Edelweiss Raid 2019 has finished, and not for the first time, a team from the German Army’s Gebirgsjägerbrigade 23 (Mountain Troops Brigade 23) from Bavaria has taken First Place!

Gebirgsjäger Brigade 23 also field another team that took the Second Place position at EWR2019.  A team from the Austrian Army’s Führungsunterstützungsbataillon 2 (Command/Communications Support Battalion 2) from St. Johann took the Third Place position.

The winning Gebirgsjäger Brigade 23 team crosses the finish line.

The First Place team from Gebirgsjäger Brigade 23 being congratulated by Mr. Wolfgang Baumann, Secretary-General of the Austrian Ministry of Defence.

The Second Place team from Gebirgsjäger Brigade 23 are congratulated by Herr Baumann.

The Third Place team from Austria’s Führungsunterstützungsbataillon 2 also received congratulations from Herr Baumann.

All three teams on the podium at the official closing ceremonies.

All together, 23 teams from 12 nations took part in this year’s event. The Edelweiss Raid is held in the Austrian Alps every two years and is the hardest mountain warfare competition in the world. Of the 23 teams that competed, only 17 managed to finish the full course of events – so that says something in itself about the difficulty of the event.

2019 was also the first year that a U.S. team competed, comprised of volunteers from the Vermont National Guard, and apparently it was also the first time in the event’s history that a first year team even managed to finish the event. So kudos to the Green Mountain Boys from the VNG for outperforming teams from Slovenia, Germany and Poland on their first outing!

As for the rest of the field, here are the final posted results for all of the teams:

So, until 2021, “Das war’s. Tschüß!”