101st Guards Rifle Division

The 101st Guards Rifle Division was reformed as an elite infantry division of the Red Army in December 1944, based on the 1st formation of the 14th Rifle Division, and served briefly in that role during the final campaigns in northern Germany during the Great Patriotic War.

As combat operations ended in northern Finland and Norway the Karelian Front became redundant and its forces were free to be redeployed to active fronts. The 101st Guards was reassigned to 19th Army where it joined the 40th Guards Rifle Corps and began moving by rail to the south and west. When it arrived in 2nd Belorussian Front in late January the Soviet offensive into Poland and eastern Germany was already well underway and the rebuilt divisions of 19th Army were committed into the fighting for East Pomerania and West Prussia. In the battles up to the end of March the division and several of its subunits won a number of decorations and distinctions for its successes, particularly in the siege of Gdynia. 40th Guards Corps was redeployed to the Oder River as the final offensive on Germany was beginning in mid-April and was reassigned to the 2nd Shock Army, but was largely retained as a Front reserve and saw little combat in those last weeks of the war. Following the German surrender the 101st Guards, along with the rest of 2nd Shock, served briefly in the Soviet occupation zone but within months returned to northern Russia where it was disbanded in mid-1946.