The 78th Infantry Division was raised in August 1939 in Stuttgart, incorporating reservists from Baden-Württemberg (its divisional symbol was a representation of Ulm Minster).

It was stationed in France for occupation duties from the summer of 1940 through the spring of 1941, and then transferred east to participate in Operation Barbarossa with Army Group Centre.

At the beginning of 1943 it was reorganised as the 78th Sturm Division (a new divisional symbol, an armoured fist, being adopted, derived from the artificial hand of Götz von Berlichingen) with additional adjustments to its strength and organisation over the next several months.

During the June - July 1944 Soviet offensive against Army Group Centre, Operation Bagration, the division was assigned to defend the main Moscow - Minsk road and the town of Orsha.

It was among the forces of the First Panzer Army pushed from Upper Silesia into Czechoslovakia, where its troops surrendered to the Soviets near Olomouc at the end of the war in May.