List of German divisions in World War II
This article lists divisions of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS active during World War II, including divisions of the Heer, Luftwaffe, and the Kriegsmarine.
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. Most of these divisions trained in Berlin, which is also where new military technology was kept and tested.
German unit designations
These designations are normally not translated and used in the German form in the unit name or description.Army (Heer)
Panzer divisions
Light mechanized divisions
The designation "Light" had various meanings in the German Army of World War II. There were 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 help the Italians 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
The backbone of the Heer was the infantry division. Of the 154 divisions deployed against the Soviet Union in 1941, including reserves, there were 100 infantry, 19 panzer, 11 motorized, 9 security, 5 Waffen-SS, 4 "light", 4 mountain, 1 SS-police, and 1 cavalry. A typical infantry division in June 1941 had 17,734 men organized into the following sub-units:- three infantry regiments with staff and communications units
- *three battalions with:
- **three infantry companies
- **one heavy weapons company
- *one anti-tank company
- *one artillery company
- *one reconnaissance unit
- one tank destroyer battalion with:
- *three companies
- one artillery regiment
- *three battalions
- **three batteries
- one pioneer battalion
- one communications unit
- one field replacement battalion
- Supply, medical, veterinary, mail, and police
Numbered divisions
Divisions are listed by number and reflect their lineage where names or designations were changed over time.1st to 99th
100th to 199th
201st to 299th
300th to 999th
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.RAD divisions
In 1945 the Reichsarbeitsdienst transferred personnel to the army to form new divisions as part of the 35th Aufstellungswelle, the last of the war.Air Force (Luftwaffe)
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 was purely honorific.Airborne divisions
To keep its existence secret, the first German airborne division was named as if a Flieger division in the series of Luftwaffe divisions that controlled air assets rather than ground troops-named 7th Flieger Division The division was later reorganized to start a series of nominally airborne divisions. Though named Fallschirmjäger divisions, only some of them participated in airdrops in the early part of the war. Whilst the first five divisions received full paratrooper training, the remaining divisions did not and in practice operated as ordinary infantry throughout their existence. The lower-numbered ones earned and maintained an elite status, but quality generally declined among the higher-numbered divisions.Field divisions
Luftwaffe Field Divisions were ordinary infantry divisions organized from Luftwaffe personnel made available after mid-war due to problems with manpower. 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.Anti-Aircraft divisions
These were headquarters for controlling aggregates of flak assets rather than ordinary combined arms divisions organized for ground combat.Waffen-SS (Schutzstaffel)
All divisions in the Waffen-SS were ordered in a single series up to 38th, regardless of type. Those tagged with nationalities were at least nominally recruited from those nationalities. Many of the higher-numbered units were small battle groups, i.e. divisions in name only.Also Panzer Division Kempf, a temporary unit of mixed Heer and Waffen-SS components.