The fight that German and American soldiers waged side by side against Waffen-SS troops

That troops of the German regular army, the Wehrmacht, would fight against the SS combat corps, the Waffen-SS, was something that I thought had only happened in some movie or novel.

In fact, German soldiers fighting on the battlefield against other German soldiers during World War II (and not by mistake, ie: Sergeant Steiner's platoon decimated by friendly fire at The Iron Cross) I had only

in an exploits of

in which, towards the end of the war, a Wehrmacht regiment faced fanatical troops from their country to prevent them from massacring troops from a British regiment with which, they discovered when they saw that they wore the same insignia, had been brothers and served together during the Napoleonic wars, which creates many bonds…

I could add the opening scene of

in which Colonel Steiner's paratroopers (no known relationship to the sergeant beyond the fact that we like James Coburn and Michal Caine; we don't like the SS General Felix Steiner) almost came to blows, well, Schmeissers MP-40s, with an SS unit while trying to save, unsuccessfully, a Jewish girl.

There are of course cases of German soldiers fighting with their weapons against German soldiers, from

and

to

, passing through

, but in those cases it is Allied commandos in disguise.

In some Sven Hassel novel, we see how Porta, Hermanito and their comrades from the front liquidate some Nazis.

And von Stauffenberg, of course, killed several of his own fellow officers in the July 20 attack on Hitler in the Wolf's Lair and then shot himself in the Benderblock in Berlin when Operation Valkyrie failed.

But we are not talking about real combat on the battlefield.

More information

"Mom wants to hang us!": At the end of the Third Reich, more common people with their children committed suicide than the military and Nazi high officials

In reality, after the book that dismantled the myth of a Wehrmacht with clean hands as opposed to a bloody SS,

(Crítica, 2010), we know perfectly well that the Wehrmacht and the SS were quite in unison.

That's why I was so impressed by discovering the story of the Battle for Castle Itter.

In that battle, in the last bars of World War II, on May 5, 1945, with Hitler already dead and the surrender of Germany just around the corner, US soldiers, Wehrmacht troops and prisoners of war The French fought side by side against troops of the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division Gotz von Berlichingen - the powerful name came from a Franconian imperial knight who carried an artificial iron hand, hence the unit emblem;

he also told the Bishop of Bamberg that he could already kiss his ass (first historically attested mention of the expression), but that's another story.

, by Stephen Harding (Hachette Books, 2020), a reference work on the subject,

fell into my hands that I found out about this strange chapter of the second war.

I finished the book the other day after devouring its sensational two hundred pages in one sitting and I'm still in disbelief.

What a story!

Suffice it to say that friend Andrew Roberts in his review of the book wondered, quite rightly, how Steven Spielberg could have missed such a story, which has some common threads—the attack by Waffen-SS troops on a small group of fighters that defends a position in inferiority.

“Part

, part

, this story is as exciting and as crazy as they are, although unlike those iconic war movies, every word of

is true, “says Roberts.

And I won't say it better.

Itter Castle, with the entrance where the American Sherman tank was stationed.

The story of the Battle of Itter Castle is astonishing, and as you turn the pages of Harding's painstaking reconstruction the events that unfold are even more astonishing.

Coming as I came from a World War II castle, that of Colditz, according to the book by Ben Macintyre (Criticism, 2023), I was surprised to find another, that of Itter, which also served as a prison and was the scene of even more adventures. exciting.

Itter Castle is in Austria, in Tyrol, on a hill near the town of the same name.

With a very interesting history that dates back to the 10th century and which includes witch hunts, the rooms of Liszt, Wagner and Tchaikovsky and its transformation into a hotel in the twenties with the air of a fairy tale castle,

De Gaulle, older sister of the Free French general.

Dependent on the Dachau camp, the castle was garrisoned by members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände under the command of SS Captain Sebastian Wimmer, a brute with experience in Majdanek, who is already a resume.

His mission was to hold the French hostage and possible bargaining chips and kill them as soon as he received orders to do so.

When the US troops arrived in the area, concerned about the rumors of the alpine refuge where the most irreducible Nazis would have concentrated and with the desire that can be imagined of the soldiers to become the last casualties of the war about to end , news reached them of the French prisoners in the castle and that their fate hung by a thread.

German Major Gangl and American Lieutenant Lee, in a montage with their two portraits.

Waffen-SS

units milling around angry (it's what you get when you've almost reached the Caucasus and end up defending Tyrol, and your Führer has committed suicide), hard-hitting troops

(Gebirsjäger), Wehrmacht soldiers willing to fight just, Hitler Youth, Volksturm, members of the Austrian anti-Nazi resistance (there were!) armed by the OSS and civilians ready to raise the white flag, as well as a couple of Tiger tanks.

This hodgepodge and the uncertainties of the moment explain the mess that arose around the castle of Itter and in which the major of the Wehrmacht Josef

Gangl, a war hero, awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class and the German Cross in gold but bent on ending war and preventing further suffering;

Waffen-SS Captain Kurt-Siegfried Schrader, also an experienced fighter who had fought at Leningrad, Caen and the Remagen Bridge, and also already disaffected with the Third Reich, and Nebraska tank lieutenant John Carey Lee, former player of American football, a heavy drinker and another military veteran who reached the heart of Krautland after crossing half of Europe fighting aboard his Sherman named

.

The three of them became strange and unlikely comrades in arms.

While the situation in the castle was getting out of hand, Wimmer fled with the SS guards, Schrader took command, in favor of surrendering the fortress;

the French seized arms, and Waffen-SS troops were converging on Itter with very poor prospects for the prisoners, there were various attempts to contact US forces and ask for help in order to save the French VIPS.

Finally, after comings and goings to parley on a bicycle and Kübelwagen, dangerous but also worthy of

, assembled to defend the castle and the French Gangl with 14 Wehrmacht officers and soldiers under their command, Lee with a dozen GIs and his tank, the disaffected SS Schrader and the prisoners themselves (who no doubt had Zinderneuf in mind).

So as not to confuse their own with strangers, the allied Germans, and for the word—Lee used the term

, tame Krauts—wrote a knotted piece of black cloth over their left arm.

Harding describes the incredible scene on the eve of the battle with the two highly decorated Third Reich officers and the daring American tanker planning the defense of the medieval Tyrolean castle together, and it really does sound like Alistair MacLean stuff.

Waffen-SS soldiers on the ground in 1945.

The siege of the castle began with bursts of MG-42 machine guns fired from the surrounding woods, to which the Sherman's cannon responded, positioned blocking the entrance to the fortress, a bit like Brad Pitt's

Fury

Meanwhile, other US forces advanced towards the castle in the form of the Seventh Cavalry, in a mechanized gallop that included two journalists who did not want to miss such a story.

Help was essential, since the attacking forces of the Waffen-SS, a hundred and a half strong in their characteristic camouflage uniforms (part of the 17th SS Panzer) had a deadly 88-millimeter gun —a lethal tank destroyer—, a 75mm, and another 20mm, the merciless meat-grinder weapon that appears in the battle of Ramelle at the end of

.

During the crucial hours of the siege, the Sherman was hit and destroyed by shell (the crew saved), and the brave Gangl fell dead, hit in the head by a sniper's bullet as he ran to knock Reynaud out of the line of fire. .

Meanwhile, the most incredible messenger had been sent from the castle to contact the reinforcements, explain the situation and guide them.

It was the Frenchman Borotra, a well-known tennis champion as well as a politician and who was, logically, the fittest of the prisoners, in addition to having tried to escape several times and get to know the surroundings.

Boldly breaking through the ranks of the Waffen-SS, Borotra ran into the most unlikely person possible and who recognized him immediately: French-Canadian war correspondent René Levesque, future Prime Minister of Québec, who was with the relief forces.

The rescue, consisting of a column of tanks, half-tracks with troops and jeeps, arrived at the castle at a critical moment, when the defenders were running low on ammunition.

First,

to see them was one of the Germans from the fortress who, upon seeing the Shermans, shouted, alarmingly to his American comrades: "Panzer!"

Before the massive arrival of the enemy, in Wild West plan, the Waffen-SS vanished into the forests.

The end of the Battle of Itter Castle was anticlimactic: French VIPs were sent to France, the American defenders reintegrated into their units, and the Germans who had fought alongside them were sent to prison camps.

On May 7, Germany signed its unconditional surrender.

Lee received the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest US award after the Medal of Honor, "for his leadership and extraordinary heroism in action."

On his part, the late Gangl was recognized as an Austrian national hero for his alliance with the anti-Nazi resistance movement and his participation in the defense of the castle.

A street in the neighboring town of Wörgl bears his name today.

Wimmer, the evil SS officer who escaped from the fortress evaded punishment, but committed suicide in 1952.

The Waffen-SS friend, Schrader, after spending a brief internment was released and in 1953 he entered the Ministry of the Interior of the state of Westphalia as a civil servant.

Itter Castle can be seen from outside today, but not visited.

As for me, I hope to rediscover in my life something as exciting as the battle of Itter castle, or at least, that they make the movie...