1st Mountain Division (Wehrmacht)

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1st Mountain Division
- 1st GebDiv -
XX

VerbAbz1GebDivW.jpg

Troop identification: white edelweiss
active April 9, 1938 to May 8, 1945
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Branch of service Mountaineer
Type Infantry Division
structure structure
Installation site Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Commanders
list of Commanders

The 1st Mountain Division was a major unit of the army of the German Wehrmacht . The Mountain Association was during the Second World War the invasion of Poland , western campaign , in Greece , the Balkan campaign , the war against the Soviet Union used and from 1943 to the partisan struggle again in the Balkans. The division was also called the Edelweiss Division and was referred to by Adolf Hitler as "his Guard Division" and was involved in war crimes such as the Kefalonia massacre (1943).

Lineup

The large unit was set up on June 1, 1935, initially as a mountain brigade with Colonel Ludwig Kübler as commander and with Major Max-Josef Pemsel as 1st General Staff Officer (Ia) in Military District VII . The headquarters of the mountain brigade was in Munich , the seat of the superior general command of the VII Army Corps . It was intended to move the staff of the brigade to Garmisch-Partenkirchen later , but the outbreak of war prevented this.

On November 15, 1935, Kübler was ordered to set up two mountain hunter regiments and a mountain artillery division. These were regiments 99 and 100 with three battalions of four companies each, each with a 13th and a 14th (anti-tank) company, and the mountain artillery division with three batteries. On October 1, 1937, the establishment of the Mountain Jäger Regiment 98 was ordered, with which the brigade actually achieved division strength. Kübler was made major general on January 1, 1938, and on April 1, 1938, the brigade was renamed the 1st Mountain Division .

Locations

The 1st Mountain Division took part in the occupation of the Sudetenland and the annexation of Austria and fought in the attack on Poland and in the western campaign . At Besançon it was prepared for the conquest of Gibraltar after the defeat of France . After Spain's dictator Franco refused the Germans to march through to Gibraltar , the division was positioned on the French Channel coast to land in England , which was also not carried out .

In 1941 the Balkan campaign and the war against the Soviet Union followed. The attitude of this National Socialist "elite association" became clear at the beginning of the Eastern campaign with the massacres in Lemberg . In 1942, the division made an advance across the Caucasus to the Black Sea , which failed, however, and resulted in high losses. The decimated and burned out division had to be detached from the Eastern War and was entrusted with occupation tasks in the Balkans and Greece from spring 1943. There, reprisals against the local population, shooting hostages, shooting as partisan helpers of suspects, burning down villages and driving cattle, based on the atonement orders of the Wehrmacht leadership of 1941/1942, became the division's central "fighting methods". As part of the of Hubert Lanz led XXII. Mountain Army Corps was entrusted with the military security of Western Greece against an expected Allied landing, it received even more radical atonement orders. Their mass shootings in Kefalonia and Corfu violated martial law . The division's countless victims included women and children. Finally, the division took an active part in clearing the Jewish ghetto in Ioannina in order to transport its residents to the extermination camps .

At the end of the war, the division withdrew to Austria. The division's core troops were the Mountain Infantry Regiments 98, 99 and 100 and the Mountain Artillery Regiment 79.

Structure of the 1st Mountain Division on April 1, 1938

  • Division commander: Major General Ludwig Kübler
  • Ia ( First General Staff Officer ): Major Pemsel
  • Ib ( Second General Staff Officer ): Captain Kimbacher
  • Division doctor: Senior Staff Doctor Bingler
  • Division veterinarian: Senior staff veterinarian Rasberger
  • Gebirgs-Jäger-Regiment 98, Commander: Lieutenant Colonel Schörner , Regimental Staff , III. Batl. and 16. (Pz. Abw.) Kp. Mittenwald , I. Batl. Garmisch-Partenkirchen, II. Batl. Lenggries , ErsatzBatl. Memmingen
  • Mountain Jäger Regiment 99, Commander: Lieutenant Colonel Kreß , Regimental Staff , II. Batl. and 16. (Pz. Abw.) Kp Füssen , remaining units Sonthofen
  • Mountain Jäger Regiment 100, Commander: Lieutenant Colonel Lanz , Regimental Staff , III. Batl. and 16. (Pz. Abw.) Kp Bad Reichenhall , I. Batl. Brannenburg , II. Batl. Berchtesgaden , replacement batl. To run
  • Mountain Artillery Regiment 79 Commander: Colonel Wintergerst , regimental staff and 2nd department Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 1st department Bad Reichenhall, III. Dept. Sonthofen, IV. Dept. with 14th Batt. Murnau
  • Panzer Defense Department 44, Commander: Major Lang, Location: Murnau
  • Mountain Pioneer Battalion 54, Commander: Lieutenant Colonel Zimmer , Location: Mittenwald
  • Mountain News Department 54, Commander: Lieutenant Colonel Kleinschroth, Location: Oberammergau
  • Mountain Medical Department 41, Commander: Oberstabsarzt Bingler, Location: Garmisch-Partenkirchen

The mountain hunter regiments consisted of three battalions with four companies each , armed with nine light and two heavy machine-guns and three light grenade launchers ; two heavy companies, one armed with an engineer platoon and four heavy machine-guns, the others with six medium grenade launchers and two light infantry guns and a 16th anti-tank company with twelve 3.7 cm anti-tank guns .

The division's light artillery was mainly composed of the 6.5 cm L / 17 mountain cannon, the 7.5 cm mountain infantry gun 18, the 7.5 cm mountain gun 36 and the 10.5 40 cm mountain howitzer . In terms of heavy artillery weapons, the division had heavy 15 cm field howitzers. The structure and armament of the artillery changed during the war on the one hand due to the introduction of new weapons, on the other hand due to the lack of artillery and the use of prey equipment.

The division's anti-tank division consisted of a staff and a motorized intelligence platoon as well as three motorized companies of twelve anti-tank guns each. A machine -gun anti-aircraft company with twelve 2 cm anti-aircraft guns (motorized) was also assigned as the 4th company .

The mountain pioneer battalion consisted of two companies (9 IMG) and a light engineer company (motorized) with nine IMG as well as a bridge column B and C (motorized) - in addition to the staff with intelligence platoon (motorized) and music corps .) and a light mountain spy column (mot.) together.

The mountain intelligence department consisted of a staff, two telephone companies, a radio company and a light message column (motorized).

During mobilization , the medical service under the division doctor consisted of the mountain medical company (motorized), a field hospital and two ambulance trains.

The supply parts were added to these combat and support units. The supply services included the replenishment services, the administrative services, the medical services, the veterinary company and the field post office. When mobilization in 1939, the supply services of the 1st Mountain Division consisted of the staff, four small columns of motor vehicles (30 t), eight columns of motor vehicles, a small column of motor vehicles for fuel (25 m³), ​​workshop company (motorized), mountain supply company and a mountain support battalion with six Carrier companies.

In terms of personnel, according to the mobilization plan 1939/40, the division had a total target strength of 24,956 men (including 640 officers , 91 officials, 3,032 NCOs and 21,193 men). The weapons target thickness was: 5,708 guns , 17,568 rifles , light 396 MG, 96 MG heavy, 12 Flak 2 cm, 72 Pak 3.7 cm, 81 lGrW 5 cm, 54 cm mGrW 8, 18 Mountain light infantry guns 7.5 cm, 36 mountain guns 7.5 or 10.5 cm and 12 heavy howitzers 18 (15 cm) .

The division had 391 solo motorcycles, 345 sidecar motorcycles, 374 cars, 793 trucks, 84 single-axle and 6 multi-axle trailers. There were also 1,007 covered and 37 uncovered vehicles.

The total target number of animals was 7,405 animals due to their purpose in mountainous and impassable terrain. These consisted of 1,333 riding horses, 4,224 pack animals, 1,836 light and 12 heavy draft horses.

The "Anschluss" of Austria in 1938

On March 11, 1938, Hitler issued the secret military instructions for the invasion of Austria under the code name " Enterprise Otto " . The VII Army Corps, to which the Mountain Division belonged, was given the task of crossing the Austrian border without the Mountain Jäger Regiment 98 near Salzburg and later to march to Carinthia via Steyr , Upper Styria and Graz .

The mountain artillery marched to Innsbruck , Landeck and Bludenz , while the mountain hunter regiment 98 advanced with the pioneer battalion over the border crossing Scharnitz to the Brenner pass.

There the regimental commander brought the greetings of the German Reich to the Italian commander .

When the conflict over Czechoslovakia intensified and the deployment of German troops for the Green case was in full swing, parts of the 1st Mountain Division were relocated to the Austrian-Czechoslovak border. The Munich Agreement signed on September 19, 1938 prevented the division from being used in the Sudetenland .

After the so-called smashing of the rest of the Czech Republic in March 1939, the III. Battalion of the Mountain Jäger Regiment 100 temporarily relocated to North Moravia .

Attack on Poland in 1939

At the end of August 1939, the first units of the 1st Mountain Division moved through Slovakia to the staging area. The bulk of the Division followed a little later. On August 19, 1939, the staff of the XVIII. Mountain Army Corps Salzburg and moved into its deployment rooms in Slovakia. The 1st Mountain Division was deployed together with the 2nd Mountain Division on the Slovakian border. On September 4, 1939, the division marched into southern Poland. Sometimes the soldiers had to march between 35 and 60 kilometers a day. On September 8th, the San was crossed, on the same day the Mountain Infantry Regiment 98 was involved in a heavy battle with Polish troops near Dukla , which the mountain troops won. On September 10, 1939, Major General Kübler issued the well-known order to "storm Lemberg ", according to which the enemy should not be allowed to retreat to the east and he should be forced to surrender. Lemberg was reached and enclosed on September 12, 1939. On September 19, the order to attack Lviv was given, which was supposed to take place on the 21st, but was not carried out after Soviet troops advanced on Lviv on September 20. The fighting was over.

Because of his success in the attack on Poland, Major General Kübler was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on October 27, 1939 . On December 1, 1939, he was promoted to lieutenant general.

The division had lost 23 officers, 69 NCOs and 313 men in the attack on Poland. 42 officers, 150 NCOs and 726 men were wounded, 8 NCOs and 71 men were missing. 27 soldiers received the Iron Cross 1st class , and 16 more received the clasp. 1,129 soldiers were awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class, and 72 more were awarded the clasp.

The French campaign in 1940

In January 1940 the 1st Mountain Division was subordinated to the 12th Army and moved to the Eifel . On May 10, 1940, the division marched into Luxembourg , and on May 12, 1940, the Belgian border was crossed. On May 14, 1940, the division reached the Meuse , still without any combat contact , and it was crossed on May 15, 1940. On the instructions of the 12th Army, the 1st Mountain Division had to take the area around Vervin on May 19 and the wooded area north of the Vervin Canal on May 20, and for the next day march on via Marle to Crécy-sur-Serre to compete. The defense division had set up on the Oise-Aisne Canal to wait for the neighboring divisions. The trench warfare lasted from May 22 to June 4, 1940. In the meantime, on June 2, 1940, the 1st Mountain Division changed from the XVIII. Army Corps of the 12th Army to XXXXIV. Army Corps, with which the division was now on the left wing of the 6th Army .

On June 5, 1940, regiments 99 and 100 (the 98 Gebirgs-Jäger-Regiment was in reserve) crossed the canal in the morning hours. At around 1 p.m. the 1st Btl / 100 was almost completely worn out, but remained on the west bank of the canal. The battalions of the Mountain Rifle Regiment 99 could take decisive heights and hold against French attacks. By evening the French troops were thrown and 600 prisoners brought in, but 16% of the German attackers were either killed or wounded.

The Aisne was crossed on June 8, 1940 and the Marne was reached on June 11, 1940 . From June 13 to June 18, 1940, the division advanced south without contact with the enemy and reached St. Colombe . On June 19th the Loire was crossed and on the evening of the 19th the Cher was reached. On June 22, 1940 the division was loaded on the main road Gien - Argent-sur-Sauldre and arrived on June 23, 1940 in Charolles . On June 25, the journey north of Lyon was stopped because the armistice had been concluded on June 22, 1940 and came into force on June 25, 1940 at 1:35 a.m. On June 26th, the division was moved to the Swiss border and on July 10th to the new staging area near Jougne , Neufs, Les Hôpitaux and Vaux . There the division was again the XVIII. Army Corps subordinated. The western campaign was over.

The total losses of the 1st Mountain Division amounted to 1,826 men. Of these, 17 officers, 76 NCOs and 353 men were killed, 47 officers, 209 NCOs and 1,106 men were wounded, 1 officer, 3 NCOs and 14 men were missing.

Each soldier covered an average of 1,810 kilometers on foot, 445 kilometers were motorized and 2,950 kilometers by train, including transport from the Polish to the French theater of war.

During and after the French campaign, the Knight's Cross was awarded 5 times , 166 times the EK I , 18 times the clasp for EK I, 2,939 times the EK II and 47 times the clasp for EK II.

The planned company "Sea Lion" 1940/41

The preparation of the landing operation against England was laid down in the "Führer Instruction No. 16" on July 16, 1940, without initially setting a date for the landing itself. On October 25, 1940, AOK 16, to which the 1st Mountain Division was subordinate at that time, received a telex, according to which GebJgRegt 100 and I./AR 79 are to be made available for the planned landing. The company was given up in the spring of 1941 to make it easier for the mountain troops.

On October 25, 1940, Lieutenant General Kübler handed over the leadership of the division to Major General Hubert Lanz, who had previously been Chief of the General Staff of the XVIII. Corps had been. Kübler took over the newly established XXXXIX as general of the mountain troops . Mountain Corps .

On November 3, 1940 the Mountain Jäger Regiment 100 under Colonel Utz and the I./AR 79 left the division and transferred to the newly established 5th Mountain Division . The artillery department was incorporated into the 95th Mountain Artillery Regiment as I. Department. As part of their new division, these units took part in many battles such as the airborne battle for Crete and the defensive battles near Leningrad , Volkhov or Monte Cassino before they capitulated to the Americans near Turin in May 1945 .

The planned company "Felix" in 1941

Due to the "Führerordnung Nr. 18" of November 12, 1940, parts of the 1st Mountain Division together with other selected troops formed a combat group called the "Sturmdivision" , which included the heavily fortified and modernly armed British fortress of Gibraltar with its strategically important Should conquer the naval base. The Felix company could have decisively weakened Great Britain's maritime supremacy in the Mediterranean . But even during the camouflaged inquiries, Franco refused to cooperate, because Hitler could not make him any concrete promises to desired territorial claims in the Pyrenees and to the expansion of the Spanish colonial empire by ceding French colonies . The company had failed.

The Yugoslavia campaign in 1941

Between April 5 and 8, 1941, the 1st Mountain Division was relocated to the assembly room on both sides of the Drau between Völkermarkt , Bleiburg and St. Paul in Carinthia. On April 9, parts of GebJgRegt 99 invaded Yugoslavia. An advance detachment under Mjr Lang advanced to Zagreb on April 11 and reached Karlstadt on April 13, 1941 . Met on April 15, mot elements of the division until after Bihac before without encountering any significant resistance. On the same day the majority of the division was taken back to Cilli to be ready for a new task.

In the Yugoslav campaign, 1 non-commissioned officer and 5 men were killed, 3 non-commissioned officers and 6 men were wounded.

The war against the Soviet Union 1941–1943

In May 1941 the XXXXIX. Mountain Corps subordinated to 17th Army . The staff under the command of General der Infanterie Ludwig Kübler moved under in the castle of Count Potocki in Lancut . There the corps received the instructions for June 22, 1941, the day of the attack on the Soviet Union. By June 20, the Mountain Jäger Regiment 98 (Colonel Picker) and 99 (Colonel Kreß), the assigned Infantry Regiment 188 and the division artillery moved into their positions.

The structure of the combat troops of the 1st Mountain Division (without assigned troops) looked as follows on June 22, 1941:

  • Division commander: Major General Lanz
    • Ia of the division: Major Steets
    • Ib of the division: Captain von Eimannsberger
  • Battle group Kreß (Mountain Jäger Regiment 99) with 3 battalions
  • Combat group Picker (Gebirgs-Jäger-Regiment 98) with 3 battalions
  • Mot. Combat Group Lieutenant Colonel Lang
  • Artillery Group Winkler (AR 79)
  • Field replacement battalion under Major Baumgartner

Total strength: 264 officers, 4 officials, 1,778 NCOs, 11,590 men, 5,945 horses and pack animals

First fighting in 1941

The division advanced via Oleszyce in the direction of Lemberg, which they captured on June 30th together with the building training battalion, for example V. 800 “ Die Brandenburger ” and the Ukrainian volunteer battalion Nachtigall . Subsequently, Colonel Karl Wintergerst was employed by the 1st Mountain Division as city commander. In the first days after the occupation, Ukrainian militias and civilians as well as the German Einsatzgruppe C committed mass murders of the Jewish civilian population . According to the historian Hannes Heer , Wintergerst was largely responsible for fueling the pogrom mood. On July 4th we continued via Winniki to the southwest in the direction of Hussjatyn . In mid-July, the division in the Association of XXXXIX. Mountain Corps reaches the Stalin Line , the " Maginot Line " of the Russians. The attack on the Stalin Line was scheduled for July 15. Major General Lanz found a hole in the Soviet defense system and smuggled his regiments 99 and 98 through, despite the fact that he was disregarding an order from General of the Infantry Ludwig Kübler, who had ordered a frontal attack. On July 18, Vinnitsa was reached and ended with a cauldron battle. More than 10,000 Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner. Via Brazlaw and Gaissin , occupied by Mongolian troops , we went to Ternowka , which we reached on July 27th. At the beginning of August the division approached the Uman area . By this time the soldiers had already marched more than 700 km.

On August 2, the Lang advance detachment attacked the enemy units flowing away in the Uman area, smashed them and connected them to the German armored forces on Sinjucha , south of Ternowka. The ring around Uman was closed. In the subsequent battle of Podwyskoye near Uman, 22,000 prisoners were brought in and the bulk of the 6th and 12th Soviet Armies were destroyed.

After a few more or less heavy fighting near Volodymyrivka , the 1st Mountain Division reached the Dnieper . The division switched from 17th Army (General Stülpnagel ) to 11th Army ( von Manstein ). On the night of September 8th, parts of the division crossed a pontoon bridge over the Dnieper and advanced into the Nogai steppe . In the Battle of the Sea of ​​Azov (October 4th to 10th) the 9th and 18th Soviet armies were crushed, and the mountain troops once again distinguished themselves.

The 1st Mountain Division turned south and reached Stalino in the Donetsk Basin on October 20 . In constant contact with the Panzer Divisions of the 1st Panzer Army, the Mountain Division advanced to the Mius at the end of October 1941 via Stepanowka, Amwrossijewka, Remowka and Dmitrijewka . In a loss-making battle in the Mius section, Dmitrijewka was conquered and on November 2 a bridgehead was formed on the other side of the river.

On November 3, the XXXXIX ordered. Mountain Corps to defend the Mius. Winter fell in November 1941, temperatures of −30 degrees were reached.

From the Mius to the Caucasus

Between December 2, 1941 and May 16, 1942, the 1st and 4th Mountain Divisions lay next to the Italian 3rd Division "Celere" on the Mius. Not only were they poorly equipped for a winter fight, they had to face repeated counterattacks by the Red Army . On January 3, 1942, General Konrad took over the leadership of the XXXXIX. Mountain Corps. The 1st Division had suffered considerably from the fighting. On January 6, 1942, the average company strength was 44 men, who had to defend a section of 700 to 800 meters.

On May 17, 1942 the resumption of attack operations on the entire Eastern Front began. In the Battle of Kharkov, the 1st Mountain Division broke through the Soviet positions and advanced 45 kilometers to Barvenkowo . In the extermination battle of Kharkov (May 17-28, 1942), the attacking German units took 240,000 prisoners, more than 2,000 guns and 1,250 tanks were destroyed or captured. The 1st Mountain Division took 25,000 prisoners, captured 150 artillery pieces, 70–80 anti-tank guns, 50 flak, 12 rocket launchers, over 100 grenade launchers, 2,500 trucks, 200 tractors, 1,500 drawn vehicles, 10,000 horses, 70 tankers and 94 tanks.

At the end of June 1942 Voroshilovgrad was reached, the Donets crossed at Kamensk , and at the end of July the mountain troops reached Rostov . There the division rejoined the association of XXXXIX. Mountain Corps.

On July 23, 1942, Hitler issued “Instructions 45” for the continuation of the company in the south (“ Company Braunschweig ”). On August 5th the 1st Mountain Division crossed the Don near Rostov. On August 11th, the Tscherkessk bridge was captured undestroyed, which secured the crossing over the Kuban . In the period from August 12 to August 21, 1942, the mountain troops took possession of the high passes of the Caucasus between the Elbrus, Maruch, Bgala and Adsapsch passes. On August 17th, parts of the 1st Mountain Division stormed the Kluchor Pass . In the period from August 28 to September 5, the division succeeded in destroying a Soviet brigade at altitudes between 3000 and 4000 m. However, an attack on the port city of Tuapse on the Black Sea failed due to a lack of strength.

On August 21, 1942, a high mountain range made up of soldiers from the 1st and 4th Mountain Divisions reached Elbrus , the highest mountain in the Caucasus and Russia at 5642 m.

In mid-September 1942, the division was detached from the front in the Elbrus region, leaving GebJgRegt 99 (fruit from Le Suire) in place and relocated to the Pontic Caucasus via Maikop . They wanted to try to break through to the Black Sea coast with the group "Lanz", consisting of regiments 98 and 13 . This attempt failed. On November 2, 1942, the attack collapsed with heavy losses of its own. Since Hitler refused to take back troops in time, the 1st Mountain Division suffered heavy losses. At the turn of the year 1942/43, the XXXXIX finally sat down. Mountain Corps on a front 400 km wide from the Forest Caucasus into the Kuban bridgehead and thus evaded the Soviet access, which wanted to destroy the AK. On January 23, 1943, the division and the units assigned to it cleared the last mountain positions and reunited with the Le Suire group at Maikop . The 1st Mountain Division was reunited.

Withdrawal from the Soviet Union

Lieutenant General Walter Stettner Ritter von Grabenhofen, June 1943

In January 1943 Lieutenant General Walter Stettner Ritter von Grabenhofen took over the leadership of the division.

While the members of the division were preparing for defensive battles in the Kuban bridgehead, a decision was made about the further deployment of the "Edelweiss" division. The 1st Mountain Division was intended for the "Schwarz" company in the Balkans .

The division's marching performance in the Soviet Union was enormous. 4,955 km were covered on foot, 925 km by train.

The division's total losses up to December 31, 1942 were 13,227 men. Of these, 141 officers, 457 NCOs and 2,651 men were killed, 288 officers, 1,218 NCOs and 8,205 men were wounded, and 1 officer, 14 NCOs and 252 men were missing.

During the operations in the Soviet Union, members of the division were twice awarded the Knight's Cross (Lieutenant General Lanz and Captain Harald von Hirschfeld ), 23 times the Knight's Cross, 50 times the German Cross in gold, once the German Cross in silver, and 956 Iron Crosses 1st class, ten clips for the Iron Cross 1st class, 8,482 times the Iron Cross 2nd class, 27 clips for the Iron Cross 2nd class, 39 war merit crosses 1st and 2,839 times 2nd class awarded.

Use in Southeastern Europe 1943–1945

Operations against partisans

From Bulgaria, the division moved to Montenegro to fight partisans (April 15 to June 16, 1943). When the division was relocated there, it had already lost over 19,000 men in the course of the war.

At the beginning of July 1943, the 1st Mountain Division was transferred to western Greece in the Epirus to fend off an expected Allied invasion. However, this did not happen. Instead, individual units were used in the fight against Greek and Albanian partisans. In doing so, they were ruthless against civilians, including women, children and the elderly. In the three months between the beginning of July and the beginning of October 1943 alone, around 207 villages with around 4,500 houses are said to have been destroyed and over 2,000 civilians, Greeks and Albanians, killed. An example of this is the Kommeno massacre , which killed 317 residents, including young children, 94 children under 15 and many over 65. An indication that there were very few skirmishes with partisans is the fact that only 23 mountain troops died in this period.

During a major operation against Tito's partisans and Chetniks in the early summer of 1943, the 1st Mountain Division took 498 prisoners. She shot 411 of them without trial.

After Italy had signed an armistice with the Allies in early September 1943, parts of the 1st Mountain Division occupied the Ionian islands of Kefalonia, which had been secured by Italian troops. Between September 21 and 24, 1943, soldiers of the division disarmed around 5,200 Italian soldiers in the massacre on Kefalonia and then shot them, all of them officers. It is one of the most serious German war crimes in the Mediterranean region.

On November 11, 1943, 12,657 Swabians and Bavaria, 3,401 Austrians, 1,551 Rhinelander and Hesse, 1,463 Silesian and Sudeten Germans, 761 Baden and Alsatians, 701 Saxons and Anhalter, 482 Berliners, Hanoverians and Hanseatics, and 441 East Prussians served in the 1st Mountain Division and Danziger.

From December 4, 1943 to April 10, 1944, the division was subordinate to the 5th SS Mountain Army Corps of the 2nd Panzer Army and deployed in Bosnia and Croatia. On January 2, 1944, the mountain troops took - as they believed and hoped - a decisive blow against the communist partisans of Tito, but were unable to arrest the rebel leader.

Fights in Serbia and Hungary

In March 1944, the division took part in the occupation of Hungary . At that time it was directly subordinate to the OKH / OKW . After the division had disarmed war-weary Hungarian units in its section and thus could calm the situation, it was pulled out on April 30, 1944 and used to defend the Carpathian passes. Even in this situation, the troops were able to consolidate the wavering military situation. At the beginning of May 1944 she was called back to Greece.

After the fall of Bulgaria, the Greek islands lost their value. The 1st Mountain Division was used from May 3, 1944 to July 20, 1944 against partisans, who intensified their activities more and more. From July 25 to August 27, 1944, the mountain troops were deployed in Montenegro and met well-organized partisan units. Between August 28 and September 5, 1944, the division marched within Army Group F to the battle in Serbia.

In September 1944, the 1st Mountain Division stood wide apart between Vlasotince and Zaječar on the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border in heavy defensive battles. The division and the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division “Prinz Eugen” got caught in a cauldron. The division was split into three parts on September 30, 1944 by a Soviet armored wedge with the strength of five divisions and one brigade . Because of the hopeless situation, the division was withdrawn from October 1 to 14, 1944 against the Morava , with bitter fighting. The field replacement battalion was completely wiped out. In mid-October the division moved via Požarevac to the area south of Belgrade. A catastrophe loomed for the 1st Mountain Division at the gates of the city. Since October 5, 1944, strong Soviet forces stood on the north bank of the Danube opposite Belgrade.

It was not until October 12, 1944 that the division received the order to withdraw immediately behind the Morava after it had been subordinate to the Serbian military commander (General Hans-Gustav Felber ) from October 10, 1944 . On October 17, 1944, the division commander Lieutenant General Walter Stettner Ritter von Grabenhofen abandoned the originally intended breakthrough into Belgrade and decided to break through to the west in order to avoid an impending encirclement. All weapons that could not be loaded onto pack animals had to be destroyed. The breakout succeeded leaving behind all the wounded unable to walk. On October 19, 1944, however, the division was included again. An attempt to break out failed. 5,000 mountain troops remained in the basin south of Belgrade, including the division commander Stettner Ritter von Grabenhofen. He's been missing since then.

A few days after breaking out of the pocket, the field replacement battalion 54 was attacked by Titopartisans and almost completely destroyed. His commander, Major Dodel, has since been considered missing, although, according to eyewitnesses, he was shot on December 24, 1944 in a gravel pit near Belgrade.

Major General August Wittmann had taken over the leadership of the division and built a new defensive front in the Drina-Save triangle. For one month, between October 23 and November 21, 1944, the division was involved in positional battles behind the Drina. After separate missions - the southern group "Groth" fought in the Kraljevo area - the division was finally deployed again south of Lake Balaton. The refreshment of the division came to an end during the wintry position battles between the Drava and Lake Balaton. On December 17, 1944, Lieutenant General Josef Kübler , brother of General Ludwig Kübler, took over the 1st Mountain Division. From November 23, 1944 to March 5, 1945 it was deployed between the Drava and Lake Balaton and repulsed all attacks by the Red Army with heavy losses.

In the spring of 1945 the division took part from March 6 to March 22 in the Association of XXII. Army Corps (General Lanz) took part in the last major decisive battle of the southeastern theater of war south of Lake Balaton in Hungary. Despite local successes, no breakthrough could be achieved. On March 12, 1945 the division was renamed 1. Volks-Gebirgs-Division . In mid-March 1945 Lieutenant General Wittmann took over the leadership of the division again.

The end in Styria

On March 26, 1945, the Red Army made a breakthrough north of Lake Balaton. To secure the Raab crossing at Kam, the division returned to the Hegy-Beicz Gyertyanos line on March 28th. The renewed deposition in the Reichsschutzstellung turned out to be a race against time, which the mountain troops won. During the fighting in the Oberwart district , which the mountain division as part of the III. Panzer Corps against the Soviet 26th Army, they played a major role in preventing the German front from collapsing completely. The division's last major attack took place at the end of April 1945 against enemy forces that had broken through in Feistritztal in order to close a threatening gap on Semmering. The front section could be held until the end of the war. On May 7, 1945, the division received the order to withdraw behind the Enns by 9 p.m. on May 8, 1945.

Until May 12, 1945, the divisional staff at Liezen still managed the smuggling of German soldiers coming from the east behind the American demarcation line. The war ended for the division in the American prisoner-of-war camp in Mauerkirchen. By mid-July 1945 all mountain troops had been released.

people

Commanders

  • Lieutenant General Josef Kübler - December 17, 1944 to mid-March 1945
  • Lieutenant General August Wittmann - mid-March 1945 to May 12, 1945

Well-known members of the division

Maintenance of tradition

The former soldiers of the division are mostly in the comrades circle of the mountain troops e. V. organized.

literature

  • Hubert Lanz , Max Pemsel: Mountain Hunters. The 1st Mountain Division 1935–1945 . Podzun, Bad Nauheim 1954.
  • Hermann Frank Meyer : Bloody edelweiss. The 1st Mountain Division in World War II , Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 3-86153-447-9 . ( Online ).
  • Hermann Frank Meyer: Come on. Narrative reconstruction of a Wehrmacht crime in Greece . Romiosini, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-929889-34-X .
  • Josef M. Bauer : Company "Elbrus": The Caucasian Adventure . Factual report. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-548-33162-9 .
  • Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945. Volume 2. The Land Forces 1–5 . 2nd Edition. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1973, ISBN 3-7648-0871-3 .
  • Ian Baxter: Hitler's Mountain Troops 1939-1945: The Gebirgsjager . Images of War. Pen & Sword Books, 2011, ISBN 978-1-84884-354-7 .
  • Klaus Schmider: Partisan War in Yugoslavia 1941–1944 . Mittler, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 978-3-8132-0794-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pointing to Blind Spots A discourse analysis of soldiery memorial practices ... (PDF) Series of publications by the Interdisciplinary Center for Education and Communication in Migration Processes (IBKM) at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg No. 45, PDF - p. 56.
  2. ↑ Hannes Heer: Bloody Overture. In: Die Zeit , June 21, 2001.
  3. ↑ Roland Kaltenegger : The main division of the German mountain troops . Leopold Stocker Verlag 1981, ISBN 978-3-7020-0363-0 .
  4. ↑ Mark Mazower : Inside Hitler's Greece . Yale University Press, New Haven / London 2001, p. 191 f.
  5. ↑ Klaus Schmider : A detour to a war of extermination? The partisan war in Yugoslavia, 1941–1944 . In: RD Müller, HE Volkmann, (Ed. On behalf of MGFA ): The Wehrmacht: Myth and Reality . Oldenbourg, Munich, 1999, ISBN 3-486-56383-1 , p. 912.
  6. ↑ Overview of the holdings of the Federal Archives, RH 28-1 ( Memento from November 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
  7. ^ Manfried Rauchsteiner : The War in Austria 1945 . Austrian Bundesverlag, Vienna 1984, ISBN 3-215-01672-9 .