In the battles northwest of Iași in April and May the 202nd suffered heavy casualties but was again rebuilt to take part in the August offensive that knocked Romania out of the Axis.

When the German invasion began the division had almost all of its authorized artillery and heavy weapons and about 200 T-26 tanks of various models,[2] including one company in the 281st Reconnaissance Battalion.

Most notably the 202nd and 163rd Motorized, which were now in 34th Army, joined the 25th Cavalry Division in a lunge that pushed 40 km westward through the German defensive cordon and reached the Staraya Russa–Dno rail line early on August 14.

The situation was restored by August 22 through the intervention of the LVI Panzer Corps and three days later the 34th and 11th Armies had been driven back to the line of the Lovat River.

Beginning on January 10 the 254th infiltrated the positions of the 290th with ski troops through frozen marshes and cut the supplies of three company-sized strongpoints which were gradually eliminated by the rest of Berzarin's forces.

It had been reinforced with two mortar battalions which were better able to provide support fire in this heavily forested, swampy and largely roadless terrain than conventional artillery.

[16] At the beginning of February the 290th Infantry was still holding east of the Pola River but II Corps and several other German units were vulnerable to encirclement at Demyansk.

The STAVKA ordered that Northwestern Front should crush the pocketed force within four or five days; meanwhile reinforcements were arriving from Germany and the airlifting of supplies was well underway.

The so-called "Ramushevo corridor" was less than 4 km wide and often under Soviet artillery fire so II Corps was still heavily dependent on air supply.

The artillery and air support had been effective, and although tanks and infantry were lost in German minefields, the village was soon in Soviet hands, and a further advance to Loznitsy would cut the corridor.

However, 8th Jäger ordered its 38th Regiment to counterattack immediately, and this was remarkably successful, recovering the village and throwing the Red Army forces back in disarray.

On January 31, 1943, the German High Command ordered that the Demyansk salient be evacuated, in the wake of the encirclement and upcoming destruction of 6th Army at Stalingrad.

[36] On September 12 the 202nd was again removed to the Reserve of the Supreme High Command where it joined the 95th Rifle Corps of 70th Army but as of the beginning of November it was still rebuilding as a separate division.

Kiev was liberated by this Army on November 6, after which the Corps was committed and advanced a further 20 km against negligible resistance, with the 202nd reaching a line from Belgorodka to Bobritsa to Zaborye.

38th and 3rd Guards Tank Armies were engaged in bitter fighting all day but lead elements of the 1st SS managed to reach the Zhytomyr-Kiev paved road and turned east.

XXXXVIII Panzer Corps began attacking north of Zhytomyr and made good progress over the next two days against stiffening resistance which brought the advance to a halt by December 10.

It attempted to renew the assault to outflank 60th Army on December 19 but made almost no gains in the next three days, meeting Soviet forces massed for another advance on Zhytomyr.

The troops that participated in the liberation of Korsun-Shevchenkovskii, by order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of 18 January 1944 and a commendation in Moscow, are given a salute of 20 artillery salvoes by 224 guns.

In reaction to the threat of 35th Guards Corps' advance on April 8 German 8th Army had ordered its Panzergrenadier Division Großdeutschland to regroup westward to restore the situation around Târgu Frumos.

At about the same time the lead elements of 33rd Corps were approaching from the north, but these were drawn into the fighting with 24th Panzers as the main body of 2nd Tanks was struggling with mud and poor roads in order to get south to support the infantry.

Early on April 10 Großdeutschland, which had roughly 160 tanks on strength, including 40 Panthers and 40 Tigers, attacked westward along the road from Podu Iloaiei to Târgu Frumos.

Overnight the German division broke into Târgu Frumos against the rear elements of the remainder of 35th Guards Corps, leaving it in disarray as Romanian forces began pushing back from the south.

The three divisions had no choice but to fight their way out of the developing trap; their only saving grace was that most of the motorized infantry of Großdeutschland had fallen behind leaving gaps between the tank groups that the riflemen could escape through overnight.

The division was soon forced to retreat northward in considerable disorder although its right-flank rifle regiment, with the help of the heavy weapon crews of the 54th Fortified Region, managed to hold the strongpoint at Avantul and the adjacent high ground to the northwest.

In the morning the Grenadier Regiment of Großdeutschland renewed the assault on Epureni and by evening had advanced to within 2 km of that village in the face of counterattacks by up to 20 tanks, including several IS-2s.

It had been reinforced with an antitank artillery regiment and, after expanding its frontage overnight on August 17/18 to allow the adjacent 206th Division of 104th Corps to concentrate, had roughly 11 guns or mortars of 76mm or larger calibre per kilometre of its front.

The first echelon had successfully carried out its combat tasks for the day; among these was opening a breach to allow the 6th Tank Army to be committed and begin its exploitation role.

On August 23 the remaining Axis forces were in full retreat and the two Soviet Fronts had begun round-the-clock operations to prevent them from breaking contact.

[67] Due to operating in Transylvania on the right flank of 2nd Ukrainian Front the 27th Army largely missed the battle of Debrecen and the early stages of the Budapest offensive.

[70] Budapest was encircled on December 26 and other Red Army operations in Hungary were suspended while this siege and the several German relief attempts went on until February 13, 1945.