The Last Battle: When U.S. And German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe

by Stephen Harding

  Nor was the military situation to the south of the Austrian Tyrol any less dire. After completing the ouster of German forces from North Africa, the Allies had captured Sicily in August 1943. The following month American and British troops had landed at Salerno on the Italian mainland and then began the hard slog north against determined German resistance. Despite that resistance, the Allied juggernaut rolled on, and Rome fell on June 4, 1944. Bologna was captured on April 21, 1945, followed by Milan six days later, and all German forces in Italy surrendered on April 29. That collapse cleared the way for Lieutenant General Geoffrey Keyes’s U.S. II Corps to advance on the Brenner Pass—the most accessible of the traditional routes from northern Italy into Austria—just forty-seven miles to the southwest of Schloss Itter.

  To the west and northwest, the most direct threat to continued German control of Tyrol came from Lieutenant General Alexander M. Patch’s U.S. Seventh Army.2 Having participated in the capture of Sicily3 in July and August 1943, in August 1944 Seventh Army—with attached Free French First Army elements—undertook Operation Dragoon, the amphibious invasion of southern France. After fighting its way through the Vosges Mountains, Seventh Army moved north along the Swiss border toward Alsace and Lorraine, where it met stiff German resistance during the winter of 1944–1945. After crossing the Rhine River in the spring of 1945, the Seventh moved across southern Germany, in the process taking such major population centers as Worms, Saarbrücken, Mannheim, Nürnberg, and Munich. By April 30, lead Seventh Army elements had crossed into Austria, with the bulk of Patch’s force arrayed along some eighty miles of the German-Austrian frontier. The closest American units were less than fifteen miles from Schloss Itter’s front gate.

  SEVENTH ARMY’S ADVANCE into Tyrol was in part a response to rumors Allied intelligence had been hearing since 1943 that spoke of an “alpine fortress” allegedly encompassing parts of southern Germany and northwestern Austria to which Hitler and his forces would retreat if the fortunes of war turned against them. There were stockpiles of weapons, ammunition, food, and fuel in vast underground storage complexes, so the rumors said, all protected by well-concealed and interconnected defenses that could hold off attackers for months or even years.

  Though by January 1945 most senior Allied intelligence officials did not believe such a formidable and well-provisioned national redoubt actually existed, they realized only too well that Austria’s alpine region—with its rugged mountains, fast-flowing rivers, and narrow, twisting roads—represented an easily defensible natural fortress even without the rumored underground complexes. Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower was concerned enough about the possibility of retreating German units making a final, bloody, and possibly protracted stand in the Alps that he made the blocking of all major passes into Austria—and especially those into Tyrol—a key part of his planning.4

  Eisenhower’s plans for securing Austria were built around two forces: General George S. Patton’s Third Army and General Jacob L. Devers’s 6th Army Group.5 The former was to continue its eastward advance across southern Germany and into Austria near Salzburg, secure the city and the passes leading from it southwestward into Tyrol, and then continue northeastward to link up with the advancing Soviets near Linz. Devers’s task was to capture all the other routes into Austria from the northwest and north. These included the pass at Bregenz, east of Lake Constance, which led into the Voralberg, Austria’s westernmost region; those near the Bavarian cities of Füssen and Garmisch-Partenkirchen leading, respectively, toward Landeck and Innsbruck; and at Kufstein, in the Inn River valley.

  Devers had at his disposal the eleven divisions of General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny’s French First Army and the twelve U.S. divisions of Patch’s Seventh Army. The operational boundary between Devers’s two armies ran generally from northwest to southeast, roughly centered on Füssen, three miles from the Austrian border. This meant that the capture of the more easterly passes from Germany into Tyrol—including the one at Kufstein—became Seventh Army’s responsibility generally, and of Patch’s XXI Corps specifically. Commanded by Major General Frank W. Milburn, by April 30 the corps consisted primarily of the 3rd and 36th Infantry divisions and the 12th Armored Division.6

  By this point in the war, XXI Corps’s usual mode of advance was for the armored division to lead, followed by the infantry divisions. Milburn therefore ordered the tankers of the 12th AD to advance southward along the Munich-Salzburg autobahn to the Bavarian city of Rosenheim, at the confluence of the Mangfall and Inn Rivers. After securing the city, the 12th and its accompanying infantry divisions were to cover the roughly twenty-two miles directly south to Kufstein with what Milburn termed “the utmost dispatch.”

  Though the German army was in disarray throughout Bavaria, Patch and his subordinate commanders were under no illusions that the move into Austria would be a cakewalk. Intelligence reports indicated that the several German garrison units and training schools in Tyrol were well manned, relatively well equipped, and apparently ready to fight despite their general lack of combat experience. More disturbing, however, were reports that the battered remnants of several battle-hardened Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS units were withdrawing into Austria; their presence could significantly stiffen the resistance offered by the garrison and school troops. While the advancing Allied armies were in one sense a noose tightening around Tyrol, they were also inadvertently forcing a buildup of German military strength in a region ideally suited to be Nazism’s last bastion.

  In assessing the threat XXI Corps would face during the advance into Austria, Milburn’s intelligence staff first concentrated on known enemy facilities and garrison units. And unfortunately for the Americans, most of the German formations believed to be stationed in and around the Inn River valley were specialized mountain-warfare units known as gebirgstruppen, comprised of soldiers who were used to maneuvering in—and making excellent tactical use of—the region’s rugged terrain. Worse still, most of these units were former Bundesheer organizations absorbed into the Wehrmacht after the 1938 Anschluss, meaning the majority of their members were native Austrians who would literally be defending their homes and families.

  Kufstein, the first major Austrian city XXI Corps would enter, was believed to be garrisoned by a battalion of frontline gebirgsjäger, or mountain infantry, and was also thought to house several replacement battalions for other infantry and artillery units. Further south, Wörgl had long been home to two mountain-infantry replacement units and, of possibly greater concern, the Wehrmacht training center for noncommissioned officers assigned to mountain-warfare units. The school’s staff and instructors were all combat veterans, as were many of its several hundred students, and all could be expected to put to good use the skills they had so ably demonstrated in the mountains of Norway, Russia, and the Ukraine.

  Then, of course, there were the frontline units thought to be retreating into Tyrol. The XXI Corps intelligence staffers were most worried by reports that elements of two Waffen-SS panzer-grenadier divisions7—the 12th “Hitlerjugend” and 17th “Götz von Berlichingen”—were thought to be operating to the east, west, and south of Kufstein. In addition, the remnants of at least one infantry division—its designation unknown—were rumored to be moving northeastward from Innsbruck along the Inn River valley. If the units were actually present, they and the garrison and school troops could number upwards of ten thousand men. And if the divisional units retained even limited numbers of armored vehicles, antitank guns, and artillery, they would pose a serious threat, not only to XXI Corps’s ability to seize and hold the pass at Kufstein, but also to the Americans’ plans to secure all of Tyrol.

  Fortunately for XXI Corps, the actual number of German troops in the Inn Valley was far smaller than Allied intelligence estimates indicated. When Lieutenant General Georg Ritter von Hengl took over as commander of Alpine Front, Northwest, on April 20, he was ordered to defend the mountain passes along a seventy-mile sector anchored in the east at Lofer, in the center at Kufste
in, and in the west at Innsbruck.8 To accomplish that task he had barely three thousand men—a number roughly corresponding to a single regiment.

  While this force did indeed include several hundred battle-hardened Wehrmacht infantrymen (whom von Hengl identifies as belonging to Panzer-Grenadier Division Grossdeutschland9) and about two hundred highly motivated Waffen-SS troops (likely from “Götz von Berlichingen”), the majority of von Hengl’s ad hoc force consisted of rear-area support personnel, stragglers from various units, and even deserters rounded up by field police. Though relatively well provided for in terms of small arms and ammunition, von Hengl’s new command had no aircraft, no armor, few wheeled vehicles, and just nine 88mm anti-aircraft guns that could be used as direct-fire artillery.10 When von Hengl complained about his lack of men and firepower to his higher headquarters—in this case, Major General August Winter on the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) command staff at Führungsstab B in Berchtesgaden11—he was told that he would also be able to dragoon elements of the German 1st and 19th armies as they retreated into Austria.12

  A tough, highly decorated, Bavarian-born professional soldier of aristocratic lineage, von Hengl had led mountain troops in combat in Poland, Finland, and Russia. Though he privately believed his mission to defend the alpine passes into Austria was ultimately hopeless, he was determined to do what he could to slow the Allied advance into Tyrol. Having established his headquarters in Wörgl, von Hengl quickly set about organizing five kampfgruppen, or battle groups, each of which was named after its commander. Four of the units would each be responsible for a different pass leading into the Inn Valley, with the fifth held in reserve. All of the battle group commanders—Colonels Buchner,13 Schirowski, Drück, and Forster, and Lieutenant Colonel Johann Giehl14—were combat-proven gebirgsjägers.

  Since Innsbruck itself was to be defended by Brigadier General Joannes Böhaimb’s Division Group North,15 von Hengl established his most westerly task force, Battle Group Drück, at Schwaz. Jenbach, five miles to the northeast, was to be the base of operations for Battle Group Schirowski. Twenty-three miles downriver,16 Battle Group Buchner was centered on Kufstein, and seven miles almost directly north from there, just over the German border in Neideraudorf, Battle Group Giehl established itself on both banks of the Inn. The reserve task force, Battle Group Forster, remained in the armory at Wörgl.

  Because intelligence reports indicated that the main American advance into the Inn Valley would be through Kufstein, von Hengl ensured that battle groups Buchner and Giehl were the most robust of his five task forces. The two groups shared four hundred crack troops from Grossdeutschland;17 one hundred Waffen-SS soldiers (again, most probably from “Götz von Berlichingen”); several dozen officers and men from the NCO school in Wörgl; four hundred gebirgsjägers; two hundred field police; sixty combat engineers; and two of the 88mm flak guns, each with thirty rounds of ammunition.18 Since Giehl’s mission was to slow the American advance using hit-and-run tactics, his was the slightly smaller and more mobile of the two battle groups.

  By April 30 von Hengl’s four frontline battle groups were deployed in or near the Alpine passes. The Buchner and Giehl task forces were astride both routes into Kufstein—the major highway leading almost directly south from Rosenheim, just over the border and some eighteen miles downriver, and the two-lane road leading southeast from Bavaria’s Schliersee (Lake Schlier) toward Landl, Austria, and on to Kufstein. Though von Hengl was still understandably concerned about his insufficiency in men, armor, and artillery, he was confident that Alpine Front, Northwest, was as ready as it would ever be to resist the American advance into the Inn River valley.

  Unfortunately for von Hengl, it wasn’t just the Americans he had to worry about.

  AS NOTED EARLIER IN THIS VOLUME, many Austrians had no desire to become citizens of “greater” Germany, and nascent anti-Nazi resistance cells began coalescing in Austria soon after the Anschluss. As in other occupied countries, these groups spanned the political and philosophical spectra: nationalists, monarchists, Socialists, Communists, Jews, even organized criminal groups. Though all shared a desire to oust the Nazi invaders from Austrian soil, their reasons for wishing to do so varied widely and were often at odds.19

  In addition, the burgeoning Austrian resistance faced challenges with which the anti-Nazi movements in other nations—save that in Germany itself—did not have to contend. Because they had the same culture, the same language, and much of the same history as their oppressors, most Austrians did not experience the resistance-inducing brutality and radical social and ethnic changes that occurred in France, Poland, or Russia. And, of course, the unfortunate fact that a huge number of Austrians were ardent Nazis who fully supported the beliefs and goals of the Third Reich—and enthusiastically participated in their implementation—made it extremely difficult for the resistance-inclined to establish effective cells or avoid betrayal by friends, neighbors, or even family members.

  Those Austrians who nonetheless chose to oppose the Nazis also faced daunting operational challenges. Since there was no Austrian government in exile, well into 1944 there was no conduit through which to gain Allied recognition and support. The various movements that did evolve therefore did not initially receive the weapons, money, or guidance provided to underground groups in France and the Low Countries. Poorly armed, isolated, and under constant threat of exposure and arrest, Austrian resisters thus originally avoided the type of armed guerilla warfare practiced by their French, Dutch, and Norwegian counterparts.

  The various Austrian resistance groups instead adopted a pragmatic approach that emphasized nonviolent measures, including the distribution of anti-Nazi propaganda and the gathering of intelligence they hoped would be of value to the advancing Allies. At the same time, the groups sought to recruit and train new members—activities that became easier as Germany’s military fortunes declined—and patiently worked to build the command structures necessary to make the disparate cells militarily effective. This latter effort received a significant boost with the December 1944 establishment of the Provisional Austrian National Committee (POEN),20 a loose confederation of the leaders of the various resistance groups. POEN was able to make contact with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS)21 station in Bern, Switzerland. This quickly led to a mutually rewarding partnership; the resistance groups—now collectively referred to as the O522 organization—provided OSS with valuable intelligence about German military operations and dispositions throughout Austria, and in return OSS provided weapons, funding, and liaison officers.23 Given their proximity to Switzerland, the various resistance groups in Tyrol were among the earlier recipients of the OSS’s largesse.

  As elsewhere in Austria, the Tyrolean groups were of varying ideological and political slants. The cells had evolved both in the Innsbruck-Hall urban region and in small rural communities scattered in the river and mountain valleys. Though initially focused on local, rather than regional, activities, most of the groups had been brought into the POEN-O5 fold by mid-1944. While they were increasingly well armed, in order to avoid prompting savage German reprisals aimed at the civilian population, the Tyrolean groups did not generally undertake direct attacks on German forces. Instead, they focused their energies on planning and preparing for a popular uprising intended to coincide with the arrival in Tyrol of Allied forces. Their goals included preventing retreating German units from destroying key bridges and other structures, capturing and disarming enemy troops whenever possible, and, most important, protecting Austrian civilians from revenge attacks by the Gestapo and SS.

  The resisters in Tyrol came from all walks of life—educators, students, farmers, housewives—and, not surprisingly, their ranks also included Austrian-born Wehrmacht officers and enlisted soldiers. The majority of these latter men were assigned to garrison, reserve, and replacement units, such as the Gebirgsjäger-Ersatz-Bataillon (Mountain Troops Replacement Battalion) 136, whose companies were based in Landeck and Wörgl and whose senior commanders were all m
embers of the resistance; the Reserve-Gebirgsjäger-Bataillon 137 in Kufstein; and the Gebirgs-Artillerie-Ersatz-Abteilung (Mountain Artillery Replacement Detachment) 118, also in Kufstein. In addition, several Austrian-born instructors and students at the mountain troops’ NCO school in Wörgl were also sympathetic to the resistance.

  Austrian-born military personnel who supported the anti-Nazi resistance did so for the same panoply of reasons—political, moral, and cultural—that motivated civilian resisters. But those in uniform were often in far better positions than their nonmilitary counterparts to undertake concrete, meaningful acts against the Third Reich. Among the earliest and most effective resisters, for example, was Friedrich Würthle. A prewar liberal journalist, he was called up for army service in 1940 and assigned to the main Military Registration Office in Innsbruck. As a noncommissioned officer in the organization’s administrative office, he was able to provide fellow anti-Nazis serving in the Wehrmacht with doctored identity cards and travel documents, allowing them to move more freely throughout Tyrol and even into Germany itself. In addition, Würthle was able to help establish communications and forge alliances among the various nascent resistance groups, in the process becoming a key resistance leader himself.24