The Last Battle

by Stephen Harding

  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.[308]

  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.[309]

  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.[310] 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.[311]

  –———–

  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,[312] 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.[313]

  MARCEL GRANGER

  After his liberation from Schloss Itter, 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.”[314]

  JEAN BOROTRA

  Though in the immediate postwar years the French government considered trying the Bounding Basque as a collaborator fo
r 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.

  MICHEL CLEMENCEAU

  The son of the Tiger entered the rough and tumble of post–World War II French politics, serving in the first and second National Constituent Assemblies from 1946 to 1951. After withdrawing from politics, he returned to private industry and died on March 4, 1964, at ninety-one.

  FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCQUE

  During his time at Schloss Itter the former leader of the Croix de feu wrote what would ultimately prove to be his final political tract. Titled Au service de l’avenir (Serving the Future), the book was published in 1946, repeated his fundamental political and moral beliefs, and was obviously meant as a first attempt at rehabilitating his reputation. De La Rocque did not live to see that effort succeed, however. Placed under police supervision and then house arrest following his return to France, he died in April 1946 during surgery meant to alleviate lingering pain from one of his World War I injuries.

  MARIE-AGNÈS AND ALFRED CAILLIAU

  Though the Cailliaus’ imprisonment at Schloss Itter lasted barely a month, the harsh conditions they’d experienced before arriving at the Austrian fortress left lasting scars—both physical and mental. Alfred returned to work as an engineer but was plagued by poor health until his death in December 1956 at the age of seventy-nine. Marie-Agnès was awarded the Légion d’honneur in June 1975 in recognition of her wartime activities on behalf of the French resistance. Her personal reminiscence of her eventful life, Souvenirs personnels, was published following her death in March 1982 at the age of ninety-three.

  THE NUMBER PRISONERS

  Sadly, it has proven impossible to track Andres Krobot or any of the female number prisoners following their handover to the UNRRA.

  ZVONIMIR ČUČKOVIĆ

  Following his return to Yugoslavia at the conclusion of his brief postliberation trip to Paris, Zvonko Čučković set up a small electrical contracting business in Belgrade. He consolidated the incredibly detailed notes he’d kept during his time at Schloss Itter into the manuscript “Zwei Jahren auf Schloss Itter,” and provided copies to both the West German and the French governments. Čučković corresponded with several of the French notables after the war, and he provided Augusta Léon-Jouhaux with many of the details she used in her book Prison pour hommes d’Etat. Čučković died in Belgrade in 1984.

  THE GERMANS

  JOSEF GANGL

  Following the liberation of Schloss Itter the Wehrmacht officer’s body was first taken to St. Joseph’s Church in Itter village but was eventually interred in Wörgl’s main municipal cemetery. Gangl is considered an Austrian national hero because of his alliance with the anti-Nazi resistance movement, his efforts to protect the civilian population of Wörgl, and his participation in the defense of the French VIPs at Schloss Itter. A major street in Wörgl is named after him.

  SEBASTIAN WIMMER

  Despite his efforts to disappear, Schloss Itter’s former commandant was arrested within weeks after Allied forces occupied Tyrol. He was held at the fortress of Kufstein, the medieval castle overlooking the city, which was run as a POW camp by the French (who were the primary occupation force in that part of Austria). Thérèse Wimmer contacted the Jouhauxs and other former Itter prisoners, asking them to intervene on her husband’s behalf. Several of the former VIP prisoners did so, via the French government’s occupation headquarters, the Mission de Contrôle en Autriche.[315]

  As an SS-TV officer, Wimmer was automatically considered a war criminal and logically should have been tried for his role in the 1939 Polish massacres and his administrative duties at Dachau and Madjanek. Inexplicably, he was released by the French in 1949, after which he went to work as a common laborer on a farm near Wörgl. His continued heavy drinking apparently drove his wife away, for in May 1951 he returned alone to his hometown of Dingolfing, Bavaria, and lived with his father at Bruckstrasse 101. He killed himself there on December 10, 1952, at the age of fifty.

  STEFAN OTTO

  Though his name appears on several postwar lists of suspected war criminals, the former SD officer was apparently never apprehended, tried, or imprisoned. As of this writing no information has come to light about his whereabouts or status.

  KURT-SIEGFRIED SCHRADER

  Following their liberation the French VIPs at Schloss Itter gave Schrader a note, in French, which read “On May 4 [sic], 1945, Captain S. Schrader ensured the safety of the French detainees at Itter castle and stayed with them during the German attacks.”[316] While not exactly a ringing endorsement, the letter—which was signed by all of the VIPs—helped ensure that the decorated Waffen-SS officer spent only a relatively short period of time as a POW. After his release in 1947 he rejoined his family and worked for several years as a bricklayer. In the early 1950s the family moved to Münster, in northwestern Germany, and in 1953 Schrader was appointed to a position in the Interior Ministry of the state of North Rhein-Westphalia. He retired from that post in 1980 and reportedly died in the mid-1990s.

  THE AMERICANS

  JOHN T. KRAMERS

  As interesting an experience as the Schloss Itter rescue operation might have been for the 103rd Infantry Division military-government officer, it was only one of many in John Kramers’s long career. He remained in the army after World War II, serving as a military attaché in the U.S. embassies in Finland, Egypt, Algeria, and Ethiopia, among others. His last assignment was as the garrison commander at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, and he retired from the army in 1967 as a colonel. After obtaining a degree in business from the University of Pennsylvania, he worked as a financial advisor, retiring in 2004. I am pleased to say that he was alive and well at age ninety-five at the time of this writing.

  THE 142ND INFANTRY REGIMENT SOLDIERS

  After rejoining their unit following the relief of Schloss Itter, the four GIs were told that they would be put in for decorations stemming from their actions in the battle, but none ever received an award. The four men eventually returned to the United States and, like millions of other former service members, got on with life. Unfortunately, for three of the four all I have been able to discover about their postwar lives are the dates and places of their deaths: Alex Petrukovich, Illinois, November 1973; William Sutton, Wisconsin, June 1979; and Alfred Worsham, Kentucky, June 1993. Arthur Pollock, on the other hand, is alive and remarkably well at the time of this writing: eighty-eight-years-old and in good health, and working five days a week in the family business.

  THE 23RD TANK BATTALION SOLDIERS

  As with the GIs from the 142nd Infantry Regiment, for three of Besotten Jenny’s four crew members I could locate only the dates and places of their deaths: Herbert G. McHaley, Indiana, November 1988; William T. Rushford, Michigan, March 1988; and Edward J. Szymczyk, December 1998. And, as in the case of Art Pollock, I was pleased to find Edward J. Seiner doing well at eighty-eight years of age; he
is not, however, still working five-day weeks.

  HARRY J. BASSE

  Jack Lee’s second in command returned to California after the war, and he and his wife went into farming near Anaheim. They grew oranges until Harry retired in the early 1960s, and one of the groves they sold was razed to help make way for Disneyland. Harry spent his retirement doing the things he enjoyed: hunting, fishing, and spending time with his extended family. He was in good health until his last two years, according to his son. Harry Basse died in Bishop, California, on October 4, 1991, at the age of eighty-one.

  JOHN C. LEE JR.

  The man who engineered the rescue of the French VIPs and the defense of Schloss Itter attempted to jump-start his postwar life even before leaving the service. On the advice of his father, who in addition to being a Norwich physician was also an important player in Democratic Party politics in Chenango County, New York, while still in Germany with the 23rd Tank Battalion, Jack Lee filed the paperwork necessary to make himself a candidate for the Democratic nomination for county sheriff. It was apparently the first time a U.S. military officer serving overseas sought a stateside political office.