The 1st Mountain Division (German: 1. Gebirgs-Division) was an elite formation of the GermanWehrmacht during World War II, and is remembered for its involvement in multiple large-scale war crimes.
It was created on 9 April 1938 in Garmisch Partenkirchen from the Mountain Brigade (German: Gebirgs Brigade) which was itself formed on 1 June 1935.
Poland and France
The 1st Mountain Division fought in the invasion of Poland in September 1939 as a part of Army Group South and distinguished itself during fighting in the Carpathians and at Lwów. On 8 September 1939 in the village of Rozdziel its soldiers committed a war crime (killing six civilians and three prisoners of war and burning houses) and attempting to execute another 250 civilians.[citation needed]
Soldiers of the 1st Mountain Division during an anti-partisan operation in Yugoslavia, 1943–44
The 1st Mountain Division participated in Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union that began on 22 June 1941. On 30 June, the division captured Lviv. There, the Germans discovered several thousand bodies of prisoners the Soviet NKVD had executed because they could not be evacuated.
In a symbolic propaganda move, the division sent a detachment to raise the German flag on Mount Elbrus on 21 August 1942. Although the feat was widely publicized by Josef Goebbels, Hitler was furious over what he called "these crazy mountain climbers," his rage lasting for hours.[1][2] However, by December 1942 with Soviet forces encircling the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, the 1st Mountain Division, as part of the 17th Army, was ordered to withdraw to the Kuban bridgehead.
During the onvasion of Poland in September 1939, soldiers from the division assisted in the round-up of Jewish civilians from Przemyśl for forced labour, and photos of this were printed in newspapers.[3]
During the Case Black operation in Yugoslavia in May–June 1943, the division and other units committed crimes against prisoners of war and civilians. In its after-action report on 10 July, the division reported that it took 498 prisoners, 411 of whom were shot.[4]
On 6 July 1943 a unit from the division attacked the village of Borovë in Albania. All of the houses and buildings were completely burned or otherwise destroyed. Among the 107 inhabitants killed were five entire families. The youngest victim was aged four months, and the oldest 73.
On 25 July 1943, soldiers from the division attacked the village of Mousiotitsa in Greece after a cache of weapons was found nearby, killing 153 civilians. On 16 August 1943, the village of Kommeno was attacked on the orders of OberstleutnantJosef Salminger, the commander of GebirgsJäger Regiment 98. A total of 317 civilians were killed.
After the killing of Oberstleutnant Josef Salminger by Greek partisans, the commander of XXII Gebirgs-Armeekorps, General der GebirgstruppeHubert Lanz, ordered, on 1 October 1943, a "ruthless retaliatory action" in a 20-kilometre (12 mi)[clarification needed] area around the place where Salminger had been attacked. In the village of Lyngiades, 92 of its 96 residents were executed.[6]
The division's war crimes are described in H. F. Meyer's book Bloodstained Edelweiss: The 1st Mountain Division in the Second World War.[7]
Wego Chiang, son of the Chinese leader General Chiang Kai-shek, who served in I./Gebirgsjäger-Regiment 98 from 1937 to 1939, reaching the rank of leutnant before returning to China at the outbreak of World War II.
^Klein, Ralph; Mentner, Regina; Stracke, Stephan (2004). Mörder unterm Edelweiss : Dokumentation des Hearings zu den Kriegsverbrechen der Gebirgsjäger [Murderer under the Edelweiss: Documentation of the Hearing of the War Crimes of the Mountain Jäger] (Angreifbare Traditionspflege ed.). Köln: Papyrossa. ISBN3-89438-295-3. OCLC55963087.
Bauer, Josef M. (1992), Unternehmen "Elbrus": Das kaukasische Abenteuer: Tatsachenbericht (in German), Frankfurt am Main/Berlin: Ullstein, ISBN3-548-33162-9
Baxter, Ian (2011), Hitler's Mountain Troops 1939–1945: The Gebirgsjager: Images of War (in German), Pen & Sword Books, ISBN978-1-84884-354-7
Klein, Ralph; Mentner, Regina; Stracke, Stephan (2004). Mörder unterm Edelweiss: Dokumentation des Hearings zu den Kriegsverbrechen der Gebirgsjäger. ISBN3894382953.
Lanz, Hubert; Pemsel, Max (1954). Gebirgsjäger: Die 1. Gebirgs-Division 1935–1945 (in German). Bad Nauheim: Podzun.
Meyer, Hermann Frank (1999). Kommeno. Erzählende Rekonstruktion eines Wehrmachtsverbrechens in Griechenland (in German). Cologne: Romiosini. ISBN392988934X.
Meyer, Hermann Frank (2008). Blutiges Edelweiß: Die 1. Gebirgs-Division im Zweiten Weltkrieg (in German). Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag. ISBN978-3861534471.
Schmider, Klaus (2002). Partisanenkrieg in Jugoslawien 1941–1944 [Partisan War in Yugoslavia 1941–1944] (in German). Hamburg: Mittler. ISBN9783813207941.