Deep in the Austrian alps, a mere 90 or so
kilometers from Munich, sits a small, anonymous castle. From the outside, Schloss Itter isn’t much
to look at. In a land filled with medieval ruins, it’s
too small to attract passing tourists, too similar to a thousand forts you can find elsewhere. But Itter has something that no other castle
in Austria - or, indeed, the world - can claim: a story. A story about a single skirmish that became
one of the strangest battles in history. It was here, in 1945, that America and Germany
fought as allies for the only time in WWII. A prison for French VIPs, Castle Itter in
May, 1945, was at the mercy of SS units prowling the Austrian countryside. Desperate to prevent a massacre, a ragtag
team of American GIs and disillusioned Wehrmacht soldiers teamed up to save those trapped inside. But the story of Castle Itter is more than
just that of a single battle. It’s about a specific place, a specific
moment in time… and the decisions made there that would change European history. The Mysterious Castle
Like so many historic buildings in Europe, the precise origins of Castle Itter - or Schloss
Itter, to give it its German name - have been lost to history. We know a fortress existed on this secluded
spot in the 13th Century, but it’s been suggested that one may have been there since
at least 800AD. What’s certainly true is that, by 1878,
Itter was old enough to have gone utterly out of fashion and be rebuilt in its current
faux-romantic style. For the modern Castle Itter, existing meant
simply sitting back and watching as the world refused to take any notice of it. In the early 20th Century, for example, it
was converted into a luxury hotel, only to fail to attract visitors. It was simply too remote, too deep into the
mountains for people to bother with. However, there was one group of people who
would be very taken with the Castle’s remoteness. In 1933, an unfunny Charlie Chaplin tribute
act that went by the name Adolf Hitler became the undisputed ruler of Germany. Five years later, on March 12, 1938, the genocidal
Tramp annexed Austria into the Third Reich. As soon as the Nazis got their first good
look at Itter, they knew the had to have it. The owners of the castle were served with
one of those typically Nazi notices that basically went “yeah, we’re having this place, don’t
let the door hit your ass on the way out.” From that point on, Castle Itter would be
under direct control of Hitler’s regime. That’s not to say anyone really knew what
to do with it. At first, the Castle housed the German Association
for Combating the Dangers of Tobacco, which we wish we could say was a deliberately-boring
pseudonym for an exciting spy agency but, nope, it was just a bunch of guys who really
hated tobacco. But, by 1943, the Third Reich had finally
found a purpose for their new castle. That year, Itter was converted into a subcamp
of Dachau. Established all the way back in 1933, Dachau
was the first, and one of the most notorious of all Nazi concentration camps. Originally it had been a small place designed
to hold Social Democrats and other political prisoners. But, as the Third Reich’s list of enemies
grew, Dachau too had grown, going from a single camp outside Munich to a sprawling network
of 123 subcamps covering most of southern Germany and northern Austria. As Dachau had grown, so had its cruelty. Roma and LGBT prisoners had joined the Social
Democrats along with, of course, thousands of Jews. Nazi scientists had begun conducting medical
experiments on prisoners. In short, becoming part of Dachau was not
a happy fate for Schloss Itter. However, the subcamp the Nazis established
there was a different beast. It would hold not political enemies or those
targeted for extermination, but VIPs. High-value prisoners the Nazis could use as
hostages if the need ever arose. And the hostages the regime had earmarked
for Itter were some of the most important people in Europe. The VIP Prison
When Sebastian Wimmer arrived at Itter in 1943, the SS officer must’ve felt like he
was beginning the strangest assignment of all time. The commandant for the new Dachau subcamp,
Wimmer had probably seen his fair share of crazy stuff during the war. But it’s unlikely he’d ever had to oversee
a group of prisoners like this. Interred in Castle Itter was a veritable Who’s
Who of French society. There was Édouard Daladier, the former French
premier who’d signed the Munich Agreement before trying to flee into exile after the
Nazis invaded. There was Paul Reynaud, who’d taken over
as premier after Daladier, and overseen the fall of France to the Germans. Alongside them were the generals Maxime Weygand
and Maurice Gamelin. Both famous, but for very different reasons. While Gamelin had fought the Nazi invasion
as head of French armed forces, Weygand had replaced him, surrendered, and then collaborated
with the regime before falling foul of it. To say the two generals hated each other is
kind of like saying Cain and Abel had minor disagreements. With them were both Charles de Gaulle’s
sister, Marie-Agnès, and Michel Clemenceau, son of the great Georges Clemenceau and, handily,
the only prisoner fluent in German. At the slightly odder end, the Castle also
held future Nobel Prize Winner LĂ©on Jouhaux; the champion tennis star Jean-Robert Borotra;
and the infamous French fascist François de La Rocque, who’d turned out to be too
loco even for the Nazis. Yes, that’s a lot of names to remember. Don’t worry about memorizing them all, we’ll
try and remind you each time someone important crops up. By the standards of Dachau, these VIPs had
it kinda ok. Remember how Castle Itter used to be a hotel? Well, the Nazis hadn’t bothered stripping
out too many of its comforts, especially as they wanted their hostages in good shape if
they needed to trade them. The prisoners were allowed to use the castle
library, to walk the grounds relatively freely, to eat semi-decent food. They were even spared from brutality by Commandant
Wimmer, who advised his guards to alternately ignore the prisoners and to befriend them. But still, a weekend in Hawaii this was not. For one thing, the prisoners hated one another. Imagine being locked inside a luxury castle
alongside a bunch of people whose political views are diametrically opposed to yours. Who may actively consider you a traitor, and
aren’t shy of telling you to your face. Before long the VIPs had split into three
tribes who refused to interact: the rightists who’d supported Vichy France, the leftists
who’d been anti-Nazi for years, and the “neutrals” who probably wondered what
they’d done to deserve this. But there was also a fourth group of prisoners. Being VIPs, the hostages clearly weren’t
going to help maintain Castle Itter. Nor were the SS guards, who had signed on
to further the glory of the fatherland, not act as servants for a bunch of bossy Frenchmen. So the Nazis decided to bring Eastern European
prisoners to the Castle, who could do all the cooking, cleaning and general upkeep no-one
else wanted to. Among their number was a Croatian Communist
who’d fought for Tito’s partisans and was now slumming it as a prisoner of war. His name was Zvonimir Čučković. And he’s one you’re definitely going to
want to remember. Auf Wiedersehn, Adolf
As WWII rumbled on, life in Castle Itter subcamp settled into a mind-numbing routine. Well, almost. As 1943 gave way to 1944, it became clear
even to the prisoners that things weren’t going the way Hitler might have hoped. Their food supplies were dwindling as rationing
took its toll. Eventually, oil lamps and candles came to
replace electricity. By 1945, even Commandant Wimmer must’ve
seen the writing on the wall. At night, Allied aircraft were droning through
the sky, raining death down onto countless German cities. It’s entirely possible the inmates even
saw the distant, flickering glow of fires consuming the center of Munich during the
71 bombing raids the city suffered. But rather than fill them with hope, all this
evidence of Germany’s downfall filled the prisoners with paralyzing dread. We know this because, in April, 1945, Michel
Clemenceau - remember? The German-speaking son of the legendary Georges
Clemenceau - asked Commander Wimmer to a private meeting with himself, ex-premier Paul Reynaud,
and General Gamelin. In the meeting, Clemenceau delicately reminded
Wimmer that all their lives were in his hands. Wimmer - perhaps with one eye on a possible
future war crimes tribunal - assured them that he had no desire to see them executed. If push came to shove, he would help them
escape. It wouldn’t be long before Wimmer’s promise
was put to the test. On April 29, 1945, the Allies liberated the
Dachau main camp, just 93km to the north. News reached Itter quickly. But, unfortunately, something else reached
the Castle just as quickly: Eduard Weiter. A former bookseller who’d made a career
out of being a nobody, Weiter had been handed the keys to Dachau at the end of September,
1943, and told to get on with it. As someone who hadn’t even joined the Nazi
Party until 1937, there had been some hope that this lifelong bureaucrat would be a relatively
humane commandant. While we’ve seen a couple of sources say
he was hands off in his cruelty, we’ve also seen others say he mass-executed 2,000 prisoners
just before Dachau’s liberation. Either way, his arrival in Itter put everyone
on edge. Was he here to execute the VIP prisoners too? Well, no, as it turns out. Weiter did indeed kill someone at Castle Itter,
but not who the hostages expected. On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler killed himself
in his bunker. When news reached Itter on May 2, Eduard Weiter
took his pistol and shot himself through the heart. Gruesomely, the Dachau commandant survived
the initial gunshot. Even more gruesomely, he then managed to raise
the gun to his head and fire again. This time, the bullet did its job. In the wake of Weiter’s bloody suicide,
something in Commandant Wimmer seems to have snapped. On the night of May 3, Wimmer and his men
abandoned their posts, fleeing into the Austrian countryside. Wimmer’s promise to Michel Clemenceau had
apparently been forgotten. The next morning, the VIP hostages at Itter
woke up to discover they were all alone. Not 20km west, the American army was rolling
through Austria’s mountains, grinding painfully onwards towards Vienna. To the north, Allied forces were securing
the villages around Munich. Now all the VIPs had to do was stay alive
long enough for someone to rescue them. Unfortunately, this was easier said than done. The Wolves in the Forest
On the bright Austrian morning of May 4, 1945, Major Joseph Gangl, better known as “Sepp”
to his friends, was exhausted. Not six months before, Gangl had been a career
military man in the German Wehrmacht Army, following orders unquestioningly. By April that year, though, he’d found himself
stationed in Austria, the Third Reich crumbling around him, completely disillusioned with
Hitler’s regime. Before the Fuhrer even committed suicide,
Gangl had contacted the Austrian Resistance, offering his expertise. And now here he was, followed by a mere 20
loyal Wehrmacht soldiers, trying to survive in an environment where wearing a German army
uniform was extremely inadvisable. As Gangl moved his small company through the
tiny, picturesque town of Wörgl, he may well have been thinking that he simply couldn’t
wait for the war to end. If that was the case, then fate was about
to throw Sepp Gangl a cruel curveball, in the form of a wild-eyed Croatian on a bicycle. OK, so remember Zvonimir Čučković, the
Croatian handyman at Castle Itter we said you’d definitely want to remember? Well, when the VIPs had all woken up that
morning to find Wimmer and the guards gone, they’d raided the castle armory, tooling
up with pistols, rifles, and submachine guns. But even kitted out like the Expendables,
the hostages had been afraid to leave Itter. In the chaotic last days of the war, rouge
Gestapo and SS units had taken to roaming the countryside, on a deranged mission to
kill as many non-Nazis as possible. The forests around Itter were crawling with
these werewolves, who might decide to check in on the subcamp at any moment. So the VIPs had decided someone needed to
go and get help. And that was how Čučković came to be riding
a bike through Wörgl just as Sepp Gangl stepped onto the square. Quite how the conversation between the two
went has been lost to time. The upshot is that Čučković managed to
tell Gangl all about the trapped French VIPs. Tired as he was, the German army major agreed
to help. Pointing Čučković in the direction of Innsbruck,
where the main American forces were, Gangl ordered his men to fashion a great white surrender
flag. Then they all hopped in a truck, pointed towards
Itter… ...and drove headlong into the Allied 23rd
Tank Battalion. Had Gangl not thought to wave his flag, there’s
a very good chance this story would now include a scene where the tiny Wehrmacht force wound
up on the receiving end of Uncle Sam’s finest tank shells. Instead, Gangl got to meet face to face with
the last major character in our tale today: 1st Lt John C. “Jack” Lee Jr. A 27-year old from New York state, Lee just
happened to be around when his commanders heard Gangl’s wild story and agreed to help. He immediately volunteered to take two tanks
and 8 men and head to Itter on a rescue mission. And so it was that, in the late afternoon
of May 4, 1945, the only joint US Army-Wehrmacht force fielded in the whole of WWII set off
across Austria for remote Castle Itter. Had they know what fate awaited them there,
they might’ve just left the prisoners to fend for themselves. Assault on Itter
Despite the German surrender now being a mere three days away, the route to Castle Itter
was anything but easy for Lee and Gangl’s joint force. They lost time having to dismantle an SS booby-trap,
and then wound up leaving one of their two tanks behind. Finally, just before they reached the castle,
they ran into a group of SS setting up a roadblock. At the sight of the tank, the SS scattered
into the woods. But by now it was all too clear that they
would soon be converging on Castle Itter. When Gangl, Lee, and their combined 28 troops
came roaring into the castle grounds atop a tank, they probably felt like saviors. But the French VIPs inside weren’t inclined
to agree. At the sight of this ragtag group, they were
less “hooray!” and more “dude… is that it???”. The problem was that there was no way to evacuate
the hostages without more vehicles. So Gangl and Lee decided to settle in for
the night and wait for reinforcements. Lee made his men park the tank at the gate,
covering the only road up. It wasn’t a bad plan. Everyone in the castle was armed. The walls were thick. They had a tank. As the strange mix of Americans, French, and
Germans settled in to wait till morning, they must’ve felt pretty safe. It’s at this point that everything went
Assault on Precinct 13. At 11pm, the SS units on the hills surrounding
Itter suddenly opened fire. Bullets pounded into the castle walls, chipping
away the ancient stone. But, in this darkness, all it did was make
those trapped inside the castle hunker down and avoid the windows. All night long the gunfire from the forests
kept up, interrupted only by the occasional burst of return fire from the Castle. But, as dawn broke, the nature of the game
suddenly changed. Just as the sun began to rise, an anti-tank
missile streaked out of the forest, smashed into the Allied tank and blew it to pieces. A second missile then slammed into the Castle,
destroying an entire room. But the worst came just moments later. Barely had the sound of the second explosion
stopped ringing in their ears than the Allies heard gunfire and watched in horror as over
a hundred battle-hardened SS soldiers began pouring out the forest, determined to take
the castle. It was the beginning of one of the final WWII
battles in Europe. And it wouldn’t be won without bloodshed. As the two SS columns converged on the Castle
entrance and its lowest wall, those inside took to the rooftop, returning fire. For the first time in the entire war, German
Wehrmacht troops en-masse fired on Nazi SS units. Beside them, the VIP prisoners fought too. Clemenceau and ex-premier Reynaud both picked
up weapons, as did tennis star Jean Borota. Even the French fascist François de La Rocque
shot at the attackers with a rifle, surely one of the most surreal moments in a battle
full of them. But while the Allies inflicted heavy casualties,
the SS had the numbers, the weapons, and the ammunition on their side. Not long after fighting commenced, a sniper’s
bullet cut through Major Sepp Gangl. The Wehrmacht officer was dead before he hit
the ground, finally able to rest after six long years. By noon, the course of the battle was turning. The tiny force inside Itter was overwhelmed
and forced to retreat deep inside the castle keep. Luckily, help was by now on its way. Endgame
We last saw Zvonimir Čučković on May 4, cycling like mad towards Innsbruck where he
hoped to meet the US Army. Well, Čučković had rode clear to the 103rd
Infantry Division, a near 60km ride. There, he’d had the fortune to bump into
Maj. John T. Kramers. We say fortune because Kramers was the perfect
man for the moment. See, Castle Itter was technically outside
his jurisdiction. When he asked his superiors for permission
to advance, they were all like “uh, no.” To which Kramers effectively replied, “uh,
YES. I’m off to save some lives.” However, this would be easier said than done. The road towards Itter was packed with refugees. At one point, Kramers and his men came under
sustained artillery fire. By the time they reached Wörgl on the morning
of May 5, they didn’t know if there was anyone left at Itter to save. Stood in the town, Kramers tried to raise
Jack Lee on the radio, only to get static back. Apparently, the Major was at his wits’ end
until a local man suggested using a telephone. Incredibly, someone at the castle answered. Kramers told them he was on the way. Good job, too, because by now those at the
Castle were out of ammo. As they retreated deep into the castle, prepared
to fight with bayonets, the SS force was literally at the gates. The Nazi loyalists dragged their anti-tank
gun down, aimed it at the wooden doors… ...and then looked up in horror as one of
the Wehrmacht soldiers still on the roof cried “it’s the Americans!” That was all it took. As Kramers and his reinforcements rounded
the corner, the surviving SS force scattered. It was 3pm, and the Battle for Castle Itter
- one of the last battles to ever be fought in central Europe - was finally over. In the aftermath, the Wehrmacht troops were
arrested and placed in prisoner of war camps. The French VIPs were taken from the castle
and spirited away to safer locations. There was actually a photojournalist on hand
to document the moment these great men emerged from the castle, shellshocked but very much
alive. And yet… and yet… the story of the Battle
for Castle Itter went almost unnoticed. With Germany’s unconditional surrender two
days later, it was simply knocked off the front pages, just another minor skirmish remembered
only by those who had been there. It wasn’t until 2013 that historian Stephen
Harding published his book The Last Battle and the wider world heard of the unlikely
alliance forged at Castle Itter that spring day. By the way, if you’ve enjoyed this video,
we really suggest reading Harding’s book. It’s still the only long-form English language
source available on this incredible incident. But the legacy of Castle Itter and the battle
there goes far beyond just that of an interesting story. The hostages at Itter were the very cream
of French society, men at the pinnacle of their careers. After being rescued, they would go on to shape
postwar France. LĂ©on Jouhaux, for example, would win the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1951. Others would help choose what direction France
took in its fourth and fifth republics. Since it was at during time that France became
a key player in the emerging European Union, this is a big deal. Imagine. If Čučković hadn’t been able to cycle
fast enough… if Gangl hadn’t become so disillusioned with Nazi Germany… if Jack
Lee and his tanks hadn’t just happened to be hanging around, none of these VIPs would’ve
survived the war. That would mean a France, possibly a Europe,
that looked very different to the one we know today. After another failed stint at being a hotel,
Castle Itter is now in private hands, no longer open to the public. Yet there’s no doubting that, on one crisp
spring day in 1945, the future of the whole of Europe hung in the balance between its
walls. It may not be famous, but Castle Itter, and
the battle that happened here, deserve to be remembered by us all.
I so want to see a collab of Sabaton History and Simon Whistler
Meanwhile in the comments...