In July 1942 during Case Blue, the German summer offensive in Southern Russia, he was appointed commander of Army Group A, responsible for the main thrust towards the Caucasus and Baku.

List spent four years at the front as commander of an infantry regiment, where he had as one of his subordinates then Corporal Adolf Hitler.

Called to the Defense Ministry in 1926, he was made director of military education, later commander of Dresden Infantry School.

He didn't fulfill this mission, although he met advance elements of the German XIX Panzer Corps under General Heinz Guderian a short distance south of Brest-Litovsk, on 17 September 1939.

During the huge German offensive against France and the Low Countries May to June 1940, the 14th army remained in Poland, but this was not the case with its commander.

In the Balkans List became implicated in the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians by having ordered hostage-taking and reprisal killings.

German forces made good progress for two months, taking Maikop and almost to Grozny, about 650 km (400 mi) from Rostov.

Matters were made worse for the Germans by the removal in mid-August of most Luftwaffe combat units to the north to support the 6th Army’s drive on Stalingrad.

[6][better source needed] List explained to Jodl that he didn't have enough forces to break through the Soviet lines to capture Grozny.

List also believed that it was still possible to capture Grozny if all the other attacks were suspended and his army group was given priority in supplies and reinforcements.