A variety of units were subordinated to the division during its existence, including battalions of Russian troops and from February 1944 Grenadier Regiment 638, consisting of French volunteers, the LVF.

During this period the division was assigned to Fourth Army, where it carried out occupation, economic exploitation and security duties in rear areas.

It was involved in punitive operations against the local populace: these actions were carried out with extreme brutality (in total, Belarus lost up to a quarter of its population during the German occupation).

A defendant at the post-war Minsk Trial, Paul Eick, stated that he had set out to create and then liquidate a ghetto in the town of Orsha under the division's command.

Its remnants were reorganised late that year at Memel as the 286th Infantry Division, assigned to the Third Panzer Army; it was again destroyed at Neukuhren during the battles in Samland towards the end of the war.