Volksgrenadier-Division) was a volksgrenadier division of the German Army during World War II that fought entirely on the Western Front.

Sent to stop the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine in September 1944, it was nearly encircled and destroyed twice in northeastern France: first at Nancy and then at the Saverne Gap.

After being rebuilt, in January 1945 it participated in Operation Nordwind, the southern counterpart of the German offensive that became known as the Battle of the Bulge.

After the operation was called off in late January, the 553rd was withdrawn from the front and remained in the Army Group G reserve until the German surrender in May 1945.

[3] The volksgrenadier formations were put together with young and old conscripts, security troops, former personnel of the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine,[1] and, in some cases, they were combined with surviving members of infantry divisions that had been destroyed.

[4] As of early September, when George Patton's U.S. Third Army was preparing to invade Saarland from northeastern France, the 553rd arrived in Saarbrücken as one of the divisions sent to help stop the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine.

[7] In mid-September Patton's Third Army began its advance, and the 553rd Grenadier was ordered by German commanders to hold the Moselle river bridgeheads near the city and Nancy itself at all costs.

[4][11] The 553rd was ordered to go on the offensive despite its weakened state after the Battle of Nancy,[13] and it recorded as having lost 319 killed, 1,052 wounded, and 2,125 missing during September 1944.

By 20 November the German defenses outside the Saverne Gap began disintegrating, but during the night and amidst bad weather, Major General Bruhn led about 2,000 troops out of the encirclement, allowing the remnants of the division to escape.

As French forces overran the 553rd Division's last defensive line outside of the mountain pass, Bruhn himself was captured on 22 November 1944, and the Saverne Gap fell under Allied control in the next several days.

[23] The remains of the 553rd took defensive positions on the other side of the Vosges, near Sarre-Union, with the 361st and the Panzer Lehr Division,[24] before being sent to Stuttgart to rebuild.