| 31. Infanterie-Division German 31st Infantry Division |
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Brunswick Lion |
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| Active | 1 October 1936 — 8 May 1945 |
| Country | Nazi Germany |
| Branch | Wehrmacht Heer |
| Type | Division |
| Role | Infantry |
| Part of | 2nd Panzer Army, 9th Army, others |
| Engagements | World War II |
The German 31st Infantry Division (31. Infanterie-Division) was a infantry division of the Wehrmacht Heer. It was formed in October 1936, was made up of recruits from the Brunswick region (Braunschweig) of north-central Germany. The division’s emblem was a standing lion. The 31st Division saw combat in Poland in 1939, and then heavy fighting in Belgium and France in 1940.
In June 1941 it took part in the invasion of the Soviet Union as part of the 2nd Panzer Army in the central section. The 31st Division fought in battles for Bialystok, Minsk, Smolensk and Bryansk, and was engaged in the failed attempt to encircle Tula southeast of Moscow (late 1941). Other bitter fighting fell to the 31st Division in the winter of 1941/42. It then joined to the 9th Army, XLVI Panzer Corps (Germany), in the Kursk area in 1943 where it took part in rear-guard skirmishes in the Middle Dneiper area of the Ukraine. During the Fall of 1943 the 31st was involved in 28 major battles in which 35 of its 70 officers fell and the total strength of the unit fell from 1400 to 70.[1] Then in June/July 1944 the 31st Infantry Division was almost completely anihillated to the East of Minsk. It’s commanding officer Lieutenant-General Wilhelm Ochsner* was taken prisoner along with most of the remaining troops. (*Ochsner had been promoted to Lieutenant General on June 1, 1944. He was a Soviet prisoner until 1955.)[2]
The returning wounded and new recruits were organized into a new 31st Division in Germany in the Fall of 1944; initially designated the 31st Grenadier Division it was later merged with the 550th Grenadier Division to form the 31st Volksgrenadier Division. In September 1944 this Division participated successfully in the early battles to defend the Courland Peninsula (Latvia). In early 1945 the 31st Grenadier was evacuated by sea to northern Germany where it fought its last campaigns with Army Group Vistula. In May 1945 it surrendered to the Russian troops on the Hel Peninsula, a 35-km-long sand bar peninsula in Northern Poland that separates the Bay of Puck from the Baltic Sea.
German Order of Battle Volume Three: Panzer, Panzer Grenadier, and Waffen SS Divisions in WWII, by Samuel W. Mitcham Jr., (Stackpole Military History Series), Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 2007. pages 76–77
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