Named after Tudor Vladimirescu, the leader of the Wallachian uprising of 1821, the division was formed from Romanian prisoners of war in October 1943,[4] under the command of Brigadier General Nicolae Cambrea.

The division marched into Bucharest on August 29, 1944 as liberators, liberating the city alongside the units of the Romanian Army when Romania left the Axis Powers and attacked German troops stationed in the country.

[5] The division, still under Soviet control, saw real combat during the final months of the war in Transylvania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, playing a key role in the Soviet seizure of Debrecen, Hungary, in October 1944.

Combat losses were heavy; by March 1945 the strength of the division had sunk to 4,436 men.

Along with another Romanian communist unit, the Horea, Cloșca și Crișan Division, and backed by tens of thousands of Red Army troops, the Tudor Vladimirescu Division played a key role in imposing communist rule in Romania after the war.