German Infantry Division

The German infantry division of World War II consisted of approximately 16,000 men. They were organized in 3 infantry regiments, each one of them with an intelligence platoon; 1 Infantry Gun Company, armed with six light 75mm and two heavy 150mm guns; 3 Panzerjäger Companies, armed with twelve 36mm, four 50mm, and one 75mm anti-tank guns, as well as with 12 light machine guns; 1 Heavy Battalion equipped with mortars and machine guns; 1 Artillery Regiment; 1 Engineer Battalion, whose weapons included flamethrowers; 1 Intelligence Unit with a telephone company and a radio company; 1 Medical Services Unit with two medical companies.

The Panzerjäger Company of the German Infantry Division was a motorized units composed of 3 battalions each with 3 rifle companies. The Division had a divisional staff with motorcycle courier platoon, and a map office. The smallest unit of the German Infantry Division was the rifle squad (Schützengruppe), which consisted of the squad leader and nine riflemen, and thus had a strength of 1 officer and 9 men; during the course of the war, this strength naturally dropped, often to six or five men.

The number of men and structure of the German Infantry Division varied during the course of the war. During WW2, to identify each one of the infantry divisions that constituted the German Army’s battle line, they were numbered serially from 1 to 719. Nevertheless, that neat arrangement was altered when a number of divisions, which were given names instead numbers, were attached, filling in the gaps left deliberately in sequence of number.

Below, the German infantry division in the Soviet Union in the Summer of 1941.

The WW2 German infantry division soldiers in 1940, during the Battle of France.