Alpine Elite: German Mountain Troops of World War II

This book records for the first time in the English language, the story of Germany's mountain troops, the Gebirgsjager. A distinguished military historian, with the help of some 200 ex-members of the Gebirgsjager, has now written this enthralling account of one of Germany's elite formations of World War II. In every campaign from the opening of hostilities wherever fighting was bitter the Gebrigsjager were there. Often they paved the way and led the storming advances or, when the German line was under pressure, held a rock-firm defence. The extremes of climate which they endured ranged from the deadly cold of the mountains during a Russian winter to the trek across the blazing arid slopes of the mountains of Crete to relieve the desperate parachute troops. The Polar circle, the mountains of Tunisia, on steppe, in swamps or in the high country: all these varied terrains were fought over by the men from the Alpine regions of Germany and Austria. To carry out the research around which the narrative has been written original documents, war diaries and histories were consulted in institutions both at home and abroad. Many interviews were conducted with men who had served in the mountain regiments, as well as with Austrian civilians who experienced at first hand the fighting in their country during the spring of 1945, and these reports brings additional life to the graphic history.