Corps Detachment) was a division-size infantry formation established by the German Wehrmacht during World War II.
During summer and autumn 1943, Wehrmacht suffered heavy losses in men and materiel at the hands of the Red Army on the Eastern Front.
Simultaneously, it had to build up military strength in France prior to the expected invasion and to reinforce the Italian theatre, where the Allies had crossed the Strait of Messina and landed on the Italian mainland at Salerno and Termoli in September 1943.
[1] In order to preserve the cadres and lineage of the divisions that had suffered heavy losses, to economise on supply and support effort, and probably to give an image of greater strength than really existed, the OKH decided to form Korpsabteilungen on the establishment of infantry divisions, i.e. containing three infantry regiments with two battalions each, an artillery regiment, and divisional troops (reconnaissance, anti-tank, pioneer, medical, and supply battalions).
When it became clear in autumn 1944 that the individual divisions out of which the Korpsabteilungen were built would never be rebuilt due to a lack of manpower, the Korpsabteilungen were renamed as Infanteriedivisionen, and most of them were given the numerical designation of the division that provided the command staff at the time of the formation of the Korpsabteilung.