[10] At the beginning of June 1940, in the Bois d'Inor forest, also known as the “Green Hell” (Grüne Hölle), numerous counter-attacks by Moroccan Tirailleurs and Foreign Legionnaires had to be fought off before the division could move east of the Meuse into the Verdun area.

[18] For almost the entire month of July 1941, the division managed a lengthy period of marching through Ukraine within the framework of the army reserve (Armeereserve), which was made difficult by bad weather and unfavorable terrain.

The attack was delayed by a line of bunkers along the river Weta, which were penetrated in stubborn fighting in early August 1941 and the XXIX Army Corps opened access to Kiev.

They drove the 23rd Tank Corps under Major General A. F. Popov and the 399th Rifle Division under Colonel Nikolai Grigoryevich Travnikov to the east towards Konnaia station.

Infantry Regiments 211 and 194 broke through the defensive lines of the Soviet 112th RD, while on the right wing IR 191 overran the trenches of the 196th RD under Colonel Polikarpov and captured Talowoi and the Opytnaia and Eschowka stations.

On September 4, 1942, Major General Anton Lopatin ordered a counterattack to prevent the 71st Infantry Division from gaining a foothold on the eastern bank of the Tsaritza.

[30] The battle for the Stalingrad suburbs reached its climax on September 12 and took place mainly around the 1.5 to 3 km wide hilly terrain in the west and north of the city between Gorodishche, Alexandrowka, the Razgulaewka station and the hospital.

Due to the concentric waves of attack on the city center, the wedges of the 71st Infantry Division were greatly thinned out and thus predestined targets for Soviet snipers.

[38] On September 13, 1942, the 71st Infantry Division advanced with massive air support from dive bombers in the direction of the main station and the next day they reached the city center of Stalingrad north of the Tsaritza.

The struggle for the inner city developed into a merciless and extremely confusing battle, which was fought with great fanaticism on both sides around the main station, the government and party buildings and the Red Square with mutual successes.

[39] In the afternoon, a series of Soviet counter-attacks with the support of 3 Katyusha rocket launcher regiments south of the Razgulyaevka station as far as the Tsaritza were supposed to defuse the situation, as 295.

Chuikov reported:"Individual groups of submachine gunners moved east in the Balkas around Hill 112.5, infiltrated the city center from 2 p.m. and stood in front of the main station at 4 p.m."The rapid advance of the 71.

The 13th Guards Rifle Division, which arrived on the night of 14 to 15 September 1942, prevented the complete conquest of the city center by reclaiming the streets and buildings (railway depot, state bank) east of the main station and intervening in the battle on the Mamayev Kurgan.

The fighting reached its point of culmination on September 16, 1942, in the area around Red Square between IR 194 and 2nd Btl./34th GRR and 2nd Btl./42nd GRR, in particular about the ownership of the massive buildings (Univermag department store, Gorki Theater, party building) that flanked the square as well as the main train station and Kommunisticheskaia Street:“And farther south, the main forces of 71st Division’s 194th Regiment, with the bulk of the division's 211th Regiment on its right, engaged in a swirling and confused street-to-street and building-to-building fight with the bataillons of 13th Guards Rifle Division's 34th and 42nd Regiments in a 3.5-kilometer-wide swath of rubbled buildings and bomb-pocked streets extending from the Dolgii Ravine southward past Railroad Station No.

There was no longer anyone in the houses of the City of Soviets and the Red Army Club or in the Gorky Theater, empty window sockets and ugly black holes yawned in the walls.

Batrakov's 42nd RB withdrew to a defensive position west of the railway on the Tsaritza and thus tied the IR 211 again, which further exacerbated the precarious personnel situation of Hartmann's division.

[48] On September 19, 1942, the 71st Infantry Division changed their fighting technique because the main battle line could no longer be maintained due to the heavy losses and the peculiarities of the terrain of the Balkas, as platoons and companies were reshaped like assault troops in small groups.

The landing of parties of the 284th RD on September 19, 1942, significantly relieved the difficult situation for the badly battered 13th GRD in the Stalingrad center and set new forces free.

The 42nd RB and 244th RD fought off several attacks by the IR 211 in Pushkinskaia Street; after the almost complete capture of the grain silo on September 20, 1942, they were the last active fighting troops of the Red Army in the southern part of Stalingrad.

In the smoke and stench of the smoldering wheat, each floor had to be conquered individually in the huge concrete block, and there was also the fact that a Soviet defensive position extended from the southern landing of the ferry to the high silo.

The guardsmen lost 200 soldiers and reoccupied Krutoi Gorge, January 9 Square, Naberezshnaia, Solnechnaia, Kurskaia, Orlowskaia, Proletarskaia, Gogolia and Kommunisticheskaia streets.

On September 25, 1942, the 71st Infantry Division was again involved in heavy fighting around the Stalingrad center north of the Zariza Gorge and found itself in a stalemate with the Red Army.

[54] After the fighting in the Stalingrad center had subsided, the 71st Infantry Division broke away from the concentrated attack formation and expanded into wider sections in the defensive positions on the Volga.

[55] Major General von Hartmann was given overall responsibility for the south and center sectors from the Dolgiischlucht to the Elschanka River on September 27, 1942, after the 94th Infantry Division was withdrawn for the fighting in the north.

[57] The impenetrable defenses of Rodimtsev in a dense network of buildings and fortresses north and south of 9 January Square were unbreakable for a single, severely weakened regiment.

In his personal notes (printed in the divisional history of the 71st Infantry Division) Roske mentioned that a total of 17,000 soldiers were found in the southern basin, of which about 2000–3000 were able to fight (kampffähig).

In August 1943, the 71st Infantry Division was transferred to Carinthia with the assignment to help disarm the Italian troops in the Treviso - Gorizia - Trieste and Fiume areas during Operation Achse.

Here the IR 211 defended a 4 km long section of the front in the town of Cassino and fought in hand-to-hand combat with New Zealand units for possession of the station under the command of Colonel Barnbeck.

D’Oro, Ausonia and Esperia were seized in one of the most brilliant and daring advances of the war in Italy, and by May 16 the French Expeditionary Corps had thrust forward some ten miles on their left flank to Mount Revole, with the remainder of their front slanting back somewhat to keep contact with the British 8th Army.

The French displayed that ability during their sensational advance which Lieutenant General Siegfried Westphal, the chief of staff to Kesselring, later described as a major surprise both in timing and in aggressiveness.