211th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

211th Infantry Division 211th People's Grenadier Division
Troop registration
active	August 1939 to May 8, 1945
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Wehrmacht
Armed forces	army
Type	Infantry division
structure	structure
Installation site	Cologne
Second World War	Western campaign, Eastern Front
Commanders
list of	Commanders

The 211th Infantry Division was a major unit of the army of the German Wehrmacht during World War II .

history

Areas of application :

• Germany: September 1939 to February 1941
• France : February 1941 to January 1942
• Eastern Front , Central Section: January 1942 to December 1944
• withdrawn from the front for realignment: December 1944

The large association was set up as a division of the 3rd wave of formation in August 1939 in Wehrkreis VI (Münster) . After border security tasks at Prüm in the Schnee-Eifel , the division began its war effort in the campaign against France . After the advance via Reims to Auxerre , the division received the order to take over part of the coastal protection in Brittany .

It was only moved to the Eastern Front in February 1942 and was used in the Bryansk area until the summer of 1943. Then there were defensive battles against the advancing Red Army at Dorogobusch , Newel and Vitebsk in Belarus . During the fighting over the Polish fortress of Rozan , the division suffered heavy losses and had to be taken from the front. In December 1944 it was renamed the 211th Volksgrenadier Division . From January 1945 their relatives fought in Hungary and in May 1945 they were taken prisoners by the Soviets and the US in the Budweis area .

Commanders

period of service	Rank	Surname
0September 1, 1939 to February 4, 1942	Lieutenant General	Kurt Renner
0February 4, 1942 to July 16, 1943	Lieutenant General	Richard Muller
July 17 to September 30, 1943	Major general	Johann-Heinrich Eckhardt (in charge of the tour)
0October 1, 1943 to May 8, 1945	Lieutenant General	Johann-Heinrich Eckhardt

General Staff Officers (Ia)

period of service	Rank	Surname
1939 to July 1942	Lieutenant colonel	Michael Rossmann
July 24, 1942 to February 20, 1943	major	Hans-Alexander von Voss
February 20, 1943 to September 10, 1944	Lieutenant colonel	Klaus Müller
September 10 to December 1944	major	Valentin Meyer

Awards

A total of 18 members of the division were awarded the Knight's Cross and 73 with the German Cross in Gold.

structure

• Infantry Regiment 306 "Euskirchen"
• Infantry Regiment 317 "Cologne"
• Infantry Regiment 365 "Bonn"
• Artillery Regiment 211
• Observation Department 10 (mot.)
• Reconnaissance Division 211
• Engineer Battalion 211
• News Section 211
• Resupply Troops 211

literature

• Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945 . Volume 8: The Land Forces 201–280 . 2nd Edition. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1979, ISBN 3-7648-1174-9 .
• Rudolf Grube: Company memory. A chronicle of the route and the deployment of Grenadier Regiment 317 in the 211th Infantry Division. Gieseking publishing house, Bielefeld, 1961.

Web links

• 200th through 370th German Infantry, Security, and Panzer Grenadier Divisions. Organizations and Histories 1939-1945. ( Memento of February 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 461 kB), Nafziger Collection, Combined Armed Research Library.
• www.id211.de Homepage on the history and path of the Rhenish 211th Infantry Division 1939–1945
• Memorial on the cemetery of honor in Leverkusen-Opladen

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rozan Fortress. In: rozan.hg.pl. April 2, 2011, accessed February 7, 2020 .