The Alps are one of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) across eight Alpine countries : Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
The Balkans, corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the whole of Bulgaria. The Balkan Peninsula is bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the northwest, the Ionian Sea in the southwest, the Aegean Sea in the south, the Turkish straits in the east, and the Black Sea in the northeast. The northern border of the peninsula is variously defined. The highest point of the Balkans is Musala, 2,925 metres (9,596 ft), in the Rila mountain range, Bulgaria.
The Sudetes, also known as the Sudeten Mountains or Sudetic Mountains, is a geomorphological subprovince of the Bohemian Massif province in Central Europe, shared by the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany. They consist mainly of mountain ranges and are the highest part of Bohemian Massif. They stretch from the Saxon capital of Dresden in the northwest across to the region of Lower Silesia in Poland and to the Moravian Gate in the Czech Republic in the east. Geographically the Sudetes are a Mittelgebirge with some characteristics typical of high mountains. Its plateaus and subtle summit relief makes the Sudetes more akin to mountains of Northern Europe than to the Alps.
Paul Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized versions of German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Arthur Schopenhauer.
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly 1,500 km (930 mi) long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at 2,500 km (1,600 mi) and the Scandinavian Mountains at 1,700 km (1,100 mi). The range stretches from the far eastern Czech Republic (3%) and Austria (1%) in the northwest through Slovakia (21%), Poland (10%), Ukraine (10%), Romania (50%) to Serbia (5%) in the south. The highest range within the Carpathians is known as the Tatra mountains in Poland and Slovakia, where the highest peaks exceed 2,600 m (8,500 ft). The second-highest range is the Southern Carpathians in Romania, where the highest peaks range between 2,500 m (8,200 ft) and 2,550 m (8,370 ft).
The Dolomites, also known as the Dolomite Mountains, Dolomite Alps or Dolomitic Alps, are a mountain range in northeastern Italy. They form part of the Southern Limestone Alps and extend from the River Adige in the west to the Piave Valley in the east. The northern and southern borders are defined by the Puster Valley and the Sugana Valley. The Dolomites are in the regions of Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, covering an area shared between the provinces of Belluno, Vicenza, Verona, Trentino, South Tyrol, Udine and Pordenone.
South Tyrol is an autonomous province in northern Italy. An English translation of the official German and Italian names could be the Autonomous Province of Bolzano – South Tyrol, reflecting the multilingualism and different naming conventions in the area. Together with the autonomous province of Trento, South Tyrol forms the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province is the northernmost of Italy, the second largest with an area of 7,400 square kilometres (2,857 sq mi), and has a total population of about 534,000 inhabitants as of 2021. Its capital and largest city is Bolzano.
The Jura Mountains are a sub-alpine mountain range a short distance north of the Western Alps and mainly demarcate a long part of the French–Swiss border. While the Jura range proper is located in France and Switzerland, the range continues as the Table Jura northeastwards through northern Switzerland and Germany.
The Ore Mountains lie along the Czech–German border, separating the historical regions of Bohemia in the Czech Republic and Saxony in Germany. The highest peaks are the Klínovec in the Czech Republic at 1,244 metres (4,081 ft) above sea level and the Fichtelberg in Germany at 1,215 metres (3,986 ft).
Mountain guns are artillery pieces designed for mountain warfare and other areas where wheeled transport is not possible. They are generally capable of being taken apart to make smaller loads for transport by horses, humans, mules, tractors, or trucks. As such, they are sometimes called "pack guns" or "pack howitzers". During the American Civil War these small portable guns were widely used and were called "mountain howitzers".
The Vosges are a range of medium mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a single geomorphological unit and low mountain range of around 8,000 km2 (3,100 sq mi) in area. It runs in a north-northeast direction from the Burgundian Gate to the Börrstadt Basin, and forms the western boundary of the Upper Rhine Plain.
Nanga Parbat, known locally as Diamer, is the ninth-highest mountain on Earth and its summit is at 8,126 m (26,660 ft) above sea level. Lying immediately southeast of the northernmost bend of the Indus River in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Nanga Parbat is the westernmost major peak of the Himalayas, and thus in the traditional view of the Himalayas as bounded by the Indus and Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra rivers, it is the western anchor of the entire mountain range.
Mountain Jews or Caucasus Jews, also known as Juhuro,Juvuro,Juhuri,Juwuri, Juhurim,Kavkazi Jews or Gorsky Jews, are Jews of the eastern and northern Caucasus, mainly Azerbaijan, and various republics in the Russian Federation: Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Kabardino-Balkaria. The Mountain Jews comprise Persian-speaking Jewry along with the Jews of Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. The Mountain Jews are the descendants of Persian Jews from Iran, and fall within the Mizrachi category of Jews. Mountain Jews took shape as a community after Qajar Iran ceded the areas in which they lived to the Russian Empire as part of the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813.
New Swabia was a disputed Antarctic claim by Nazi Germany within the Norwegian territorial claim of Queen Maud Land and is now a cartographic name sometimes given to an area of Antarctica between 20°E and 10°W in Queen Maud Land. New Swabia was explored by Germany in early 1939 and named after that expedition's ship, Schwabenland, itself named after the German region of Swabia.
The 9th Mountain Division was the name given to two separate German military divisions by accident in 1945.
The 1st Mountain Division was an elite formation of the German Wehrmacht during World War II, and is remembered for its involvement in multiple large-scale war crimes. It was created on 9 April 1938 in Garmisch Partenkirchen from the Mountain Brigade which was itself formed on 1 June 1935.
Gebirgsjäger are the light infantry part of the alpine or mountain troops (Gebirgstruppe) of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The word Jäger is a characteristic term used for light infantry in German speaking countries.
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog is a painting by German Romanticist artist Caspar David Friedrich made in 1818. It depicts a man standing upon a rocky precipice with his back to the viewer; he is gazing out on a landscape covered in a thick sea of fog through which other ridges, trees, and mountains pierce, which stretches out into the distance indefinitely.
During World War II, the Lapland War saw fighting between Finland and Nazi Germany – effectively from September to November 1944 – in Finland's northernmost region, Lapland. Though the Finns and the Germans had been fighting together against the Soviet Union since 1941 during the Continuation War (1941–1944), peace negotiations between the Finnish government and the Allies of World War II had been conducted intermittently during 1943–1944, but no agreement had been reached. The Moscow Armistice, signed on 19 September 1944, demanded that Finland break diplomatic ties with Germany and expel or disarm any German soldiers remaining in Finland.
