Its initial personnel was formed using supplementary formations from Wehrkreis VIII:[1] Furthermore, the 252nd Infantry Division was equipped with Artillery Regiment 252.

[1] During the Battle of France, the 252nd Infantry Division remained with Army Group C, which oversaw the static Wehrmacht formations that were to continue to oppose the Maginot Line and to not take part in the war of movement.

After other German formations broke the Allied flank in the north, the 252nd Infantry Division served with some distinction in the attacks against the Maginot defenses.

It subsequently advanced via the Białystok area in July, was pulled into the reserves of Army Group Center until September, then put into the line once more under XXXXVI Corps at Vyazma.

[1] On 1 November 1941, the division stood halfway between Vyazma and Mozhaysk, remaining in the second line behind the German forward positions.

By now, the entire 252nd Infantry Division had been called into the line to assist its superior formation, the IX Army Corps.

[2] White Rose resistance Hans Scholl, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, and Jurgen Wittenstein, served as medics during this time, specifically from June to November 1942.

[2] Starting on 23 June 1944, the Soviet Red Army launched a massive summer offensive, Operation Bagration.

[1] In late 1944, the 252nd Infantry Division participated in the retreat across Lithuania and Poland, and was eventually trapped in Danzig and on the Hel peninsula.

The rest of the division under Oberst i. G. von Unold had been successfully evacuated to the occupied Danish island of Bornholm and were forced to surrender to the Red Army on 8 May 1945.