Sandez , on September 11th Sambor fell , between Jasło and Krosno the crossing over the San was enforced. By September 15, the Przemyśl fortress on the San was also taken and on the 16th the encirclement of the capital Lviv began, which surrendered on September 21st.

After use in Galicia, the corps moved to the Western Front and took in May 1940 as part of the 12th Army on the Western campaign in part. The 5th, 21st and 25th Infantry Divisions were subordinate to the first attack phase, " Fall Gelb " .

During the second phase (the red case ) the 10th and 26th Infantry Divisions were assigned to the corps. At the end of October 1940, large parts of the subordinate units had to be sent to the XXXXIX. Mountain Corps .

The rest of the command staff was relocated from France to the homeland at the beginning of November and from January 15, 1941 by the military district VII as XVIII. Mountain Army Corps reorganized.

From February 1941 the transfer to Romania followed , from the middle of March the deployment in Bulgaria , for Operation Marita the XVIII Mountain Corps were subordinate to the 12th Army : the 5th and 6th Mountain Divisions , 72nd Infantry and the 2nd Panzer Division .

The breakthrough of the Metaxas line in the Petritsch area and the advance on Saloniki took place on April 6th . This was followed by participation in the battles on Olympus and the breakthrough at Thermopylae . After the advance on Athens , the occupation of Euboea and the conquest of the Peloponnese, the general command remained in Greece as a security command . In September the following were subordinate to: the 5th Mountain Division, the 164th and 713th Infantry Divisions . The commanding general of the mountain troops, Franz Böhme, was also responsible for the business of the military commander of Serbia from September 16 to December 2, 1941 .

On December 8, 1941, the command was detached from Serbia and initially relocated to the homeland war area at the disposal of the OKH , and then in April 1942 it was transported to Lapland in the Rovaniemi area to lead the German troops there as part of the 20th mountain Army at their right wing on the Louhi front. So far from the Finnish III. The section commanded by the Corps was now occupied by the SS division "Nord" , the Mountain Jäger Regiment 139 and the 7th Mountain Division, which initially only arrived in parts and was later completed . It followed on the side of the XIX. and the XXXVI. Mountain Corps for two years of trench warfare without significant combat.

In September 1944, as a result of the Lapland War against the Finnish army, the Birke company began via Kuusamo and the retreat along the Finnish-Swedish border to Northern Norway began. The XVIII. Mountain Corps (since June 24, 1944 General of the Hochbaum Infantry) from the front between Uchtua and Kiestinki on Rovaniemi and the XXXXVI to the north. Mountain Corps (since August 10, 1944 General of the Vogel Mountain Troop) from the Werman Front to return to Jvalo via Salla . The Hochbaum group was subordinated to the 7th Mountain Division, the Division eg V. 140 (Divisional Group Kräutler ) and the 6th SS Mountain Division "North" . At the turn of the year the corps fought border battles at the three-country corner .

The general command was then transferred via Norway to West Prussia and placed under the Vistula Army Group . As part of the 2nd Army , the most difficult battles against the Red Army existed, but at the beginning of March 1945 it pushed the corps into eastern West Prussia, where the corps u. a. the 32nd and 215th Infantry Divisions were subordinate. The General Command saw the end of the war with the remaining units in the Vistula lowlands . On May 9, 1945, the Soviet captivity began for them there .

guide

Commanding general

Chief of the General Staff

literature

  • Roland Kaltenegger : Die deutsche Gebirgstruppe 1935–1945, Bechtermünz Verlag, 1999, p. 54.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Percy E. Schramm (Ed.): War Diary of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, 8th volumes, Volume I: 1940/41 edited by Hans-Adolf Jacobsen , Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwesen, Frankfurt am Main 1965, appendix: respective war organization.
  2. ^ Kaltenegger: Die deutsche Gebirgstruppe 1935-1945, p. 399.