Eastern Front
The 1st Mountain Division participated in Operation Barbarossa, (the invasion of the Soviet Union). On 30 June, the division captured Lvov. There, the Germans discovered several thousand bodies of prisoners who had been executed by the NKVD, as they could not be evacuated. As the news spread, a large-scale anti-Jewish pogrom broke out, in which the town's Ukrainian population participated, stirred up in part by German and 'Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists' (OUN) posters and proclamations calling for revenge against the "Jewish Bolshevik murders".
The 1st Mountain Division continued its advance into the Soviet Union, participating in the breakthrough of the Stalin Line and the advance to the Dniepr and Mius rivers. In May 1942, the division fought in the Second Battle of Kharkov and then participated in the offensive through southern Russia and into the Caucasus (Operation Edelweiss).
In a symbolic propaganda move, the division sent a detachment to raise the German flag on Mount Elbrus on 21 August. Although the feat was widely publicized by Goebbels, Hitler was furious at this. After the Caucasus campaign the division was posted to Greece and later Serbia where it took part in anti- partisan operations.
But by late 1944 the division, as part of Army Group E, had been withdrawn to Hungary from the Balkans.
It was renamed 1. Volks-Gebirgs-Division in March 1945. Its final major operations were near Lake Balaton (Operation Spring Awakening) against the 3rd Ukrainian Front. Two months later the shattered division surrendered to the Americans in Austria.
Read more about this topic: 1st Mountain Division (Wehrmacht)
Famous quotes containing the words eastern and/or front:
“And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!”
—Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861)
“To fight oppression, and to work as best we can for a sane organization of society, we do not have to abandon the state of mind of freedom. If we do that we are letting the same thuggery in by the back door that we are fighting off in front of the house.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)