An Allied amphibious raid, to determine if a large landing could be attempted, was made at Dieppe, France on 19 August 1942.

On the water we could see bits of wrecks, ships in ruins, corpses floating and soldiers wrestling with death.

After a few additional months serving as a reserve in France, it was transferred to the Eastern Front in early 1943 to help shore up the line after the German defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad.

In January 1943, the division was sent to the Eastern Front to aid in the Kharkov offensive, where it fought in Luhansk (then known as Voroshilovgrad).

It defended the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia between October and December before withdrawing to the Nikopol bridgehead, where General Rüdiger was wounded-in-action.