[1][2] Historian Ben H. Shepherd described the unit as "an extremely substandard division of the fifteenth wave" to be raised by the German Army during the war, with its personnel being "overaged, undertrained and underequipped".

[1][5] In October 1941, personnel of the division conducted public hangings of resistance members in Minsk, including that of 17-year-old Jewish nurse Masha Bruskina.

[6] The 707th Infantry Division and attached Order Police units murdered over 10,000 individuals, most of whom were Jews, in Belorussia between October and November 1941.

[5][7] Almost all of the division's officers and enlisted personnel willingly took part in these killings; the small number who refused were only lightly punished.

[14] On 23 June, at the start of the major Soviet Operation Bagration offensive, it formed part of Army Group Centre's reserve.