1st Mountain Division: Wehrmacht Unit Behind Massacres in Greece and the Balkans

The 1st Mountain Division, known as the Edelweiss Division, was a German Wehrmacht unit responsible for mass atrocities across Europe during World War II. The 1st Mountain Division—also known as the Edelweiss Division—was one of the most notorious units of the German Wehrmacht in World War II. Formed in 1938 and originally trained for alpine warfare, the division gained infamy not for its military achievements but for a trail of brutal atrocities that spanned from Poland to Greece. Initially part of the invasions of Poland and France, its soldiers were involved early on in the killing of civilians and prisoners of war. But it was during the campaigns in the Soviet Union and the Balkans where the unit became synonymous with mass murder and revenge killings. In the Soviet Union, the division took part in the destruction of Soviet armies and was involved in pogroms against Jewish civilians in places like Lviv. Starving Soviet prisoners of war and systematic shootings followed. But the worst crimes came after 1943, when the Edelweiss Division was redeployed to the Balkans. There, in Greece and Albania, they were no longer fighting armies—but civilians accused of supporting partisans. Entire villages were wiped out in so-called “anti-bandit” operations: in Borovë, villagers were burned alive inside a church; in Mousiotitsa, 136 civilians were machine-gunned; in Kommeno, 317 people, including 94 children, were murdered; in Lingiades, 92 were killed in retaliation for a German officer’s death. These were not battles—they were massacres. The division also executed thousands of surrendered Italian soldiers in Kefalonia and Sarandë after Italy switched sides in 1943. Over 200 villages were destroyed, with only a handful of German losses, exposing the lopsided cruelty of these acts. By war’s end, the Edelweiss flower on their uniforms no longer symbolized purity, but murder. After the war, several of the division’s commanders and soldiers were either killed during combat, died in air raids, or were tried and executed. The legacy of the 1st Mountain Division remains a chilling reminder of how elite military units can be transformed into engines of terror.This episode is part of the series Forces of WWII: Inside the Units.Watch the full documentary and explore hundreds of historical films at:WorldHistory.tv