With them, they carried the Reich War Flag, as well as a pair of divisional standards.īoth Gammerler and Groth knew that the rest of Army Group ‘A’ were doing less well below them, moving at snail’s pace through the mountains, plodding south towards the Black Sea, but the mood among the climbers was buoyant. Led by Hauptmann Heinz Groth and Hauptmann Max Gammerler, both veterans of countless alpine ascents, they brewed coffee, struck camp and set off for the last steep kilometres that would take them to the summit of the highest peak in Europe. These were elite mountain troops, some from the First Mountain Division, the rest from the Fourth. The joint twenty-three-man team rose early, an hour before dawn. Hitler, meanwhile, is becoming ever more frustrated by the slow progress of the advance towards the oil fields beyond the mountains, so critical to his entire campaign. In his ceaseless search to stiffen German morale at home, Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels has organised an attempt by a party of elite troops to claim Europe’s highest peak, Mount Elbrus in the Caucuses, for the Reich. The following is an exclusive excerpt from Last Flight to Stalingrad, by Graham Hurley.
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