during the
Invasion of Poland, 9 September 1939. The division was mobilized in August 1939 and joined the
XIV Corps of the
German 10th Army for the
invasion of Poland. On 8 September 1939, forces of the 29th Infantry Division occupied
Lipsko, where members of the division's 71st Infantry Regiment's third battalion staged a pogrom on 9 September, killing between 60 and 80 Jewish inhabitants of the town. The division took part in the encirclement of Polish forces at
Radom,
Poland and committed the
Massacre in Ciepielów, where about 300 Polish prisoners of war were executed. In December 1939 it was transferred to the west. During the invasion of France it joined the
16th Army. As a strategic reserve it was used during the drive for the
English Channel. After the
Dunkirk evacuation it joined
Heinz Guderian's
Panzer Group for an advance through eastern France. It was then employed in occupation duties until early 1941. Taking part in
Operation Barbarossa it was attached to the German
4th Army and took part in a number of actions against isolated Soviet formations at
Minsk,
Smolensk and
Bryansk. It was then sent to support Guderian's
2nd Panzer Army near
Tula. The division lost most of its vehicles and many killed and captured during the retreat from
Moscow at Mordves, south of
Kashira in the
Moscow oblast. In 1942 it spent the first 6 months in action near
Orel and then in July 1942 was assigned to the German
6th Army as part of
Army Group South. It took part in the fighting on the approaches to
Stalingrad, and in the city itself. It was redeployed to serve as the
4th Panzer Army's mobile reserve at the end of September, and relocated behind the
IV Corps guarding the southern flank of the 6th Army forces in Stalingrad. When the Red Army's second pincer attack was launched from the south, the division was pushed into the south-west corner of the pocketed German forces. Having been held in reserve for most of the Stalingrad campaign, the division was at 90% combat strength according to its situation reports. On 21 January 1943 it was attacked by the Soviet
21st Army, and was destroyed. It was then reconstituted in France in the early spring from the recently formed
345th Infantry Division. It was transferred to the Sicilian Campaign as the
29th Panzergrenadier Division for sometime in the defence of the Northern Route to Messina. Thereafter it fought in Italy at Salerno, Anzio, and San Pietro and was destroyed by the British in northern Italy just before the end of the war. In the final days of the war, on 29 April 1945, the division was involved in the San Martino di Lupari massacre, where it used Italian civilians as human shields against partisan attacks and eventually executed 125 hostages. == Organization ==