Rendulic was called to the German Army, the Wehrmacht, in 1938, after the annexation of Austria to Germany. He commanded the 14th Infantry Division (23 June – 10 October 1940); the 52nd Infantry Division (1940–1942); and the XXXV Corps (1942–1943), with which he participated in the Battle of Kursk. From 1943 to 1944, Rendulic commanded the 2nd Panzer Army during World War II in Yugoslavia. Early in 1944, the German Chancellor Adolf Hitler ordered Rendulic to devise a plan to capture Yugoslav partisan leader Josip Broz Tito. In the resultant raid on Drvar on 25 May 1944, German paratroopers stormed partisan headquarters in Drvar (western Bosnia) looking for Tito but ultimately failed to capture him, suffering heavy casualties.