Infantry Regiment 3 participated in operation Barbarossa.

From 1935 the infantry set up motorized machine gun battalions to increase firepower in key areas and for blocking tasks.  They initially consisted of three companies each, each with 16 heavy machine guns, and in 1937 they also received a 4th (anti-tank) companyThe plan was to set up a machine gun battalion for each infantry division in the army. By the beginning of the war in September 1939, however, only 8 battalions had been set up.