Arctic and Alpine Warfare

I reckon one of the reasons I am so into snow, skiing and Arctic history is that some of my formative years (the most?) I spent in Switzerland with superb skiing in the Alps every winter week.

I often think of the fact that the WWII Gebirgsjägers (mountain infantry) in Norway and Finland had a somewhat similar background, they were almost all raised in the Alpine areas of Austria and Bavaria. In addition quite a few of the Gebirgsjäger officers had fought in the Alps during WWI.

Enter almost any graveyard in Austria and you will find images of Gebirgsjägers who died in the Arctic/Russia. This gravestone that I photographed in Fulpmes, Austria, belongs to one Heinrich Sterzinger, fallen somewhere "in the east" in 1942.

Because of this I have "always" wondered about how the WWI and WWII battlegrounds in the Alps look like today. Well, here is the answer. Nice website, Herr Mößlang, and thank you for the tip, Dom.