88th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

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88th Infantry Division

active December 1, 1939 to winter 1944/45
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Type Infantry Division
Installation site Grafenwoehr Training Area

The 88th Infantry Division (88th ID) was a major unit of the army of the German Wehrmacht during World War II .

Division history

The division was set up on December 1, 1939 in Military District XIII (Nuremberg) and armed with Czechoslovak booty weapons . At first it was subordinate to the 9th Army and from 1941 to the 7th Army . She was deployed on the Western Front. On December 23, 1941, she received reinforcements from the 205th Infantry Division .

In 1942 she came to the Eastern Front as part of the 2nd Army . The division took part in the battle of Kharkov . In the winter of 1942/43 it was used in the Battle of Voronezh . In the spring of 1943 she was withdrawn to Sumy , where she supported the Citadel company as part of the 4th Panzer Army . Then she was subordinated to the 8th Army and got into the Battle of the Dnepr .

88th Infantry Division as the northernmost unit in the Cherkassy pocket

As a result, she was pushed into the Cherkassy pocket by the 1st Ukrainian Front in early 1944 . In the winter of 1944/45 it was smashed with Army Group A during the Vistula-Oder operation .

Commanders

date Rank Surname
0December 1, 1939 Major general Georg Lang
0February 2, 1940 General of the Infantry Friedrich Gollwitzer
March 10, 1943 Lieutenant General Heinrich Roth
0November 5, 1943 Lieutenant General Georg von Rittberg
0January 8, 1945 Major general Carl Anders

Well-known members of the division

literature

  • Andreas Schwarz (Ed.): Voronesh-Donstellung 1942/1943 . Traditionsverband 88. u. 323rd Infantry Division eV, Bayreuth, Bad Windsheim, Ansbach 1976.