The 304th Infantry Division () was an infantry division of the German Heer during World War II. The 304th Infantry Division was deployed twice, once in November 1940 and once again in February 1945, after the destruction of the previous formation in January of that same year.
History
First deployment
The 304th Infantry Division was formed as a static infantry division on 15 November 1940 as part of the 13th Aufstellungswelle in the area north of Leipzig. Its initial recruits were drawn from a third each of the 56th and 294th Infantry Divisions. The division was initially commanded by Heinrich Krampf.
Initially, the 304th Infantry Division consisted of the following parts:
Infantry Regiment 573 (three battalions), drawn from members of the 56th Infantry Division. Infantry Regiment 574 (three battalions), drawn from members of the 294th Infantry Division. Infantry Regiment 575 (three battalions), drawn from members of both the 56th and the 294th Infantry Divisions. Artillery Regiment 304 (three detachments), drawn from members of the 56th, 294th, and 162nd Infantry Divisions. Division Units 304
The Artillery Regiment initially consisted of three detachments rather than the usual four, and those three detachment were understaffed in terms of batteries, only receiving the third battery of each detachment as late as 19 July 1942. On that same day, the three infantry regiments received their respective fourteenth companies. The thirteenth companies were only added in December 1942.
In May 1941, the 304th Infantry Division was transferred to Belgium for occupation duties.
The division was restructured from a static division to an attack division on 21 October 1942. It was transferred to the Eastern Front in December 1942. There, it fought against Red Army formations in the southern Don river area in the winter of 1942/1943. The division's first action was in the Donets sector, where it performed poorly. Starting on 16 November 1942, Ernst Sieler took command of the division, beginning his first of four tenures as division commander of the 304th Infantry Division. Said tenure ended on 1 February 1943, when he was briefly replaced by Alfred Philippi, but Sieler once again took the post on 1 March 1943 to begin his second tenure.
On 20 February 1943, during the military reorganizations in the immediate aftermath of the German defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad, Infantry Regiment 574 was dissolved. Another regiment carrying the same ordinal number, the Grenadier Regiment 574, was reassembled on 4 May 1943, using forces from Security Regiment 610, then part of the 403rd Security Division.
The retreat of Army Group Don from Stalingrad caused significant disarray in the sector at large and in the 304th Infantry Division in particular.
The 304th Infantry Division was refreshed with new reinforcements in April 1943. The second and third battalions of Infantry Regiment 375, then attached to the 454th Security Division, became the new third battalion of Infantry Regiment 575 and the new third battalion of Infantry Regiment 573, respectively. These two new battalions were short-lived; they were deleted from the registry of the German military postal service in December 1943.
Between March and September 1943, the 304th Infantry Division defended a sector of the Mius river. The division suffered heavy losses at Taganrog, and withdrew under significant Soviet pressure to the Dnieper bend. On 30 August 1943, Sieler was replaced as divisional commander by Norbert Holm, but once again returned to the post for a third tenure starting in October 1943.
After Army Group North Ukraine was redeployed to the Generalgouvernement, the 304th Infantry Division was strengthened by the third battalion of Grenadier Regiment 685, previously part of the 336th ("Crimean") Infantry Division. The attached artillery regiment, Artillery Regiment 304, was supplied with parts of the first battery of Artillery Regiment 214 and of Reserve Artillery Detachment 14, the latter having previously been part of the 174th Reserve Division. as well as four additional artillery batteries.
On 1 January 1945, the division, then under command of the 4th Panzer Army of Army Group A, had a strength of 10,667 men.