DiscoverScroll article

The Battle of Castle Itter was fought on 5 May 1945, in the Austrian village of Itter in the North Tyrol region of the country, during the last days of the European Theater of World War II.

Troops of the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th Armored Division of the US XXI Corps led by Lieutenant John C. "Jack" Lee Jr., a number of Wehrmacht soldiers led by Major Josef "Sepp" Gangl, SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt-Siegfried Schrader, and recently freed French prisoners of war defended Castle Itter against an attacking force from the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division until relief from the American 142nd Infantry Regiment of the 36th Division of XXI Corps arrived. The battle is one of two known times during the war in which Americans and Germans fought side by side, the other being Operation Cowboy, and the only known time where an active member of the Waffen-SS fought on the Allied side. Popular accounts have called it the strangest battle of World War II.

Itter Castle is a small castle on a hill near the village of Itter in Austria. Besides the VIP prisoners, the castle held a number of Eastern European prisoners detached from Dachau, who were used for maintenance and other menial work.

On 3 May 1945, Zvonimir Čučković, an imprisoned Yugoslav communist resistance member from Croatia who worked as a handyman at the prison, left the castle under the pretext of performing an errand for the prison's commander Sebastian Wimmer. Čučković went to seek Allied assistance. The SS-Totenkopfverbände guards left the castle soon after, and the prisoners took control of the castle and armed themselves with the weapons that remained; however, they feared an attack by any roaming parties of SS men still loyal to the Nazi regime. Around the same time, a reconnaissance unit of four Sherman tanks of the 23rd Tank Battalion, 12th Armored Division of the US XXI Corps, under the command of Lieutenant Lee, had reached Kufstein, Austria, 13 km (8 mi) to the north. After a personal reconnaissance of the Castle with Gangl and Hagleitner, in the major's Kübelwagen, Lee left two of his tanks behind but requisitioned five more and supporting infantry from the recently arrived 142nd Infantry Regiment of the 36th. Meanwhile, the French prisoners had asked an SS officer, Kurt-Siegfried Schrader, whom they had befriended in Itter during his convalescence from wounds and who was living locally, to take charge of their defense. When Lee arrived at the castle, prisoners greeted the rescuing force warmly but were disappointed with its small size. Lee placed the men under his command in defensive positions around the castle and positioned his Sherman tank, Besotten Jenny, at the main entrance.

Shortly after the arrival of the reinforcements, a force of 100–150 Waffen-SS soldiers led by Oberführer Georg Bochmann, who had been occupying some hills near the town, decided to attack the castle. Only two more German soldiers under his command and a teenage Austrian resistance member, Hans Waltl, could be spared, and they quickly drove to the castle.

For his service defending the castle, Lee was promoted to captain and received the Distinguished Service Cross. Gangl died during the battle from a 7.92×57mm Mauser round while trying to move former French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud out of harm's way, and was honored as an Austrian national hero; a street in Wörgl was named after him. The battle was fought five days after Adolf Hitler had committed suicide and only two days before the signing of Germany's unconditional surrender.

Swedish power metal band Sabaton released a song about the battle, titled "The Last Battle", on their 2016 album The Last Stand. The US/Serbian WW2 action drama Battle for Castle Itter is based on this event.

Quick Facts

• Itter Castle is a small castle on a hill near the village of Itter in Austria.
• The battle is one of two known times during the war in which Americans and Germans fought side by side, the other being Operation Cowboy, and the only known time where an active member of the Waffen-SS fought on the Allied side.
• The US/Serbian WW2 action drama Battle for Castle Itter is based on this event.
• Popular accounts have called it the strangest battle of World War II.
• Troops of the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th Armored Division of the US XXI Corps led by Lieutenant John C.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Battle of Castle Itter". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.