The division fought in the southern sector of the Eastern Front, taking part in the Battle of Kiev and in the German drive to the Sea of Azov.

Supporting the flank of the German attack on the city the division suffered heavy losses and, reduced to a strength of 4,000 men by mid-November, was scheduled for replacement.

Despite the 16th Panzer Division performing adequately under his command, Rudolf Sieckenius was made a scapegoat for the German defeat at Salerno and removed from his position.

[2][7] The 16th Panzer Division was used in a number of locations in the southern sector after this in an attempt to stabilize the German front lines, frequently being moved between points of crisis.

[2][9] Daleszyce was a center of Polish resistance to the German occupation, mostly carried out by the Home Army, and severely destroyed through shelling by Wehrmacht units in 1944 and eventually burned down.

With the German surrender the division attempted to reach American lines, with some parts succeeding in doing so but mostly being handed back to the Soviet forces.

Winfried Nachtwei, a former member of the German Parliament for the Green party from Münster, carried out some research into the division and its part and responsibility in the Battle of Stalingrad that saw more than 700,000 casualties, the majority Soviet soldiers and civilians.

[12] The original copies of the war diaries of the division from mid-1943 onward were destroyed during a fire in Potsdam in April 1945 while earlier editions had been moved to Liegnitz, now Legnica in Poland.