266th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

266th Infantry Division
266. Infanterie-Division
Active	May 1943 - September 1944
Country	Heer (Wehrmacht)
Type	Infantry
Size	Division

The 266th Infantry Division (

Upon deployment to occupied France, Grenadier Regiment 898 as well as the second detachment of Artillery Regiment 266 to the 343rd Infantry Division.^[1]

The division was largely destroyed by Allied forces, including the 4th U.S. Armored Division, during the battles at Saint-Malo in July 1944.^[2] Small parts of the 266th Division escaped into the besieged Atlantic pockets in Brittany.^[1] With the fall of Brest on 19 September, the last remnants of the division were neutralized.^[2] The 266th Infantry Division was formally dissolved on 29 September 1944.^[1]

War crimes

In northern Finistère at the beginning of August 1944, the 266th artillery regiment began a punitive operation in Saint-Pol-de Léon. On August 4, fifteen inhabitants were taken out of the city on a truck. Five days later, their exhumed bodies were found with their hands tied and their skulls caved in; one had been scalped. The sole woman, partially undressed, had large marks on her thighs and legs. Continuing to the West, the unit left behind dead bodies and burned farms: eighteen were killed in Plounévez-Lochrist, five in Tréflez and thirty-three in Plouvien on August 8 and 9.^[3]

Superior formations

Noteworthy individuals

• Karl Sprang, divisional commander between 20 May 1943 and August 1944.

References