The End of the Road?Perhaps mankind can attain a portion of noble purity in pursuit of the Edelweiss above the tree line.
Though we must never forget that they served a regime that deserved defeat, the men of the Gebirgsjäger possessed a quality derived from their mountaineering ethos that was able to endure, transcend and survive. The Gebirgsjäger of post war Germany and Austria served the cause of freedom and rebuilding the world. Maybe by demanding more of themselves in the heights of the world, they found a place in the future to raise it back from the depths to which it had fallen. |
2. Division Gebirgsjäger in Lapland
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The Epilogue from Alpine Elite by James Sydney Lucas
"In May 1945 the war in Europe came to an end. During the last months of battle, as the Allied hosts fought their way in from the south, west and the east, compressing the shattered remnants of the German Army into what remained of the Third Reich, the Gebirgs divisions were active on each side of the fighting fronts.
The 1st Gebirgs Division, an account of whose 99th Regiment is given in the preceding chapter, was on the Eastern Front together with the 3rd, 4th and 9th Divisions. On the southern front were the 5th and 8th Gebirgs Divisions, while in Lapland, and thus effectively out of the final battles, were both the 6th and 7th Divisions. The 2nd fought on the Western Front against the US Army in southern Germany, and in Yugoslavia there were the remnants of the SS Gebirgs formations.
A friend whose war experiences went back to before World War I was sent to Norway as a Field officer, to arrange the surrender of part of the German forces there. On the docks at Narvik he saw the men of 20th Gebirgs Army arrive to embark to go home to a shattered and occupied Germany. The embarkation of the other military, naval and Luftwaffe units had been unremarkable, the lines of grey looking men shuffling along, despair on every face.
But then there came a distinct and thrilling change from the monotony of an army in defeat. The men of the Gebirgs divisions swung, singing, down the road to the jetty and Major Harvey was moved by unexpected and deep feelings. Passing before him he saw not the soldiers of a defeated and alien enemy force but the type of man who had formed the ranks of the infantry regiments of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914 and whom he had led in the desperate battles around Ypres and on the Somme.
Young, confident, superbly fit, trained and self-possessed these men of the enemy's Army swung past Jim Harvey as he stood there choked with the emotion of memories of soldiers whose officer he had been. The assessment of those men of one Army by a professional soldier of another was that these were soldiers whom he would have been proud to lead into battle for these, he knew, were comrades in arms, reliable and dependable.
Those virtues which Jim Harvey recognised were also appreciated by the General Staffs of the armies of Germany and of Austria. Within a few years of the ending of World War II frontier detachments had been formed and those units whose province lay in the mountains formed Gebirgsjäger frontier companies. With time and the reformation of a German Army to serve within NATO, came an expansion of those companies into regiments so that now in the service of the Federal Republic there is a Gebirgsjäger arm of service with a tradition created out of the battles of two great wars. Austria as a neutral may have no alliances and her Army is smaller than that of western Germany, but in her order of battle are the Gebirgsjäger, descendants of the men who under Andreas Hofer held the Tirol against Napoleon and under Hotzendorff became the Edelweiss Corps, the crack formation of the old Imperial and Royal Army.
Tactics may change. Helicopters can now bring the Jäger, their supplies and even their rocket-propelled artillery from valley to mountain peak in minutes, and save the strain of climbing for hours or even days. But for those situations in which, because of weather conditions, the choppers cannot fly and the call is for the high ground to be taken, then it will be Jäger infantryman, tough, tireless and confident who, overcoming all the difficulties of climate and terrain, will fight his way forward to the objective and be found waiting to receive his enemies with accurate fire from well-chosen positions. The Gebirgsjäger, like the mountain flower which he wears in his cap, will be found flourishing and resilient on the loneliest and most inaccessible peak."
"In May 1945 the war in Europe came to an end. During the last months of battle, as the Allied hosts fought their way in from the south, west and the east, compressing the shattered remnants of the German Army into what remained of the Third Reich, the Gebirgs divisions were active on each side of the fighting fronts.
The 1st Gebirgs Division, an account of whose 99th Regiment is given in the preceding chapter, was on the Eastern Front together with the 3rd, 4th and 9th Divisions. On the southern front were the 5th and 8th Gebirgs Divisions, while in Lapland, and thus effectively out of the final battles, were both the 6th and 7th Divisions. The 2nd fought on the Western Front against the US Army in southern Germany, and in Yugoslavia there were the remnants of the SS Gebirgs formations.
A friend whose war experiences went back to before World War I was sent to Norway as a Field officer, to arrange the surrender of part of the German forces there. On the docks at Narvik he saw the men of 20th Gebirgs Army arrive to embark to go home to a shattered and occupied Germany. The embarkation of the other military, naval and Luftwaffe units had been unremarkable, the lines of grey looking men shuffling along, despair on every face.
But then there came a distinct and thrilling change from the monotony of an army in defeat. The men of the Gebirgs divisions swung, singing, down the road to the jetty and Major Harvey was moved by unexpected and deep feelings. Passing before him he saw not the soldiers of a defeated and alien enemy force but the type of man who had formed the ranks of the infantry regiments of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914 and whom he had led in the desperate battles around Ypres and on the Somme.
Young, confident, superbly fit, trained and self-possessed these men of the enemy's Army swung past Jim Harvey as he stood there choked with the emotion of memories of soldiers whose officer he had been. The assessment of those men of one Army by a professional soldier of another was that these were soldiers whom he would have been proud to lead into battle for these, he knew, were comrades in arms, reliable and dependable.
Those virtues which Jim Harvey recognised were also appreciated by the General Staffs of the armies of Germany and of Austria. Within a few years of the ending of World War II frontier detachments had been formed and those units whose province lay in the mountains formed Gebirgsjäger frontier companies. With time and the reformation of a German Army to serve within NATO, came an expansion of those companies into regiments so that now in the service of the Federal Republic there is a Gebirgsjäger arm of service with a tradition created out of the battles of two great wars. Austria as a neutral may have no alliances and her Army is smaller than that of western Germany, but in her order of battle are the Gebirgsjäger, descendants of the men who under Andreas Hofer held the Tirol against Napoleon and under Hotzendorff became the Edelweiss Corps, the crack formation of the old Imperial and Royal Army.
Tactics may change. Helicopters can now bring the Jäger, their supplies and even their rocket-propelled artillery from valley to mountain peak in minutes, and save the strain of climbing for hours or even days. But for those situations in which, because of weather conditions, the choppers cannot fly and the call is for the high ground to be taken, then it will be Jäger infantryman, tough, tireless and confident who, overcoming all the difficulties of climate and terrain, will fight his way forward to the objective and be found waiting to receive his enemies with accurate fire from well-chosen positions. The Gebirgsjäger, like the mountain flower which he wears in his cap, will be found flourishing and resilient on the loneliest and most inaccessible peak."