The Battle of Jebsheim / Alsace then and Now

[Jürg]

Another forgotten battle which turned a small town into a slaughterhouse.

http://standwheretheyfought.jimdo.co...-then-and-now/

Any comment welcome and please forgive me that I post the stuff on my own site and place only the link to it.

Jürg

[Eric JB]

Jürg,

Well my friend I must say that you did another great Then and Now tour.

Thanks for the good work.

yours friendly

Eric-Jan

[GEBIRGS-JAGER]

Thank you very much for your post and great website. Brian

[PerMilitaria]

Good work! Great website!

[Simon O.]

As this battle involved the 2 Gebirgs Division, it has a connection to my own area of reasearch.

The 2 GD, had been in the very far North, within the arctic circle since 1940. After suffering heavy casualties in the attempt to capture Murmansk in 1941 it settled down to a life of static warfare until october 1944 when the Soviets launched the largest offensive ever to have been carried out in the arctic, in order to push the German XIX Gebirgs Korps out of Russia, Finland and the furthest NE part of Norway. The 2 GD again suffered serious casualties, around 10% of the divisional strength, but avoided the Russian attempt to surround and destroy it. It then spent the next 2 months, slowly moving southwards through Norway until it got to the Oslo area in december where it was slowly embarked, bit by bit and transferred to the continent where it was hastilly rebuilt to a 44 type Gebirgs Division, in the first days of January before being thrown into the western front where it was ground up by allied forces. A Gebirgs division was no match for mechanized allied formations.

In Norway, many believe that keeping 350 000 odd Germans tied down here was a great help in the war effort. On the contrary, i believe it made no difference and this battle indicates why. Most of the best of the divisions serving in Norway\Finland were transferred to the continent from late 44 to early 45. Two divisions were sent to the Western front, the 2 GD and the 6 SS-GD 'Nord', four others were sent to the east. They had virtually no effect on the fighting. Most of them were veteran divisions with many years comabt experience, but it was in the arctic tundra or primeval forests of Finland. Not against a highly mechanized enemy with air superiority.