Untold Stories, Hidden Facts & Curiosities of World War II — What’s Not in the Textbooks · by Dr. Christian Hardinghaus
The Battle for Castle Itter: The Strangest Battle of World War II
Five days after Hitler’s death, American tankers, German Wehrmacht soldiers and famous French prisoners defended an Austrian castle together – against the Waffen-SS.
Tyrol, May 5, 1945, early morning. On the walls of a medieval castle, American GIs lie next to German Wehrmacht soldiers. Beside them, two former prime ministers of France and a tennis superstar pick up rifles. Down in the valley, the Waffen-SS is forming up to attack. Hitler is dead and the war is all but over – but for the people inside Castle Itter, the most dangerous day is just beginning.
01The Story: The Battle for Castle Itter
Castle Itter sits in the Brixental valley in Austria’s Tyrol, not far from Wörgl. From 1943, the SS used it as a subcamp of Dachau for so-called “honor prisoners”: prominent French figures the regime held as bargaining chips. Among them were former prime ministers Édouard Daladier and Paul Reynaud, generals Maxime Weygand and Maurice Gamelin, labor leader Léon Jouhaux, tennis star Jean Borotra and Marie-Agnès Cailliau, the sister of Charles de Gaulle.
In early May 1945, the SS guards fled. The prisoners were free – but stranded in territory where fanatical Waffen-SS units were still active. They sent messengers out for help. One of them reached Major Josef “Sepp” Gangl, a Wehrmacht officer who had joined the Austrian resistance. Gangl made contact with the Americans and found an ally in Captain John C. “Jack” Lee Jr. of the 23rd Tank Battalion, 12th Armored Division.
Lee rolled up with a single Sherman tank and a handful of men; Gangl brought a few of his soldiers. On the morning of May 5, the Waffen-SS attacked with far superior numbers. For hours, the defenders held. The tank was knocked out, and ammunition ran low. Jean Borotra vaulted over the wall to fetch reinforcements. Major Gangl was killed by a sniper while pulling Paul Reynaud out of the line of fire – the only defender to die.
In the afternoon, American reinforcements arrived and drove off the SS. The French prisoners were saved. Jack Lee later received the Distinguished Service Cross. In Austria, Sepp Gangl is honored as a resistance hero to this day.
02Why It’s Not in the Textbooks
The Battle for Castle Itter fits none of the familiar narratives. It happened when the war in Europe was already decided, and it had no military significance. In the big stories of the war’s end – Berlin, the Elbe, the surrender – there’s no room for a skirmish at a castle in the Alps.
Above all, the story disrupts a simple good-versus-evil framework. Americans fighting side by side with Wehrmacht soldiers against the SS surprises most readers. Yet Gangl’s case shows how differently men in the same uniform could act – and that resistance still cost lives in the final days of the war.
It was American journalist Stephen Harding who brought the story to a wide audience in 2013 with his book The Last Battle. Since then, Castle Itter has become a symbol of both the absurdity and the humanity of the war’s last days.
✚Myth-Check
The claim: “It was the only time Americans and Germans fought together in World War II.”
That’s how the battle is usually described, and no comparable joint engagement is documented. But on the German side, only a small group of soldiers who had already turned against the regime took part – not “the Wehrmacht” as an institution.
Verdict: COMPLICATED
The Cursed Generation
How did ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers experience the war – and how do they see it today? I interviewed the last surviving veterans to find out, including stories of men who, like Sepp Gangl, made their own choices at the end.
About the Book Amazon🗂 Decode This File
- Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS → Combat & Chains — Units & Organization
- Ranks like Major and Hauptsturmführer → Rank & Reputation — Military Ranks
- The SS camp system → Command & Compliance — Nazi Organizations
- German-born soldiers in US uniform → Camp Ritchie: The Secret of the Ritchie Boys
03Sources & Further Reading
- Harding, Stephen. The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe. Boston: Da Capo Press, 2013.
- Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW). Materials on resistance in Tyrol, 1945.
- U.S. Army. Unit records of the 12th Armored Division and 36th Infantry Division, May 1945.
