Battle of Itter Castle

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Battle of Itter Castle
Part of: Second World War
date May 5, 1945
place Itter Castle, Tyrol, Austria
output Victory of the US Army and its allies
consequences Liberation of the French and other prisoners of war
Parties to the conflict

USA
Wehrmacht soldiers,
Austrian resistance,
French prisoners of war

German Reich (Waffen-SS)

Commander

Captain John C. "Jack" Lee, Jr.
Lieutenant Harry Basse
Major Josef Gangl
SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt-Siegfried Schrader

SS-Oberführer Georg Bochmann

Troop strength
Wehrmacht soldiers: 13
Waffen-SS: 1
USA: 16 (later reinforcement by 104th Infantry Division)
Austrian resistance: 1
Several French prisoners of war 		150-200 men
losses

One dead (Josef Gangl)
4 injured

about 100 prisoners.
About a few dozen dead

Coordinates: 47 ° 28 ′ 14.4 ″  N , 12 ° 8 ′ 25.4 ″  E

Itter Castle 1979

The battle for Itter Castle was fought on May 5, 1945 for the castle in the Tyrolean village of Itter in Austria . It was the only battle of the Second World War in which soldiers of the United States Army and the Wehrmacht fought together, supported by liberated prominent French prisoners of war, against units of the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Götz von Berlichingen" .

prehistory

Itter Castle was officially leased by the German government at the end of 1940 from the owner Franz Grüner and on February 7, 1943, it was taken over by SS Lieutenant General Oswald Pohl on the orders of Heinrich Himmler . On April 25, 1943, the castle was opened as a satellite camp of the Dachau concentration camp in order to accommodate prisoners of war that were important for the German Reich, mostly French prisoners of war. The tennis player Jean Borotra , the former prime ministers Édouard Daladier and Paul Reynaud , the former chief commanders Maxime Weygand and Maurice Gamelin , Charles de Gaulle's older sister Marie-Agnès Cailliau, the member of the Resistance François de La Rocque and the union leaders were held here Léon Jouhaux . There were also some prisoners from Eastern European countries who were mainly used for maintenance work.

The battle

Main entrance to the castle, 1979

The last commander of the Dachau concentration camp, Eduard Weiter , committed suicide on May 2, 1945 after fleeing from Itter Castle. On May 3, 1945, Zvonimir Čučković, a member of the Yugoslav communist resistance who had to work as an assistant in the castle, left the building under the pretext of getting help for the commander of the castle, SS-Sturmbannführer Sebastian Wimmer . He had a letter with him in English that he was supposed to give to the first American he found and that called for Allied aid.

Wörgl , which is only 5 km down the valley, was still in German hands, which is why Čučković went up the Inn valley in the direction of Innsbruck, 70 km away by foot . In the late evening he reached the outskirts of Innsbruck, where he was the vanguard of the 409th Infantry Regiment of the American 103rd Infantry Division of the VI. Corps and informed about the prisoners in the castle. The American soldiers did not want to start a rescue operation on their own, but promised Čučković an answer from their commander by the morning of May 4th. In the morning, an American unit advanced in the direction of Itter Castle, but was brought to a halt halfway behind Jenbach by heavy artillery fire.

When Čučković did not return on May 3, Sebastian Wimmer left his post, and the guards of the SS death's head associations followed him soon afterwards. The prisoners then armed themselves with the war material they had left behind and took control of the castle.

Since Čučković did not return on May 4th, the Czech cook Andreas Krobot decided at noon to ride his bike to Wörgl and seek help. The city was evacuated by the Wehrmacht, but was then occupied by units of the Waffen-SS . Here he found members of the Austrian Resistance who brought him to see Major Josef Gangl . He commanded the remains of a Wehrmacht unit that had not followed the eviction order and had joined the local resistance.

Gangl had already planned to free the prisoners in the castle, but did not want to sacrifice his few soldiers in a suicide mission against the castle, which was manned by the heavily armed SS. Instead, he kept his men ready to protect residents of the city from reprisals by the SS until the Americans arrived in the city. But now Gangl was forced to rush to meet the Americans under a white flag to ask for help. In Kufstein , 8 km away , he met an American reconnaissance unit with four M4 Sherman tanks of the 23rd Panzer Battalion of the 12th Panzer Division of the XXI. US Army Corps under the command of Captain John C. "Jack" Lee. He did not hesitate to initiate the requested rescue operation, for which he immediately received permission from his commander.

After Lee and Gangl had observed the castle from Gangl's Kübelwagen , Lee left two of his tanks behind, but took over five more and supporting infantry from the 142nd US Infantry Regiment of the 36th Infantry Division that had just arrived. However, on a bridge that seemed too unsafe, Lee was forced to send back reinforcements and advance to the castle with only 14 US soldiers, Gangl and a truck with a driver and ten former Wehrmacht artillerymen, leaving a tank on the bridge. The advance to the castle was forced against a unit of the Waffen SS, which tried in vain to block the way.

Meanwhile, the French prisoners asked the SS officer Kurt-Siegfried Schrader , who was recovering from a wound in Itter, for protection. When Lee reached the castle, he was greeted with joy, but the ex-prisoners were disappointed at the small number of Americans. While Lee's men took up defensive positions around the castle, the tank (Besotten Jenny) was set up at the main gate. Although Lee had ordered the liberated French to hide, they fought alongside the US and Wehrmacht soldiers. Gangl managed to call Alois Mayr from the Austrian resistance group in Wörgl and ask for help, whereupon two other Wehrmacht soldiers and the young resistance fighter Hans Waltl drove to the castle. After scouting troops had observed the castle during the night, around 100 to 150 men of the Waffen SS attacked on the morning of May 5. Gangl was fatally hit by a sniper bullet while attempting to get former French Prime Minister Reynaud out of the line of fire . He died as the only one of the defenders of the castle. The Sherman tank was destroyed by an 8.8 cm FlaK 18/36/37 , but the American machine gunner managed to get to safety.

In the early afternoon a relief unit of the 142nd Infantry Regiment was finally put on the march. The tennis player Jean Borotra volunteered to cut his way through the lines of the SS and reached the US troops, whom he could now inform about the situation in the castle.

The relief troops reached the castle around 4 p.m. and defeated the besiegers, taking about 100 SS men prisoner . The liberated French prisoners were sent to France that evening and reached Paris on May 10, 1945.

Historical evaluation

Lee was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his commitment . Gangl was honored as a hero of the Austrian resistance, and a street in Wörgl was named after him.

The Battle of Itter Castle, fought just two days before the end of the war and five days after Hitler's death, is known as the "strangest battle of the Second World War" and is considered the only battle of this war in which Americans and Germans fought on one side.

literature

  • Stephen Harding: The Last Battle: When US and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe . Da Capo Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-306-82209-4 .
German edition: The last battle - When the Wehrmacht and GIs fought against the SS . Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-55205718-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 11-22.
  2. ↑ Janusz Piekałkiewicz: Secret Agents, Spies, and Saboteurs: Famous Undercover Missions of World War II . William Morrow, 1974 ..
  3. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 45-46.
  4. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 25-30.
  5. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 43-44.
  6. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 53-55.
  7. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 27-28.
  8. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 59–62.
  9. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 57.
  10. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 36–37.
  11. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 72, 181.
  12. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 96.
  13. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 23-24.
  14. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 103-107.
  15. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 107.
  16. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 95-97.
  17. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 109–112.
  18. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 112-113.
  19. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 121-124.
  20. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 124–128.
  21. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 146–152.
  22. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 145.
  23. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 144.
  24. ↑ Mayer 1945
  25. ↑ a b Volker Koop: In Hitler's Hand: The SS Special and Honorary Prisoners (2010)
  26. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 150.
  27. ^ A b Latin, Donald: The Last Battle: When US and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe . In: Michigan War Studies Review . March 21, 2014. Retrieved September 26, 2014.
  28. ↑ Leon-Jouhaux, Prison pour hommes d'Etat, 157.
  29. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 157–161.
  30. ^ The Austrian castle where Nazis lost to German-US force . In: BBC News .
  31. ↑ Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 2: Early camp, Dachau, Emsland camp. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52962-3 .
  32. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 165.
  33. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 169.
  34. ^ Roberts 2013.
  35. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 2.