322nd Rifle Division (Soviet Union)

The 322nd Rifle Division was part of the Red Army during World War II. It is most notable for liberating Auschwitz as part of the 60th Army on January 31, 1945, as part of the Vistula-Oder offensive.

The division was established at Gorki in July 1941. The division (according to the STAVKA instruction to the commander of the 10th Reserve Army) regarding concentration of the army in the Ryazan-Kalino-Shilovo area. November 24, 1941 (No. OP/2995) has received the order about relocation from Kuznetsk to Rybnoe. The army commander was ordered to finish concentration by the evening on December 2 and on December 4 (according to the instruction No.0044/OP) to strike the main blow in the Mihajlov/Stalinogorsk direction. The division subsequently fought at the Battle of Moscow, Sukinichi, and Voronezh. Under Lieutenant Colonel Stepan Nikolayevich Perekalsky, the division fought with the 60th Army of the Voronezh Front during the Battle of Kursk. It then fought at Kiev, Zhitomir, and in southern Poland and Germany.

The division appears to have been disbanded quite quickly after the war, by September 1945.

Article Sources

 * The Red Army Order of Battle in the Great Patriotic War, Robert G. Poirier and Albert Z. Conner, Novato: Presidio Press, 1985. ISBN 0-89141-237-9.
 * Further reading - http://samsv.narod.ru/Div/Sd/sd322/default.html