385th Infantry Division
division

The 385th Infantry Division, (German: 385. Infanterie-Division) also known as a "Rheingold" Division, was created on 10 January 1942 in Fallingbostel. The division was composed of replacement troops from military districts VI, X and XI. From April 16, 1942, the 385th Infantry Division moved to the Roslavl area and fought in the front lines at the Fomino area.
The division was annihilated near the Don River during the Battle of Stalingrad in early 1943 while subordinated to the 8th Italian Army. It had previously fallen under heavy frontal attack during the Ostrogozhsk–Rossosh offensive by the 12th Tank Corps and 15th Tank Corps.
The 385th Infantry Division was trapped as part of the encirclement between 15 and 26 January 1943 (along with 387th Infantry, Tridentina, Julia, Cuneense and Vicenza divisions), when Soviet troops encircled XXIV Panzer Corps and the Italian Alpini Corps.
The division was disbanded in the period from February to March 1943 and its survivors joined the 387th Infantry Division.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 21, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q228337. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942 and 1943.
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This entry incorporates text from “385th Infantry Division” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.