However, the 49th Rifle Division was wiped out during the first ten days of Operation Barbarossa.

[1] Its second formation occurred in December 1941 and fought at Stalingrad, Kursk, the Vistula-Oder Offensive and the Battle of Berlin.

In April 1938, it was transferred to recruiting duties in the Leningrad Military District at Staraya Russa.

The division was transported by rail from Byanchaninovo and Chersky stations beginning on 25 October.

After reaching the Latvian border, the division was sent to the Karelian Isthmus at Toksovo and Peri.

The offensive met little success advancing against the main Finnish defensive line and the division suffered heavy losses.

The division's reconnaissance battalion was detached for an outflanking attempt across the ice of Lake Ladoga but was repulsed by Finnish fire on 18 February.

On 19 February, the division pushed all Finnish troops out of their positions in the remaining unoccupied part of Terentitila.

[7] It broke through the Mannerheim Line positions on 20 February but was repulsed by a Finnish counterattack after advancing a kilometer.

In the fall of 1940, most of the Winter War combat veterans were demobilized, reportedly leaving the division manned by inexperienced younger personnel.

On 22 June 1941, the beginning of the German attack on the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, the division was headquartered at the border station near Vysoko .

The division was pushed back by the German XLIII Army Corps and destroyed by the first week of the war.

It fought in Operation Bagration, the Soviet offensive in Belarus, from late June, attacking Minsk and Grodno.

As part of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, the division was ordered to disband on 29 May 1945.