8th Aviation Corps (Luftwaffe)

The corps was formed on July 19, 1939 in Oppeln as the "special forces command" ( German: Fliegerführer zbV ). On November 10, 1939 it was renamed the VIIIth Aviation Corps. From January 25 to February 2, 1945 it was called the Silesia Aviation Command.

Since October 1939, the 8th air corps has been commanded by Wolfram von Richthofen .

French Campaign

Under V. von Richthofen, the command of the 8th Air Corps participated in the French campaign .

Operation Barbarossa

Bialystok-Minsk battle

Under the command of Richthofen, the 8th air corps participated in the war against the USSR , the corps supported the Wehrmacht offensive in the Bialystok-Minsk battle in June 1941.

The advance of a large number of Soviet tanks was noticed by German aircraft, which began to attack the tank columns. The 8th air corps of V. von Richthofen was lifted into the air, to which the 6th mechanized corps could not oppose anything without sufficient anti-aircraft and air cover (according to the report of the commander of the 7th Panzer Division, his separate anti-aircraft artillery division was at the beginning of the war at the proving ground in Krupki east of Minsk).

The dominance in the air of German aviation not only led to direct losses in manpower and equipment, but also contributed to the complete disorganization of the rear - the violation of the provision of combat with ammunition and fuel and lubricants. The management of combat units was completely disorganized; even earlier, the communications of the KMG command with the front headquarters were lost. As a result, in the afternoon of June 25, an order was issued to end the counterattack and the Soviet units retreat east.

In July 1941, the 8th air corps participated in the capture of Vitebsk , repulsed the Soviet counterattack on Lepel and the further attack on Smolensk , in August-September 1941 supported the German attack on Leningrad .

To counter the counterattack near Staraya Russa, the Commander-in-Chief of the German Army Group Sever, Field Marshal V. von Leeb was forced to remove the Dead Head SS division from the Novgorod direction on August 14, 1941, then the 3rd Motorized Division and the control of the 56th Motorized Corps E. von Manstein . The 8th air corps of V. von Richthofen was also involved in repelling the Soviet counterattack. Prior to their approach, only the 8th Luftwaffe Aviation Corps, which included Ju-87 dive bombers, was active in the destruction of the Soviet 34th Army . German aircraft defeated the 34th Army throughout the daylight hours, often in groups of 80-100 aircraft.

On the morning of August 15, the Germans made an attempt to take control of Novgorod on the fly, but it failed. Dive bombers of the VIII air corps fell on Novgorod. ... In the evening, the 21st Infantry Division seeped into the city, and on the morning of August 16, the German flag fluttered over the Novgorod Kremlin . However, the battle for the city did not end there. The regiment of the 21st Infantry Division and the 424th regiment of the 126th Infantry Division remained with the VIII Air Corps to storm the city, and the remaining regiments of the 21st Division and the 11th Infantry Division launched an attack on Chudovo

- ^[1] .

Operation Typhoon

The German command, planning an offensive against the troops of the Western Front in the framework of the operation "Typhoon", suggested delivering strong blows from the areas of Dukhovshchina and Roslavl in the general direction to Vyazma to break through the defense of the Soviet troops, encircle and destroy them in the Vyazma region, then develop an offensive against Moscow ^{[2 ]} . To achieve this goal, the main forces of Army Group Center were involved.

Concentrated in the Dukhovschina region, the 9th Army with the 3rd Panzer Group subordinate to it had the task of reaching the line of Vyazma and Rzhev , covering Vyazma from the north and east.

The 244th division was in the direction of the main attack of the 3rd Goth tank group. [1] On October 2, 1941, at 5.30 a.m., a powerful, 45-minute artillery preparation began on the entire front of the Wehrmacht’s Ninth Army . The tank attack was supported by dive bombers of the 8th Luftwaffe air corps. After artillery and aviation training and under cover of a smoke screen, the enemy launched attacks against troops of the Western Front.

It mainly consisted of formations of diving bombers. ^[3]

The headquarters of the corps was located:

• Oppeln , from July to October 1939;
• Schloss Dick / Grevenboych , from October 1939 to May 1940;
• Duville from July 1940 to January 1941;
• Baden near Vienna , then in Romania from January to February 1941;
• Gorna Dumaya ( Bulgaria ) from February to April 1941;
• Neufaleron ( Athens ) from April to May 1941;
• Craiova ( Romania ) from May to June 1941;
• Ratzi , near Suwalki from June to July 1941;
• Miraculously from July to August 1, 1941;
• Nikolskaya from August to 9.1941;
• Smolensk from October 9 to October 1941;
• Emelyanovo from October to November 1941;
• near Mozhaysk from November to 12.1941;
• Smolensk from 12.1941 to 2.1942, April 1942;
• Demyansk (2 to 4.1942 years;
• Germany from April to May 1942;
• Bakhchisaray from May to 6.1942;
• Kursk from June to July 1942;
• Oblivskaya from July to November 1942;
• Crimean at the Donets (12.1942 to January 1943;
• Ichi-Grammatikovo (1 to 3.1943 years;
• Mikoyanovka (3 to 9.1943;
• White Church (9.1943 to January 1944;
• Vinnitsa (1 to 3.1944 years;
• Lemberg from April to May 1944;
• Lublin from May to July 1944;
• Tarnow from July to August 1944;
• Wittkowice from August to 9.1944;
• Krakow (9 to January 1945;
• Swiss women (1 to 2.1945 years;
• Senftenberg (2 to April 1945 ^[3] .

The corps was part of: from August 1939 - 4th , from October 1939 - 2nd , from May 1940 - 3rd, from August 1940 - 2nd, from January 1941 - 4th , from June 1941 - 2nd, from July 1941 - 1st, ^[3]

Corps commanders

• Aviation General Richthofen, Wolfram von , July 19, 1939 - June 30, 1942

• Zalessky K.A. Luftwaffe. Air Force Third Reich. - M .: Eksmo , 2005 .-- 736 p. - 5,000 copies. - ISBN 5-699-13768-8 .
• Georg Tessin. Band 2: Die Landstreitkräfte. Nr. 1-5 // Verbände und Truppen der Deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen SS im Zweiten Weltkrieg 1939-1945. - 2. - Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1973. - Bd. 2 .-- 342 S. - ISBN 3-764-80871-3 .

• I. Fliegerkorps . The Luftwaffe, 1933-45. Archived on May 16, 2012.