First formation : Höheres Kommando z.b.V. XXXIV (1939-1941) The Corps was first known as
Höheres Kommando z.b.V. XXXIV (H.Kdo.) and was established on 15 October 1939 in
Küstrin. After the
Invasion of Poland, the H.Kdo was stationed there between December 1939 and June 1941. After the start of
Operation Barbarossa (June 1941), the H.Kdo saw its first action at the beginning of July 1941 in the
Battle of Kiev (1941). As part of the
6th Army, the H.Kdo formed part of the southern flank along the
Dnieper River. After successfully completing this battle, the H.Kdo advanced with the
2nd Panzer Army towards Moscow. The H.Kdo. marched via
Livny towards
Yelets, where the advance was halted. The Soviets launched their
Yelets counter offensive on 6 December 1941. The XXXIV H.Kdo., composed of the
45th and
134th Infantry Divisions, was surrounded and partly destroyed. The survivors retreated towards
Oryol and
Kursk. The front line stabilised on December 17, 1941, but had moved almost 100 km back to the west. The H.Kdo. had lost 12,000 men and was hardly a combat-ready unit any more. On 31 January 1942, the H.Kdo. was disbanded and its survivors added to the newly formed
XXXV Army Corps.
Second formation : XXXIV Corps (1944-1945) On 13 November 1944, the XXXIV Corps was recreated from
Kommandanten Kreta a.k.a.
Korps Müller, which had retreated from Crete. The Corps was stationed around
Vukovar and held the
Syrmian Front between Danube and Sava until mid-April 1945. On 12 April 1945, the
Yugoslav First Partisan Army, broke through the XXXIV Corps' defenses in Syrmia, and captured the cities of
Vukovar,
Vinkovci,
Županja, and finally
Zagreb in the last month of the war. The Corps retreated towards the west and surrendered to the British in May 1945. ==Commanders==