query: instance_of 272nd volksgrenadier division 
supports: The Ruhr Pocket was a battle of encirclement that took place in late March and early April 1945, near the end of World War II, in the Ruhr Area of Germany. It marked the end of major organized resistance on Nazi Germany's Western Front, as more than 300,000 troops were taken prisoner. The 272nd Volksgrenadier Division ( more accurately Volks - Grenadier Division ) , was a German Army volksgrenadier division formed following the defeats of the Normandy Campaign in 1944 . Composed of men taken from existing Heer units and airmen and sailors retasked to infantry duties , the division fought on the retreating Western Front until it was largely encircled in the Ruhr Pocket in April 1945 . Encirclement is a military term for the situation when a force or target is isolated and surrounded by enemy forces. Operation "Bagration" (Operatsiya "Bagration") was the codename for the Soviet 1944 Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation (Belorusskaya nastupatelnaya Operatsiya "Bagration") during World War II, which cleared German forces from eastern Poland between 22 June and 19 August 1944.
  The operation was named after 18th19th century Georgian Prince Pyotr Bagration, general of the Imperial Russian Army who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Borodino. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of , and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular immigration destination in the world. Germany's capital and largest metropolis is Berlin. Other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Düsseldorf. Volksgrenadier was the name given to a type of German Army division formed in the Autumn of 1944 after the double loss of Army Group Center to the Soviets in Operation Bagration and the Fifth Panzer Army to the Allies in Normandy. The name itself was intended to build morale, appealing at once to nationalism ("Volk") and Germany's older military traditions ("Grenadier"). Germany formed 78 VGDs during the war. "Volksgrenadiers" and "Volksgrenadier" divisions should not be confused with the "Volkssturm", which is an entirely different entity. World War II (often abbreviated to WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the world's nationsincluding all of the great powerseventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. In a state of "total war", the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust (in which approximately 11 million people were killed) and the strategic bombing of industrial and population centres (in which approximately one million were killed, and which included the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history. The Volkssturm ("people's storm") was a German national militia established during the last months of World War II. It was not set up by the "Wehrmacht Heer", the ground component of the combined German Wehrmacht armed forces, but by the Nazi Party on the orders of Adolf Hitler and its official existence was not announced until October 18, 1944. It was staffed by conscripting males between the ages of 16 and 60 years who were not already serving in some military unit as part of a German Home Guard. The "Volkssturm" comprised one of the final components of the Total War promulgated by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, part of a Nazi endeavor to overcome their enemies' military strength through force of will.
candidates: april armed forces army army group battle capital climate component conflict division federal republic final force human immigration member military military unit militia name october official operation party people population republic soviet state storm term the holocaust union world war
answer: military unit