6 Gebirgs Division photo albums and documents re-united

[Simon O.]

This story begins 15 years ago when I bought two of the best GJ photo albums I have in my collection. They chart the military career of an Austrian career NCO from his time in the Bundesheer, through the Anschluss, the invasion of Poland, France, the Balkans on up to the Lizafront in the far North, the end of the war and beyond. Through all those years I never knew his name, I could work out much of his wartime journey through the photos but I was missing a large chunk of the story.
Here are the albums and an early photo of our man.


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Then, a few weeks ago I was browsing through a London based militaria dealers site, actually looking for British medals but as they have some German stuff I searched for 'Norway' and up popped this large group. The first thing I noticed is that it belonged to a Stabsfeldwebel from 2./GJR 143 and a light went on in my head, could this be the same soldier I've had the photo albums to for the last 15 years?

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[Simon O.]

The rank of stabsfeldwebel is not a common one and I knew I had photo albums belonging to a soldier of that rank from I./GJR 143, but could it be the same man?

The group consists of 4 award documents, some pages from his soldbuch, his EKM, some pages from a diary covering august to dec 41 (all translated in to English by a previous owner) and some other bits and pieces.

So, I looked at the award documents and Sb pages to see if I could match them up to photos in the albums.

Firstly, starting with the Sudetenland medal, At the time Feldwebel Fidel Moritz belonged to 2./GJR 136 (the 6 GD wasn't formed until 1940) and sure enough the albums have several pages covering the Sudetenland annexation. I the group photo below he is fourth from the right at the back. So I had a match here.


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Next we have his EKII, not often you find a Polish campaign award to a gebirgsjäger, still with the 2 Geb.Div. the doc is signed by Valentin Feurstein. sure enough there are photos from the Polish campaign.


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[Simon O.]

So next we have the French campaign, by this time he had been transferred to the newly formed 6 Geb.Div. , had he remained with the 2 Geb.Div. he would of course have gone to Norway instead. No further decoration for Moritz during this campaign but a great photo of him, still as a feldwebel showing both his EKII and sudetenland medal ribbons. So it's all matching up so far.


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After a peaceful time on occupation duties in France and preparations for the invasion of Britain which would never happen he next moves to Bulgaria and takes part in the invasion of Greece and more confirmation that I'm on the right track. Amongst the Greek campaign photos there's one grave to a member of 2./GJR 143 and another of the kompanie sjef at the time and RK winner during that campaign Oberleutnant Karl Jacob

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[Simon O.]

In the late summer of 1941 the division was ordered to move to the arctic and replace the 3 Geb.Div. on the Litsa front.

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Moritz, now an oberfeldwebel and platoon leader took over defensive point K.7, the diary with the grouping follows their progress during those first couple of months in late 1941 and again in the albums several photographs are captioned as K.7. Mortiz is to the left in the center left photo and second from left in the middle group photo. I won't post the diary pages though they give an interesting insight in to the type of warfare carried out on this front, characterised by artillery and mortar duels along with raids against each other.


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[Simon O.]

Then we move on to April 1942. A series of small operations were planned and carried out against the Soviets. One of these was named Unternehmen Dolomiten, a stosstrupp of 31 men led by Moritz with heavy weapons support was to assault a Soviet set of bunkers 600m to the front of K.7, destroy the bunkers and take prisoners. Incredibly the complete after-action report is preserved in the archives of the XIX Gebirgs Korps.

The report states the raid was successful, incurring up to 40 casualties on the enemy, destroying bunkers, capturing 2 of the enemy but suffering only 4 wounded themselves. On the last page Moritz is praised for his leadership and bravery.
Another interesting thing to note is mention of one of Moritz's section leaders at the time, Siegfried Schöller, who also won the EKI on the same mission and would later go on to win the DKiG

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[Simon O.]

For his leadership on this raid Moritz was decorated with the EKI just 4 days later and there is even a photo of him receiving his EKI in the photo albums, on the back of the photo it confirms the award for the 'Dolomiten' operation and being presented at battalion headquarters by the regimental commander .

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A few months later and the infantry assault badge followed. By this time he's been promoted to Stabsfeldwebel

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There are two decorations missing from the group, his Ostmedaille and Lapplandschild

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The last 'wartime' photos of Moritz were actually taken after the end of the war and show a side many are not familiar with. Here we see Moritz in a kind of half uniform out hunting in the mountains sometime in May 45 after the end. I can't call it a surrender as they had no one to surrender to until the 20th May and even then the handful of allied troops in the area simply ordered the German troops to keep to their areas, within which they were pretty much free to do as they wished. I know exactly where these last photos were taken as I used to own a cabin in the valley below.

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[marcinkappa]

Wow! Great reuniting ! Well done. Very nice story told.

[Hank C.]

Awesome outcome Simon!

Best
H

[GHP]

What fantastic luck! GREAT!

[WalterB]

Amazing! Glad that such pieces have been re-united.

[Mil-Archive]

It's great to see groupings put back together again ! Congrats

[JUNGCO]

Man.I love when a group comes together!
Jeff

[TorpedoLos]

Bravo, Simon! Congrats and thanks for sharing. This is the sort of thing that, as a collecting community, we all hope to be able to do. What a treat to see this.

[Nigel]

Nice work, fella.

[Lenny W]

Nice job Simon