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List of German divisions in WWII

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This is a list of German divisions in WWII. Only ground units are covered; "divisions" of aircraft are not.

Upgrades and reorganizations are shown only to identify the variant names for what is notionally a single unit; other upgrades and reorganizations are deferred to the individual articles. Due to the scope of this list pre-war changes are not shown, nor are upgrades from units smaller than a division.

Contents

Name elements not usually translated

Grenadier
A traditional term for heavy infantry.
Jäger
A traditional term for light infantry (literally "hunter").
Lehr
A demonstration unit (literally "learning-" or "teaching-").
Nummer
"Number". (See description in Infantry Series Divisions, below.)
Panzer
Armored (literally "armor").
Sturm
"Storm" or "Assault".
Volks
"of the People".
zbV
Abbreviation for "Special Purpose" ("zur besonderen Verwendung").
Volks, Sturm, and Grenadier were sometimes used simply as morale-building epithets, often without any significance to a unit's organization or capabilities.

Panzer Divisions

Numbered Panzer Divisions

Named Panzer Divisions

Light Divisions

The designation "Light" (leichte) had various meanings in the German Army of World War II. There was a series of 5 Light divisions; the first four were pre-war mechanized formations organized for use as mechanized cavalry, and the fifth was an ad hoc collection of mechanized elements rushed to Africa to bail the Italians out and organized into a division once there. All five were eventually converted to ordinary Panzer divisions.

Various other divisions were dubbed "Light" for other reasons, and are listed among the Infantry Series Divisions.

Infantry Series Divisions

Types of division in the series

German infantry divisions had a variety of designations and specializations, though numbered in a single series. The major variations are as follows:

Fortress (Festung)
Divisions of non-standard organization used to garrison critical sites. The smaller ones might consist of only two or three battalions.
Grenadier
A morale-building honorific usually indicative of reduced strength when used alone.
Light, Jäger
Provided with partial horse or motor transport and usually lighter artillery, and reduced in size compared to an ordinary infantry division. Some of these were essentially identical to mountain divisions, and were sometimes referred to as Gebirgsjäger ("Mountain Light Infantry") divisions.
Motorized
Provided with full motor transport for all infantry and weapons systems. Usually reduced in size compared to an ordinary infantry division.
Division Nummer
A sort of placeholder division, with a number (Nummer) and staff but few if any combat assets. These divisions started out without any type in their name (e.g., Division Nr. 179), though some acquired a type later on (e.g, Panzer Division Nr. 179).
Panzergrenadier
As motorized, but with more self-propelled weapons and an added battalion of tanks or fully armored assault guns.
Static (bodenständige)
Deficient in transport, even enough to move its own artillery. Many of these were divisions that had been mauled on the Russian Front and were sent west to serve as coastal defense garrisons until sufficient resources were available to rehabilitate them.
Volksgrenadier
A late-war reorganization with reduced size and increased short-range firepower. Many previously destroyed or badly mauled infantry divisions were reconstituted as Volksgrenadier divisions, and new ones were raised as well. Its fighting capability was equivalent to a US-style National Guard formation.
zbV
An ad hoc division created to meet a special requirement. (E.g., Division zbV Afrika)
Most of the size reductions listed above were by about a third, either by the removal of an infantry regiment or the removal of one infantry battalion from each of the three regiments.

Infantry divisions were raised in waves, sets of divisions with a standardized table of organization and equipment. In general the later waves (i.e., the higher-numbered divisions) were of lower quality than the earlier ones.

Numbered Divisions

Named Divisions

Mountain Divisions

Ski Division

Cavalry Divisions

According to Davies, the Cavalry divisions were mounted infantry and the Cossack divisions were "true cavalry", modelled on the Russian cavalry divisions.

Landwehr Divisions

Artillery Divisions

Named Fortress divisions

Named Training Divisions

Field Replacement Divisions

Naval Infantry Divisions

Hermann Göring Divisions

The Hermann Göring formations grew from a single police detachment to an entire armored corps over the course of the war. The later epithet Fallschirm ("parachute") was purely honorific.

Airborne Divisions

In order to keep its existence secret, the first German airborne division was named as if a Flieger ("flier") division in the series of Luftwaffe divisions that controlled air assets rather than ground troops:

The division was later reorganized to start a series of nominally airborne divisions. Though named Fallschirmjäger ("paratrooper") divisions, most were not actually trained for airdrops, and in practice all operated as ordinary motorized infantry throughout their existence. The lower-numbered ones maintaned an élite status, but quality generally declined among the higher-numbered ones.

These were ordinary infantry divisions organized from Luftwaffe personnel made available after mid-war due to the manpower crunch. They were originally Luftwaffe units but were later handed over to the Heer, retaining their numbering but with Luftwaffe attached to distinguish them from similarly numbered divisions already existing in the Heer.

  • 1st Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 2nd Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 3rd Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 4th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 5th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 6th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 7th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 8th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 9th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 10th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 11th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 12th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 13th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 14th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 15th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 16th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • * Eventually transferred to the Heer as 16th Luftwaffe Infantry Division (later 16th Volksgrenadier Division)
  • 17th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 18th Luftwaffe Field Division
  • 19th Luftwaffe Field Division (later 19th Luftwaffe Sturm Division)
  • * Eventually transferred to the Heer as 19th Grenadier Division (later 19th Volksgrenadier Division)
  • 20th Luftwaffe Field Division (later 20th Luftwaffe Sturm Division)
  • 21st Luftwaffe Field Division (previously the Meindl Division, an ad hoc collection of Luftwaffe resources)
  • 22nd Luftwaffe Field Division Not actually formed, its subumits were attached to other divisions as needed.

Training Divisions

Anti-Aircraft Divisions

These were headquarters for controlling aggregates of FLAK ("anti-aircraft artillery") assets rather than ordinary combined arms divisions organized for ground combat.

Waffen-SS

All divisions in the Waffen-SS were ordered in a single series, regardless of type. Those tagged with nationalities were at least nominally recruited from those nationalities. Many of the higher-numbered units were small battlegroups (Kampfgruppen), i.e. divisions in name only.

Waffen SS formations from "Aryan" nations were called SS-Divisions whereas volunteer formations from "non-Aryan" nations were given the title Division der SS.

Also Panzer Division Kempf, a temporary unit of mixed Heer and Waffen-SS components.

See also

References

External links

 

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