1st Mountain Division (Wehrmacht)

1. Gebirgs-Division (English: 1st Mountain Division)
Unit insignia
Active	1938–45
Country	Nazi Germany
Branch	Army
Type	Gebirgsjäger
Role	Mountain warfare
Size	Division
Engagements	World War II
Insignia
Identification symbol	Edelweiss

The 1st Mountain Division (German: 1. Gebirgs Division) was an elite formation of the German Wehrmacht 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. The division consisted mainly of Bavarians and some Austrians.

The 1st Mountain Division fought in the Invasion of Poland as a part of Army Group South and distinguished itself during fighting in the Carpathians and at Lwów.

It subsequently took part in the Battle of France and was selected to take part in the planned operations against the United Kingdom (Operation Sea Lion) and Gibraltar (Operation Felix) but both operations were cancelled. With Felix cancelled, the division took part in the Invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 as part of the 2nd Army.

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 the German and Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) posters and proclamations calling for revenge against the "Jewish Bolshevik murders".

...
Wikipedia