As of: January 30, 2024, 10:30 a.m
By: Tobias Schwaninger
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Press
Split
Final instructions from the top: Commander Lieutenant Colonel Bastian Steves (r.) prepares his “Jager” for northern Norway.
The tracked vehicles (Hägglund type) are already painted in the appropriate camouflage colors.
© Schwaninger
The fronts in Europe are more hardened than they have been for a long time.
The situation raises questions.
What if Russian aggression expands to other neighboring countries or even NATO members?
The alliance is responding with the largest deterrent maneuver in decades.
90,000 armed forces are relocated to the eastern flank.
Right in the middle: Battalion 233 from Mittenwald, which is supposed to have a presence in northern Norway.
Mittenwald
– Anyone who is currently walking through the Edelweiss barracks in Mittenwald will immediately notice: an extraordinary operation is about to take place here.
All vehicles on the site were painted in special camouflage colors.
Including the Hägglunds, which are vital for mountain troops.
The tracked vehicles are now all painted grey, brown and white.
No more of the familiar olive green to be seen.
The color change has a background: Battalion 233 will be relocated to Northern Norway for the next two months.
Around 650 soldiers are taking part in the large-scale exercise “Quadriga”, the German contribution to the NATO operation “Steadfast Defender 2024”.
This is about nothing less than preparing for an emergency: a military escalation between East and West.
This is a huge feat for us.
Lieutenant Colonel Bastian Steves
“This is a huge effort for us,” emphasizes Lieutenant Colonel Bastian Steves.
The commander himself will also be there in the Arctic Circle.
For him and his comrades, this is sensitive territory - both politically and climatically.
The NATO member state and Russia share a common border that is around 200 kilometers long with a crossing in the northeast.
In addition, there are extreme weather conditions.
“The biggest enemy is certainly the Arctic itself,” explains Steves.
Ice-cold temperatures of up to minus 52 degrees are possible at any time.
In addition, it also means a huge logistical effort to temporarily relocate an entire battalion, including a “well three-digit number” of vehicles, to a country over 1,000 kilometers away.
By land, air and sea.
“The preparations have already begun,” confirms the commander.
Mittenwald hunters are currently on site - but as part of the annual exercise “Eiskristall”, which is intended to prepare soldiers for the climatic challenge in the Arctic Circle.
Almost the entire battalion did the same again at the end of 2023.
But not in Northern Norway, but in probably the coolest place there is in the county.
Last December, a total of 600 soldiers trained on the Zugspitzplatt on how to behave properly in the icy cold, tested new special clothing and practiced self-care.
“Everything is as authentic as possible,” emphasizes the battalion’s spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Max-Joseph Kronenbitter.
During the preparation, those responsible paid attention to every little detail.
During this period, the participants also received the Norwegian version of the one-man pack (EPa), which is well known in Bundeswehr circles, as food.
In some places it was almost minus 20 degrees at an altitude of around 2,600 meters.
A taste of what awaits you in the next two months.
Steves sees himself and his comrades as prepared for the time in northern Europe.
Their participation there is expected to last from the beginning of February to the end of March.
Specifically, it focuses on the “Nordic Response” operation, which in turn is a part of the German contribution to the large-scale maneuver.
In Norway, the mountain troops are then subordinate to a local brigade.
Together with them and other partners, they rehearse combat under the most extreme conditions.
They should particularly benefit from the Norwegian armed forces' many years of experience and knowledge.
Together they simulate an emergency: the joint defense of NATO's northern flank after a declaration of the collapse of the alliance (NATO Article 5).
A scenario that we now obviously have to deal with again due to the global political situation.