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

by Stephen Harding

  AS SOON AS BOROTRA had gone over the wall, Lee—always the pragmatist—had begun planning what he and his shrinking command would do if the relief force didn’t show up in time. Securing the agreement of Weygand and Gamelin—both of whom had deferred to the young American throughout the battle despite their own exalted ranks—Lee began pulling defenders off the walls and shepherding them and the French VIPs toward the keep. The American tanker, aided by Schrader and the other German officers, deployed the troops and the armed Frenchmen at windows and the top of each staircase.

  Daladier, for his part, sequestered himself in one of the second-floor bedrooms, where:

  two of the German soldiers who had come with [Gangl] had taken up positions, with their rifles resting on the window sills. They pointed out [SS troops] firing at the “castle” from a few hundred yards away, near the little electric plant, on the edge of the forest. The two soldiers returned the fire. I took advantage of a moment of calm to exchange a few words with our defenders. They told me in German that they were Polish. When I told them I was French, one of them started shaking my hand while the other pulled a bottle out of his coat and offered it to me. It was a bottle of Fernet Branca; where the devil did he get that? I drank a bit; it was really bad. Then he laughed and told me Hitler was kaput.50

  Down on the schlossweg, a squad of Waffen-SS troops was at that moment pressing the attack. Just as one of them settled into position to fire a panzerfaust at the front gate, the sound of automatic weapons and tank guns behind them in the village signaled a radical change in the tactical situation. Seconds later the SS men evaporated into the woods, just as Boche Buster rolled to a stop at the village end of the schlossweg, its appearance prompting Daladier’s newfound friend to stop laughing, point out the window, and yell “panzer!”51 It was just after four PM.

  Within minutes the castle’s jubilant defenders—American, French, and German—poured down into the front courtyard, out the gate, and past Besotten Jenny’s still-smoldering hulk toward the men and vehicles of the rescue force. As a small truck bearing Rupert Hagleitner, several of his resistance fighters, and Andreas Krobot rolled down the schlossweg, Lee thanked Gill for arriving in true Wild West fashion: just in the nick of time. Lee and Basse then walked over to where Elliot was nonchalantly leaning against Boche Buster. Feigning irritation, Lee looked the young tanker in the eye and said simply, “What kept you?”

  CHAPTER 8

  AFTERMATH

  AS CAPTAIN JOE GILL’S infantrymen quickly set about establishing a security perimeter around Schloss Itter, 142nd Infantry Regiment commander George Lynch ordered John Kramers to maneuver the chattering, gesticulating French VIPs and liberated number prisoners back into the castle’s front courtyard. The jubilant crowd squeezed through the gatehouse portals, Meyer Levin and René Lévesque dashing from person to person gathering quotes and Eric Schwab photographing civilians and soldiers alike.

  A very tired Jack Lee walked up to Lynch, saluted, and, gesturing at the French VIPs loudly thanking Zvonko Čučković and Andreas Krobot for their courageous rides, said, “Take them colonel, they’re all yours.”1 Lynch smiled and was about to respond when Čučković, spotting Kurt-Siegfried Schrader in his Waffen-SS uniform, let out a yell and rushed toward the startled officer as if to attack him. Krobot jumped between the two men, restraining the Croat handyman and explaining that the German had helped protect the French VIPs “with his life.”2 As an only slightly less angry Čučković moved away, Schrader approached Lynch. Saluting far more smartly than had the exhausted Lee, the German said he had the pleasure to formally hand over the French former prisoners, who had been “under his protection.”

  Protecting the liberated VIPs was also high on Lynch’s task list, of course—there were still armed enemy units in the area, after all, and no cease-fire had yet been officially declared—and he had received orders from Major General McAuliffe to move the former prisoners as soon as possible to the 103rd Infantry Division’s command post in Innsbruck. Through Kramers, Lynch directed the French to return to their rooms, pack only what they could carry in hand luggage, and then assemble in the castle’s Great Hall while he set about organizing the first leg of their journey back to France.

  While thrilled to have been rescued, the VIPs were obviously not willing to let go of the enmity, rivalries, and petty backbiting that had characterized their time at Schloss Itter. As they drifted into the Great Hall with their bags, several of them took the opportunity to voice their complaints to Kramers. As Meyer Levin later wrote, “Some of them whispered about others who had been quite friendly with the German commandant of Itter, and Major Kramers shrewdly observed that perhaps some of these people were as happy to be liberated from each other’s company as they were to be liberated from imprisonment.”3

  René Lévesque was equally struck by the fact that liberation had obviously done nothing to ease the personal animosities of the French VIPs. When he entered the Great Hall to continue his interviews, the young Canadian war correspondent found them “sitting around in little groups seeming very disinclined to talk to one another.”4 Lévesque noted that Daladier and Reynaud were seated in opposite corners of the room and studiously avoiding each other.

  Despite the obvious tension, the young reporter could not pass up the chance to interview two such august personages. Initially unsure which gentleman to approach first, Lévesque took a decidedly pragmatic approach: respecting the chronology of their public service, he began with Daladier.

  The “old bull of the Vaucluse”5 had thinned down a little, but he was still a rugged customer, though he had a hesitant look as if he might be worried about awkward questions. As far as that went, he’d had plenty of time to prepare himself. “Monsieur le Premier Ministré,” I asked him after we’d been formally introduced, “would you mind sharing with us some of the reflections that time and distance have certainly given you a chance to elaborate?” “Cher Monsieur,” he replied, “I have indeed many things to reveal, and above all a great many things to set straight. I intend to publish a full account as soon as I return to France. But here, you understand,” he said, lowering his voice, “there are indiscreet ears belonging to certain individuals who will be unmasked in my memoirs as they deserve to be. I can hardly say more.”6

  The “old bull” obviously intended Lévesque to realize that the “indiscreet ears” belonged to his arch political enemy, for as he finished speaking, he shot what the young reporter called “a murderous look” at Reynaud, who was sitting across the room “affecting the most complete indifference.” When Lévesque approached Reynaud, whom he described as a “dry, pointed little fellow,” he was treated to a virtual repeat of his conversation with Daladier:

  He too, Reynaud said, had plenty to expose, and certain people—same murderous look—had better watch themselves! Not only were [Daladier and Reynaud] not on speaking terms, they could hardly wait to carve each other up. None the wiser, I had to settle for a simple statement of our discovery without further adornment.7

  Once all the VIPs were ready, Kramers shepherded them down to the courtyard, out the front gate, and onto the schlossweg, where Krobot and the female former number prisoners were waiting with bags in hand. Soldiers loaded their luggage into the back of a two-and-a-half-ton truck waiting in front of the church. Schloss Itter’s former prisoners boarded a line of waiting jeeps—the French being careful, of course, to segregate themselves into the same little groups they’d formed during their imprisonment. Just before seven PM the convoy of vehicles set off for Innsbruck, with Kramers’s jeep leading the way and a truckload of 142nd infantrymen following to provide security.8

  The French VIPs stayed in Innsbruck overnight and were suitably feted by, and photographed with, the 103rd’s MacAuliffe. On May 6 they were driven across the German border to Augsburg, and that evening they dined with Seventh Army commander Alexander Patch. The American general had originally intended to fly the French notables home from Augsburg aboard a U.S. Army Air Forces
C-47, but French 1st Army commander Jean de Lattre de Tassigny asked permission to undertake the VIPs’ return to France. Patch agreed, and on May 7 the former prisoners were driven to de Lattre’s headquarters in Lindau, on the German shore of Lake Constance. Upon the group’s arrival, Weygand, Borotra, and de La Rocque were led away; the 1st Army commander announced that the trio would be put on trial in France for their “collaborationist” activities. The other former prisoners were treated to yet another sumptuous banquet, and the following morning all but Daladier were driven to Strasbourg, where they boarded General de Gaulle’s personal aircraft for the flight to Paris. The Bull of the Vaucluse, for his part, drove to Paris with his son Jean, an officer on de Lattre’s staff.9

  For Krobot and the female former number prisoners, the way home led east, not west. After ensuring that they’d all received a thorough medical examination and enjoyed several days of good food and clean beds courtesy of the U.S. Army, Kramers deposited them at a displaced-persons camp operated by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

  That Zvonko Čučković did not accompany his fellow former prisoners was the result of some quick thinking on his part. Within hours of the liberation of Schloss Itter the Croat convinced French liaison officer Eric Lutten that someone should gather up all the personal items the VIPs had not been able to take with them and then ensure that the articles were safely reunited with their owners—in France. Zvonko volunteered for the mission, of course, and was given a travel document authorizing him to accompany the items to Paris and stipulating that he report back to French authorities in Austria by May 23. He made the trip, returned on schedule, and within weeks was repatriated to Yugoslavia.10

  The aftermath of the Schloss Itter battle was rather anticlimactic for Jack Lee and his men. The four infantrymen who’d taken part in the fight—Pollock, Worsham, Petruckovich, and Sutton—rejoined their unit, then assembling in Itter village. After turning Gangl’s body over to the priest at St. Joseph’s Church, Lee sent Basse and Boche Buster back to rejoin the 23rd TB. Once the burnt-out Besotten Jenny had been unceremoniously towed away by a tank-recovery vehicle, Lee and his four crewmen, accompanied by the surviving “tame” Germans, boarded a truck for the ride back to Kufstein. There the Wehrmacht men who’d risked their lives to help the GIs defend the French notables were marched off to a POW cage for processing.

  The end of the battle for Schloss Itter did not mark the end of the castle’s role in World War II history, however. Even before the French VIPs had departed for Innsbruck, the 142nd Infantry’s George Lynch made the fortress his regimental command post, and over the following twenty-four hours he helped broker—through meetings with Georg von Hengl—a local cease-fire and the ultimate surrender of all German forces in Tyrol. Following Germany’s unconditional capitulation in the early morning hours of May 7, Schloss Itter became (though for less than twenty-four hours) the provisional headquarters of Allied occupation forces in Austria.11

  Several weeks after Germany’s surrender Basse and Lee were recognized for their leadership during the battle for Schloss Itter, the former with the Silver Star and the latter with the Distinguished Service Cross.12 Lee’s citation noted his

  extraordinary heroism in action, as Commanding Officer of Company B, 23rd Tank Battalion, in the vicinity of Wörgl, Austria, and the Itter Castle on 4–5 May 1945. Captain Lee with a small group of soldiers infiltrated into hostile territory, demoralized enemy forces, prevented the destruction of two key bridges, and caused 200 German soldiers to surrender. He found many prominent French prisoners at Itter Castle, and immediately organized a defense with both American and German troops. Despite a fanatical SS attack and heavy artillery barrage, Captain Lee’s men held until friendly troops arrived. Captain Lee’s initiative, boldness, courage, resourcefulness and outstanding qualities of leadership exemplify the highest traditions of the Army and the United States.13

  WHILE THE BATTLE OF SCHLOSS Itter may have been a defining moment in the lives of many of its participants, it was not—except for Sepp Gangl and those unnamed attackers who may have died in the assault—the final moment. The various key players in the last full-fledged ground combat action of World War II in Europe—the French, Germans, Americans, and others—went back to their normal lives, and it is only right that we briefly examine how some of those lives played out.

  THE FRENCH

  ÉDOUARD DALADIER

  The Bull of the Vaucluse returned to politics after the war, serving as a deputy in France’s Constituent Assembly and from 1953 to 1958 as mayor of Avignon. His son Jean later compiled and edited Daladier’s wartime diaries. Published as Journal de Captivité, 1940–1945 (Prison Journal, 1940–1945) several years after Daladier’s death in October 1970 at age eighty-six, the book did exactly what the former Schloss Itter captive had told René Levesque it would do: excoriate his political rivals, especially Paul Reynaud.

  MAURICE GAMELIN

  Following his postwar return to France, Gamelin devoted himself to completing his memoirs, titled Servir. The three-volume work—much of which was written during the general’s time in Schloss Itter—was published in 1946 and 1947 to relatively lukewarm reviews. In 1954 Gamelin published a further volume covering his World War I service. He died in April 1958 at the age of eighty-six.

  LÉON JOUHAUX AND AUGUSTA BRUCHLEN

  His years of imprisonment may have further damaged Léon Jouhaux’s health, but they didn’t dim his dedication to the workers of France or to the international labor movement. After his liberation he resumed his leadership of the CGT, but in 1947 the organization’s Communist members forced his resignation. In reaction to what he saw as increasing Communist domination of the French labor movement he helped found the left-centrist Workers’ Force, which he led for the remainder of his life. In 1947 Jouhaux was also elected president of the French National Economic Council and in 1951 helped establish the International Labor Organization as an agency of the United Nations. Jouhaux was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1951 and died on April 28, 1954.

  Augusta Bruchlen aided Jouhaux in all his postwar efforts on behalf of workers, and she adopted the name Augusta Léon-Jouhaux following their marriage in 1948. She was an important labor leader in her own right, serving as director of the International Labor Organization’s Paris office from 1950 to 1971. Prison pour hommes d’Etat, her account of the Schloss Itter years, was published in 1973. This remarkable woman was named a commander of the Légion d’honneur in May 1992 and a Grand Officier of the same in July 2001. She died at the age of 104 on April 28, 2003, forty-nine years to the day after Léon Jouhaux.

  PAUL REYNAUD AND CHRISTIANE MABIRE

  Like his archrival Daladier, Paul Reynaud returned to politics soon after his liberation from Schloss Itter. He won election to the Chamber of Deputies in 1946 and over the following decade held several cabinet posts, including minister of finance and economic affairs. Published in 1951, Au Coeur de la Mêlée (titled In the Thick of the Fight in English) the larger of Reynaud’s two wartime memoirs,14 devoted only 4 of more than 680 pages to events at Schloss Itter; the majority of the book was dedicated to explaining his own actions and generally belittling those of his many political rivals—including Daladier, of course. Reynaud was initially a strong supporter of Charles de Gaulle, though in 1962 he broke with the former general over what he saw as de Gaulle’s drive to consolidate his power through manipulation of the constitution. After losing his seat in the Chamber of Deputies, Reynaud dedicated himself to writing on various topics. He died at age eighty-seven on September 21, 1966.

  Christiane Mabire married Reynaud in December 1949 and ultimately bore three children: sons Serge and Alexandre and daughter Evelyne. After her husband’s death Madame Reynaud led a very private life. She wrote a short, unpublished memoir dealing with her experiences in Ravensbrück and Schloss Itter before passing away in 2002 at the age of eighty-nine.15

  MARCEL GRANGER

  After his liberation from Schloss I
tter, Granger personally carried two suitcases full of documents back to Paris: one contained Maxime Weygand’s voluminous notes for his intended postwar memoirs, and the other Paul Reynaud’s notes for his book. While some sources indicate that Granger then returned to North Africa, it has proven impossible to discover any solid details about the final years of the man whom Édouard Daladier described in his memoir of the Schloss Itter years as “a true gentleman” and “a fine man, highly patriotic and brave, and a wonderful example of the average Frenchman.”16

  JEAN BOROTRA

  Though in the immediate postwar years the French government considered trying the Bounding Basque as a collaborator for his service in the Vichy government, nothing came of the charges, and Borotra’s popularity was undiminished. He resumed his commercial career, working until 1975. Nor did he give up tennis; he served as vice president of the French Lawn Tennis Association and continued to play in international senior competitions well into his nineties. Borotra died in June 1994 at age ninety-five.

  MAXIME AND MARIE-RENÉE-JOSÉPHINE WEYGAND

  The general and his wife were apprehensive about how they would be received upon their return to France, and rightly so. Maxime Weygand was arrested by the French government on May 10, 1945, and charged with “attempts against the internal security of the state.” The following July the High Court of Justice ordered the seizure of all his property and put the aged and ill former general under guard at a Paris hospital. Called as a witness in the trial of Marshal Philippe Pétain, Weygand did verbal battle with Paul Reynaud, who was acting for the prosecution. Weygand’s own trial sputtered on for three years, and he was finally acquitted in 1948. He returned to writing, turning out books and articles on a host of subjects. Marie-Renée-Joséphine died in 1961, and Weygand himself passed away on January 28, 1965, at age ninety-eight.