Battle for Castle Itter

Battle for Castle Itter
Part of World War II

Schloss Itter (Castle Itter) in 1979
DateMay 5, 1945
LocationItter Castle, Austria
47°28′13.82″N 12°8′22.33″E / 47.4705056°N 12.1395361°ECoordinates: 47°28′13.82″N 12°8′22.33″E / 47.4705056°N 12.1395361°E
Result Allied victory
Belligerents

 United States

France French former prisoners
Anti-Nazi Wehrmacht Heer soldiers

Austria Austrian resistance

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany

Commanders and leaders

United States Lieutenant John C. "Jack" Lee, Jr.
United States Lieutenant Harry Basse
Major Josef Gangl  †

Hauptsturmführer Kurt-Siegfried Schrader[1]		 Captain Sebastian Wimmer[1]
Strength

Troops

  • United States 14
  • German Army 10
  • Waffen SS 1
  • French former prisoners
  • One tank

Reinforcements

  • German Army 2
  • Austrian resistance 1

Troops

  • Waffen SS 100-150

The Battle for Castle Itter, the Austrian village of Itter in the North Tyrol, was fought in the final days of World War II in Europe, five days after the death of Adolf Hitler. Troops of the 23rd Tank Battalion of the US 12th Armored Division led by Lieutenant John C. "Jack" Lee, Jr., anti-Nazi German Army soldiers, and imprisoned French VIPs defended the castle against an attacking force from the 17th Waffen-SS Panzer Grenadier Division until relief from the American 142nd Infantry Regiment arrived.

The French prisoners included former prime ministers, generals, and a tennis star. It may have been the only battle in the war in which Americans and Germans fought as allies. Popular accounts of the battle have called it the "strangest" battle of World War II.[2]

Background

Itter Castle, Schloss Itter, is a small castle situated on a hill near the village of Itter in Austria.[3] After the Anschluss, the German annexation of Austria, the German government officially leased the castle in late 1940 from its owner, Franz Grüner.[4]

The castle was seized from Grüner by SS Lieutenant General Oswald Pohl under the orders of Heinrich Himmler on February 7, 1943. The transformation of the castle into a prison camp was completed by April 25, 1943, and the facility was placed under the administration of the Dachau concentration camp.[4]

The prison was built to contain high-profile prisoners valuable to the Reich.[5][6] Notable prisoners included tennis star Jean Borotra,[7] former prime minister Édouard Daladier,[8] Charles de Gaulle's elder sister Marie-Agnès Cailliau,[9] former commander-in-chief Maxime Weygand,[10] former prime minister Paul Reynaud,[11] former commander-in-chief Maurice Gamelin,[12] right-wing leader François de La Rocque,[13] and trade union leader Léon Jouhaux.[14] Besides the French VIP prisoners, the Castle held a number of Eastern European prisoners detached from Dachau, who were used for maintenance and other menial work.[15]

Battle

An M4A3E8 Sherman tank, the same model as Besotten Jenny
The main entrance to the castle (1979)

The commander of the prison, Sebastian Wimmer, fled on May 4, 1945, after the suicide of Eduard Weiter,[16] the last commander of Dachau. The SS-Totenkopfverbände guards departed the castle soon after. The prisoners took control of the castle and armed themselves with the weaponry that remained.[17]

Zvonimir Čučković, a Yugoslav communist resistance member imprisoned in Itter,[18] left the facility in search of Allied assistance two days prior to Wimmer's departure. Čučković encountered the American 103rd Infantry Division near Innsbruck and informed them of the castle's prisoners.[19] Major Josef Gangl, commanding a unit of Wehrmacht soldiers, and who had collaborated with Austrian resistance in the closing days of the war,[20] had intended to free the castle prisoners, but decided instead to surrender to the Americans.[21]

A rescue of the Itter VIPs was planned. Lieutenant Lee volunteered to lead the rescue mission, and was accompanied by Gangl's soldiers.[22][23] Lee's forces now consisted of fourteen American soldiers, two Sherman tanks, a Volkswagen Kübelwagen and a truck carrying ten German soldiers. En route, the small column left one of their Shermans behind to guard a bridge. Four miles from the castle, they defeated a party of SS troops that had been attempting to set up a roadblock.

The French prisoners greeted the rescuing force when it arrived at the castle, but were disappointed at its small size.[24] Lee placed the men under his command in defensive positions around the castle, and placed his Sherman tank, named "Besotten Jenny", at the main entrance. They were soon joined by an SS officer, Kurt-Siegfried Schrader, who was staying in the village of Itter while convalescing from wounds.

A force of 100-150[25] Waffen-SS began their attack on the castle soon afterwards, on the morning of May 5.[26] Before the main assault began, Gangl was able to phone Alois Mayr, the Austrian resistance leader in Itter and request reinforcements; two more German soldiers under his command as well as Austrian resistance member Hans Waltl quickly drove to the castle.[27] The Sherman tank provided machine-gun fire support until it was destroyed by German fire a from an 88 MM Anti-Aircraft Gun; its crew escaped without injury.[28]

Lee had ordered the French prisoners to hide, but they remained outside, and fought alongside the American and Wehrmacht soldiers.[29] After six hours of fighting,[28] a relief force from the American 142nd Infantry Regiment arrived and the SS were defeated.[30]

Historical significance

Tennis star Jean Borotra, one of the prisoners. During the battle, Borotra volunteered to leave the castle to summon help.

For his service defending the castle, Lee received the Distinguished Service Cross[31] and was promoted to Captain. [26] Gangl died during the battle from a sniper's bullet,[32] but was honored as an Austrian national hero and had a street in Wörgl named after him.[33][34] Popular accounts of the battle have dubbed it the "strangest" battle of World War II.[35][2] The battle was fought five days after Adolf Hitler had committed suicide[2] and only two days before the signing of German's unconditional surrender. It was also the only battle where Americans and Germans fought as allies during the war.[35]

Citations

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Nutter, Thomas (23 April 2013). "The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe". New York Journal of Books. Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Harding 2013, p. 2.
  3. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 5.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Harding 2013, pp. 11–13.
  5. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 21–22.
  6. ↑ Piekałkiewicz, Janusz (1974). Secret Agents, Spies, and Saboteurs: Famous Undercover Missions of World War II. William Morrow.
  7. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 45–46.
  8. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 25–30.
  9. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 59–62.
  10. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 53–55.
  11. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 43–44.
  12. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 27–28.
  13. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 57.
  14. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 36–37.
  15. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 72 and 181.
  16. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 96.
  17. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 107.
  18. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 23-24.
  19. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 103–107.
  20. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 95–97.
  21. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 109–112.
  22. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 112–113.
  23. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 121–124.
  24. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 124–128.
  25. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 144.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Mayer 1945.
  27. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 145.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Lateiner, Donald (March 21, 2014). "The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europ". Michigan War Studies Review. Retrieved 26 September 2014.
  29. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 146–152.
  30. ↑ Harding 2013, pp. 157–161.
  31. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 165.
  32. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 150.
  33. ↑ Harding 2013, p. 169.
  34. ↑ http://www.strassensuche.at/web/de/sepp-gangl--strasse-woergl
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 Roberts 2013.

Bibliography

External links