188th Reserve Mountain Division (Wehrmacht)
German Division Nr. 188 was raised in late 1939. It consisted of the 136th, 138th and 139th Mountain Replacement Regiments and the 112th Artillery Replacement Regiment, plus supporting units. It began the war on border guard duty in the mountainous region between Austria and Yugoslavia with the primary mission of training reservists and replacements for the regular mountain divisions. In the spring of 1941 it joined the invasion of Yugoslavia, with the three mountain regiments given responsibility of seizing control of Carniola and Carinthia on the Yugoslav side of the border, which they carried out quickly and effectively against little to no resistance.
After the campaign the division remained in reserve at Innsbruck. On 8 October 1943 it was redesignated as the 188th Reserve Mountain Division and reorganized with Reserve Mountain Regiments 136, 137, 138, and 139, each with two battalions, and Reserve Artillery Regiment 112, also with two battalions, and transferred to northern Italy. On 27 February 1944 it was transferred to Istria and served on anti-partisan duties. A few days later it was again redesignated as the 188th Mountain Division and its regiments were redesignated as Mountain Regiments 901, 902, 903, 904 and Mountain Artillery Regiment 1088. It surrendered in Istria when the war ended in 1945.
Read more about 188th Reserve Mountain Division (Wehrmacht): Commanders
Famous quotes containing the words reserve, mountain and/or division:
“If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can’t go at dawn and not many places he can’t go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking—one sport you shouldn’t have to reserve a time and a court for.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“The mountain stood there to be pointed at.
Pasture ran up the side a little way,
And then there was a wall of trees with trunks;
After that only tops of trees, and cliffs
Imperfectly concealed among the leaves.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“For in the division of the nations of the whole earth he set a ruler over every people; but Israel is the Lord’s portion: whom, being his firstborn, he nourisheth with discipline, and giving him the light of his love doth not forsake him. Therefore all their works are as the sun before him, and his eyes are continually upon their ways.”
—Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus 17:17-9.