Country Nazi Germany Type Infantry Engagements World War II | Branch Army Size Division | |
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Active 26 August 1939 – 16 April 1945 | ||
The German 73rd Infantry Division was a German military unit which served during World War II. The division consisted of more than 10,000 soldiers, primarily of the infantry branch, with supporting artillery. The division was not motorized, but instead relied on marching for the infantry units and horse-drawn transport for the support equipment.
The division was designated 73. Infanterie-Division in Germany.
The 73rd Infantry participated in the Invasion of Poland of 1939 as a reserve division of Army Group North.
In 1941, it fought briefly in the Greek Campaign. It was on the Eastern Front, in southern areas, from July 1941 through May 1944. As part of the 11th Army, it participated in the Crimean campaign in late 1941, including the initial assaults near Perekop and the "Tartar Ditch" as well as Sevastopol.
In the spring of 1944 it was cut off by the Soviet forces in the Crimea and destroyed in Sevastopol in May 1944. Reformed soon after in Hungary, it participated in battles around Warsaw in the summer, at the end of July was routed by the Red Army's 2nd Guards Tank Army commanded by Alexei Radzievsky, and in September 1944 was destroyed by Soviet forces during their assault on the Praga suburb of Warsaw. Reformed again, the division was destroyed in the fighting around Danzig in 1945. The surviving divisional staff officers went down with the liner Goya on 17 April 1945.