The Corps was attached to Army Group South for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.

III Panzer Corps was formed in June 1942 from III Army Corps and attached to Army Group A, the formation tasked with capturing the Caucasus as a part of Fall Blau.

At the beginning of 1944, the Corps participated in the relief of the forces trapped in the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket.

In March the Corps was encircled in the Kamenets-Podolsky pocket, along with the rest of the 1st Panzer Army.

In late 1944, III Panzerkorps participated in Operation Konrad, the failed attempts to relieve the German and Hungarian garrison at Budapest.