212th Infantry Division (Germany)

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

The German 212th Infantry Division was raised in August 1939 and remainded on garrison duty in Germany until March 1941, when it spent three months as a coastal defense unit along the English Channel. In November 1941 it was transferred to the Eastern Front where it joined Army Group North near Leningrad and along the Volkhov Front. It continued with Army Group North until the summer of 1944, when it had been pushed back to Lithuania and was transferred to the control of Army Group Center. The division was destroyed there in August or September, and the survivors were immediately reconstituted as the 578th Volksgrenadier Division, which was renamed as 212th Volksgrenadier Division almost as soon as it had been formed. The division retained a number of experienced officers and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs, sergeants). The replacements received were mostly from Bavaria and were rated as above-average. Rebuilt to full personnel strength the division had weaknesses shared by almost all Volksgrenadier divisions: not enough communications equipment and a lack of assault guns. On 16 December 1944, the start of the Battle of the Bulge, the division only had 4 assault guns out of an authorized strength of 28. The reconstituted division transferred to the western front in December 1944. The division was assigned to the LXXX Corps of the German Seventh Army which formed the southern shoulder of the German armies attacking in the Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge. General der Panzertruppe Erich Brandenberger, the German Seventh Army commander, rated the 212th Volksgrenadier Division as his best division. Because of this it was assigned the mission of protecting the southern flank of the Seventh Army. In this battle the 212th Volksgrenadier Division attacked elements of the US Army's 4th Infantry Division. The division achieved some success but not nearly what was required for it to succeed in seizing its assigned objectives. After the conclusion of the Battle of the Bulge the 212th Volksgrendier Division participated in subsequent defensive operations along the Rhine, surrendering to the Americans near the end of the war.