711th Infantry Division ( Wehrmacht ) The 711th Infantry Division ( German : " 711 . Infanteriedivision " ) was a German Army infantry division in World War II . Operational history . The 711th Infantry Division was raised in May 1941 as part of the 15th Wave . Equipped only for occupational duties , it was sent to France as a component of the 15th Army . Originally , the division was placed along the demarcation line between German - occupied and Vichy France , but was later moved along the coast to serve in the Atlantic Wall , eventually settling as part of the 15th Army ' s left flank in a sector between the Orne and Seine rivers . The division was then armed with more effective weapons to assist in coastal defence , including weapons discarded by the Allies during the wide - scale retreats at the end of the Battle of France . " Lieutenant General " Josef Reichert took over command of the division in April 1943 . During his time in command , he witnessed the transformation of the Atlantic Wall into a defensive more comparable to " Fortress Europe " propaganda . However , the division ' s participation in the construction of defensive structures on behalf of " Marshall " Erwin Rommel led to Reichert ' s criticism of division training being " almost completely neglected " in favour of building concrete pillboxes for Organization Todt . According to " General of the Artillery " Walter Warlimont , the divisions in place around Normandy were limited in early May ; the 711th ; 716th and 352nd divisions were placed along the northern coast . This began to change when Hitler concluded that Normandy was a likely spot for an invasion . This provided some level of relief for the division , who were also assigned to prepare a series of mine fields that month . D - Day . The division had been kept up all day on June 5 on an invasion alert , with the headquarters ' guards company being dissolved a few days earlier in order to provide more men on the front line . Tired from the waiting and concluding that there was not going to be an invasion , " Lieutenant General " Reichert and his divisional staff were ready to retire at half - past twelve . Though the noise of low - flying planes could have indicated the invasion , the recent barrage of bombing raids had the divisional staff thinking that the planes were like any other . At around that time , two British paratroopers attached to the 6th Airbone Division - veered off course and landed at the divisional headquarters . Upon spotting them as they fell and were captured , the alarm was sounded and the anti - aircraft guns were manned . Not long after , the planes had vanished from sight , illustrating an unintended red herring that this was simply a lone commando operation . Unable to get answers from the two prisoners , Reichert concluded that the two men were part of the expected invasion force and had landed outside headquarters knowingly as part of a plan to disrupt the division ' s command structure . As a first measure , the nearest available reinforcements , an engineering company , were called in from Saint Arnoult to reinforce headquarters ; they would arrive some two hours later to find the compound in no danger . Other elements of LXXXI Corps were alerted of the incident , with " Colonel " Paul Frank of the nearby 364th Infantry Division hearing about it at around One O ' clock . Over the next few hours , little action took place . According to Reichert , occasional machine gun fire could be heard , with the headquarters ' poorly trained and nervous staff inadvertently firing at returning reconnaissance patrols who had been sent out to look for more paratroopers , and found no one . It was during this event that the divisional staff were engaging in a telephone conversation with the 15th Army ' s commander , " General " Hans von Salmuth , who misunderstood the commotion for the genuine invasion and alerted Marshal Erwin Rommel ' s stand in , " General " Hans Speidel immediately . Deciding not to alert his superior , Speidel went back to bed . In constant contact with his battalions , Reichert found there to be minimal Allied presence in his sector , allowing him to reorganize forces looking towards the Cotentin Peninsula , where he had expected the bulk of the invasion to be concentrated at . At approximately 02 : 45 , elements of the 21st Panzer Division operating alongside the 711th took further British paratroopers prisoner . Meanwhile , the men who had been stationed at the coast were largely safe in their newly built bunkers and pillboxes , with only a few casualties from enemy volleys from the sea . Two reserve battalions were ordered to mop - up Allied forces between the coast and the Saint - Arnoult - Varaville road , and from that road to Pont - l ' Évêque . It was Reichert ' s intention to keep the roads free of Allied interference in order to maintain transport and communication routes . At 07 : 30 , the Panzers began attacking the British units who had grouped together at Ouistreham , along the Orne , with the 711th division defending the bridgehead . Defending the bridgehead was considered necessary in that it would provide the Panzers with space in which to focus on attacking the Allied landings on the coast . Despite their neglected training , the division was commended by Reichert for their performance in repelling Allied forces from the bridgehead east of the Orne . This operation , also , was largely - completed by noon with the assistance of the 716th division - sectored immediately to the east . " Lieutenant General " Reichert took advantage of the recently cleared roads to drive over to the 744th Regiment ' s command post to meet with its staff ; on the way he saw a number of parachutes hanging from trees and telephone wires . From the regiment ' s post , they witnessed the coastal batteries based near Houlgate fire at Allied landing craft attempting to take the port of Ouistreham . Soon after , Reichert drove to Brucourt from where he could ascertain the extent of the airlandings between the Orne and Dives . By the evening , a total of 300 Allied soldiers had been taken prisoner , with the 711th division suffering few casualties in comparison . Based on the interrogation of prisoners from the 1st English and 1st Canadian Battalions of the British 6th Airborne Division , the landing parties to the east of the Orne were not the vanguard of a larger offensive , and had simply been scattered from their intended drop point and subsequently mistaken the Orne and Dives rivers at Cabourg . However , the impact of the Sword Beach landing led to the LXXXI Corps staff ' s decision that the sealing off the landing sites to the west of the Orne was necessary , and that the bridgehead that had been defended earlier would have to be destroyed . Unfortunately , the 346th Infantry Division had suffered worse than the 711th , and were expected to provide forces to clear their side of the bridgehead as late as 11 : 00 the following morning . In mid - July , the 711th took part in Operation Goodwood near the city of Caen ; its 731st Infantry Regiment was moved to Troarn with heavy artillery to slow down the British VIII Corps . As the allies continued their advance , the division was moved to Rotterdam in the Netherlands , being moved to the 5th Panzer Army in August 1944 . Serving as part of LXXXVI Corps until September 1944 , the 5th Panzer Army narrowly escaped destruction in the Falaise Pocket . In mid - September , the 711th was returned to the 15th Army with LXVII Corps until a shake - up in late - November , where it was moved to the LXXXVIII Corps before being taken out of the army altogether by December . Hungary and the Ukraine . The reason for this was the approaching Red Army , which by now had re - claimed much of the Polish territory the Soviet Union had lost in 1941 . Specifically , they had been moved to defend their Hungarian and Slovakian allies . Ordered to move into Hungary in late December with IV SS - Panzer Corps under Hitler ' s orders , the force was put under the command of Herbert Otto Gille of the SS . Contact was lost with the 711th , and the divisional forces did not regroup until January 8 . The division aided in the recapture the city of Esztergom two days earlier , which had been under the Red Army ' s 3rd Ukrainian Front for just over a fortnight . Launching an attack from Esztergom on January 9 , the force trying to defend Hungary made their way to Budapest . They were stalled by Soviet shelling from the Danube , reaching as far as Dobogókő , which the 711th recaptured . Now part of the 6th Army ' s I Cavalry Corps , the division was joined by remnants of the Hungarian 1st Hussar Division and the 6th Panzer Division . the 6th Army ' s commander , General Balk , informed Army Group South ' s high command that he was sending the corps over to aid the IX Mountain Corps , envisioning a joint - strike of the 711th and 96th Infantry Divisions with the Panzer Division ; however , he grossly - misjudged the number of tanks the 6th Panzer Division was equipped with in comparison to the number of tanks needed . Even worse , the Red Army ' s 2nd Mechanized Corps was approaching their position . Czechoslovakia . In a shake - up of the 8th Army , a detachment of the division , " Kampfgruppe 711 . Infanterie - Division " was transferred into this unit along with LXXII Corps on April 12 . Lieutenant General Reichert ceased to command the division on 14 April when he was injured in an automobile accident . With the chain of command breaking , colonels von Watzdorf and von Bosse were all that remained to take charge of the remnants , which had again been transferred to a new unit in March , XXIV Corps of the 1st Panzer Army . The division finally surrendered two months later on May 9 , 1945 just east of Prague .