326th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)
326th Infantry Division |
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active | November 9, 1942 to April 1945 |
Country | German Empire |
Armed forces | Wehrmacht |
Armed forces | army |
Type | Infantry division |
structure | See outline |
Nickname | "Kriemhilde" division |
Second World War |
Falaise cauldron |
Commanders | |
list of | Commanders |
insignia | |
Identification symbol | Sword arm |
The 326th Infantry Division was a major military unit of the Wehrmacht in the German Reich .
history
The 326th Infantry Division was set up on November 9, 1942 from the military districts VI, XII and V as a security division and subordinated to Army Group D in France as an occupation force . On May 5, 1943, the division was reclassified into a down-to-earth one. The division took part in the occupation of southern France in 1943 and was initially stationed in Narbonne.
The division, which was almost fully filled in May, remained stationed in the Pas-de-Calais as an army reserve until mid-July 1944 , despite the Allied landing in Normandy , but partly moved across the Seine on July 22, 1944 to a pick-up line for the to form evasive remnants of the 2nd Panzer Division . In the course of further fighting in the Caumont area, the division must have suffered heavy losses and was destroyed in the Falaise pocket.
The division was re-established as the 326th Volksgrenadier Division on September 4, 1944 in Galanta / Hungary by renaming the 579th Volksgrenadier Division , a new organization of the 32nd wave. The division was relocated to the west on November 21, 1944 and took part in the Battle of the Bulge . From December 1944 there were retreat battles in the Eifel ( St. Vith , Prüm , Gerolstein ) and by April 1945 the division withdrew across the Rhine to Westphalia. There the division, which was divided into two combat groups, was taken prisoner in the Ruhr basin and in the Harz Mountains .
structure
1942 | 1944 |
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Storage and operational areas
date | corps | army | Army Group | Operational area |
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December 1942 | LXXXIII | Felber | D. | Narbonne |
August 1943 | IV. Lw | |||
February 1944 | z. b. V. | 15th Army | Northern France | |
August 1944 | II. Fs | 7th Army | Normandy | |
September 1944 | listed as VGD. 326 | Hungary | ||
December 1944 | z. b. V. | 7th Army | B. | Eifel |
January 1945 | LXXIV | 15th Army | Ardennes | |
February 1945 | XIII | 7th Army | Eifel | |
March 1945 | LIII | |||
April 1945 | IX | 11th Army | west | resin |
Commanders
date | Rank | Surname |
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November 11, 1942 | Lieutenant General | Max Dennerlein |
May 8, 1943 | Lieutenant General | Karl Bottcher |
June 1, 1943 | Lieutenant General | Viktor von Drabich-Wächter |
August 2, 1944 | Colonel | Kretsch |
August 15, 1944 | Colonel | Erwin Kaschner (previous) |
December 23, 1944 | Major general | Erwin Kaschner |
literature
- Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945. Volume 9. The Land Forces 281-370 . Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1974, ISBN 3-7648-1174-9 .
- German Red Cross: Tracing Service. Divisional fates. Volume 2. German Red Cross, Munich 1960.
Web links
- 200th through 370th German Infantry, Security, and Panzer Grenadier Divisions. Organizations and Histories 1939-1945 ( Memento from February 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 461 kB), Nafziger Collection, Combined Armed Research Library.