212th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

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212th Infantry Division
212th Volksgrenadier Division
578th Volksgrenadier Division

212th Infantry Division Logo 1.svg
active August 26, 1939 to September 15, 1944
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Type Infantry division
structure structure
Installation site Munich
Second World War Leningrad Blockade , Battle of the Volkhov , Leningrad-Novgorod Operation
Commanders
list of Commanders

The 212th Infantry Division and later the 578th Volksgrenadier Division or 212th Volksgrenadier Division was a major unit of the army of the German Wehrmacht .

Division history

Areas of application:

The 212th Infantry Division was deployed as a division of the 3rd wave of deployment in Munich in August 1939. Immediately afterwards it was transferred to Sigmaringen and then to Freudenstadt on the Upper Rhine and placed under the 7th Army . At the beginning of the western campaign , the division was ready for action at the Heuberg military training area . During the battle for France , the 212th Infantry Division fought in association with the 16th Army near Nancy .

From July 1940 to February 1941 the division was inactive. In February 1941 the soldiers of the 212th Infantry Division were called up again and had to do coastal protection on the Channel coast until November 1941 .

In the winter of 1941, the 212th Infantry Division was sent to Army Group North on the eastern front to take part in the siege of Leningrad . Their assigned operational area was initially the eastern flank of the Oranienbaum bridgehead near the city of Peterhof . At the beginning of 1942 she was involved in the Battle of the Volkhov before she returned to the Oranienbaumer Kessel, where she was used in the attack on the Krasnaya Gorka Fort. Later that year she also fought in the Leningrad enclosure ring before the fighting shifted to Novgorod in January 1943 and to Chudovo in the winter of 1943/44 . There the 212 ID had such major failures that in February 1944 it was only as strong as a combat group. When the pressure of the Red Army increased to finally liberate Leningrad, the 212th Infantry Division crossed the Luga River to Pleskau on the border with Estonia . From there she had to withdraw to the Narva via Lissino and Korpus. The 212th Infantry Division was captured by the advancing Red Army in the course of the Operation Bagration offensive near Lepel after it had been relocated to the area of ​​Army Group Center as reinforcement at the end of June 1944. She had to flee via Vilna to Olita , where she was destroyed. The official dissolution took place on September 15, 1944. On September 17, 1944, the survivors of the division were transferred to the 212th Volksgrenadier Division, which was set up at the Schieratz military training area in the Warthegau .

Division history of the 578th and 212th Volksgrenadier Division

In September the 578th Volksgrenadier Division was set up at the Schieratz military training area from the remains of the 212th Infantry Division, which was renamed the 212th Volksgrenadier Division a short time later. This division received most of its personnel from Bavaria . Like many Volksgrenadier divisions, the 212th VD had hardly any radio equipment or assault guns . On December 16, 1944, the 212th VD together with the LXXX. Army Corps of the 7th Army deployed in the Battle of the Bulge on the Western Front. In April 1945, the division was still subordinate to the Bavaria training division .

The commander of the 7th Army, General of the Panzer Force, Erich Brandenberger, classified the 212th VD as one of its best formations and ordered it to secure the southern flank of the operational area. In the course of the battle, known by Anglo-Saxon historians as the "Battle of the Bulge", the 212th VD encountered the 4th US Infantry Division . The 212th VD recorded some initial successes, could ultimately not achieve its operational goals, withdrew to the Rhine and capitulated to the US troops at the end of the war.

people

Division commanders of the 212th ID:
period of service Rank Surname
August 26 to September 15, 1939 Major general Walter Friedrichs
September 15, 1939 to October 1, 1942 Lieutenant General Theodor Endres
October 1, 1942 to October 1, 1943 Lieutenant General Hellmuth Reymann
October 1, 1943 to May 1, 1944 Major general Karl Koske
May 1 to October 1944 Lieutenant General Franz Sensfuss
General staff officers (Ia) of ID 212:
period of service Rank Surname
1939 to April 1940 Lieutenant colonel Heinz von Gyldenfeldt
1940 Captain Hoefs
1941 to September 1941 Captain Reichel
1942 to March 1943 major Hermann Lassen
March 1943 to September 1944 Lieutenant colonel Horst Ogilvie
September 1944 major Adolf Wicht
Division commanders of the 212th Volksgrenadier Division:
period of service Rank Surname
October 1944 to April 1, 1945 Lieutenant General Franz Sensfuss
1. – 21. April 1945 Major general Max Ulich
April 21 to May 8, 1945 Major general Jobst Freiherr von Buddenbrock
General staff officers (Ia) of the 212th Volksgrenadier Division
period of service Rank Surname
September 20 to December 30, 1944 major Wolfgang Köstlin
December 30, 1944 to 1945 Lieutenant colonel Hans Ritter and Edler von Rosenthal

structure

Changes in the structure of the 212th ID from 1939 to 1943

1939 1943
316th Infantry Regiment 316th Grenadier Regiment
320th Infantry Regiment Grenadier Regiment 320
423rd Infantry Regiment Grenadier Regiment 423
Artillery Regiment 212
Engineer Battalion 212
Anti-tank department 212 Panzerjäger detachment 212
Reconnaissance Division 212 Division Fusilier Battalion 212
- Field Replacement Battalion 212
News Department 212
Supply Force 212

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 .
  • Werner Haupt : The German Infantry Divisions 1921–1945, 3 volumes, Dörfler Verlag 2005, ISBN 978-3-89555-274-8 .
  • Egid Gehring: From the Saar to the Moselle. March, fight and victory of an infantry division in the west. A memory book (= 212th Infantry Division), Munich 1942.

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ the 212 VD had only four instead of the mandatory 28 assault guns
  2. ↑ I. – III. Btl. By training manager Landsberg am Lech , replacement battalion in Augsburg
  3. ↑ I. – III. Btl. By training manager Rosenheim , replacement battalion in Ingolstadt
  4. ↑ I. – III. Btl. By Head of Training Landshut, replacement battalion in Neuburg