15th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

Infanterie-Division) was an infantry division of the German Army during the interwar period and World War II, active from 1934 to 1945.

Mobilized on 25 August 1939, the division took part in the Invasion of Poland in the same year and the Battle of France in 1940.

The division was one of the units taking part in the Second Battle of Kharkov from February till March 1943.

The division was formed on 2 October 1934 in Würzburg under the cover designation of Artillerieführer V to conceal the expansion of the German Army.

In early 1940 the division moved forward to Trier before advancing into Luxembourg when the Battle of France began on 10 May.

The 15th went on to fight in the Battle of Smolensk during August as part of the XXXXVI Army Corps of the 2nd Panzer Group.

Back with XXX Army Corps from April, the division fought in Romania and was destroyed in the Second Jassy–Kishinev Offensive in August 1944.

Assigned to the Hungarian II Corps of 8th Army, the division fought in north Hungary for the rest of the year.

It retreated into Moravia in May, now with XXIV Army Corps, and surrendered to Soviet troops at Brod at the end of the war.

A Marder I tank destroyer of the division in southern France, 1942