The division was created on 26 August 1939 by reorganizing several Border Defense and Army Reserve units from Lower Saxony, primarily in the area surrounding the city of Hannover.

When Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, began on June 22, 1941, the Division was performing occupation duties in France along the English Channel coast.

Following the success of the Soviet winter counteroffensive of December 1941, the Division was rushed to the Eastern Front as reinforcement and was soon split into several smaller battlegroups urgently needed for defending key localities.

There followed over a year of positional warfare in Army Group Center, where the division took part in battles at Rshev, Briansk, Orel, Spass Demensk and Gomel.

Most of the surviving combat troops remained behind in the Soviet Union and were grouped into Divisions-Group 216, formed on 12 November 1943 and assigned to the 102nd Infantry Division.