The Last Battle (29 page)

Major Kramers made a swift “reccy” up the road, did some radio talk with headquarters, and decided we couldn’t clear the road to Itter without help.
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As Kramers was discussing the situation with Lutten, the French liaison officer, the radio in their jeep crackled. It was the division command post, and the news wasn’t good. Not only would they not be getting reinforcements, the 103rd’s chief of staff, Colonel Guy S. Meloy, was ordering the rescue force to turn around and head back toward Innsbruck. Thunderstruck, Kramers reminded the senior officer that the French VIPs were in mortal danger and, as respectfully as he could, asked why on earth he was being ordered to abort the mission when the rescuers were well over half the way to Itter. The answer left Kramers stunned: His column had crossed the map coordinates that marked the boundary between the 103rd and 36th divisions’ respective areas of operation. He and his men were, in effect, “trespassing” in the 36th’s territory.
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While Kramers well understood that moving unannounced through another division’s area of operations could be dangerous—friendly forces unaware of his column’s presence might well mistake it for an enemy unit and attack—he also believed at that point that his ad hoc detachment was the only force capable of saving Schloss Itter’s French prisoners. Being careful not to sound insubordinate, Kramers pointed out to Meloy that the question of unit boundaries and areas of operational responsibility had not kept the initial rescue plan from being approved by the division commander, Major General McAuliffe, less than twelve hours earlier. Going further, he reminded the chief of staff that the murder of a gaggle of French VIPs by the Nazis would not reflect well on either American division. Struggling to keep his anger in check, Kramers all but pleaded to be allowed to keep going, but to no avail.

Directed in no uncertain terms to return to Innsbruck, the military-government officer made what under the circumstances was a very gutsy, and admittedly foolhardy, decision: he would send back the four tank destroyers and the infantrymen from the 409th as ordered, but he, Lutten, Sergeant Gris, and Čučković would continue to Schloss Itter in the jeep. How he planned to either liberate or defend the French VIPs is unclear, given that the only weaponry he now had at his command were the M3
submachine guns and .45-caliber pistols he, Lutten, and Gris were carrying. As Kramers was about to pull away, Levin and Schwab made their own bold decision: despite the obvious folly of driving deeper into what was still enemy-held territory—on roads quite possibly mined and almost certainly crawling with die-hard German troops—the two journalists immediately volunteered to follow along in their own jeep. As dangerous as the trip to Schloss Itter might turn out to be, neither man intended to miss what was shaping up to be one hell of a story.
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E
VEN AS
S
CHLOSS
I
TTER
’
S
two would-be relief forces were struggling to stay on the move, the castle’s defenders were suffering a crisis of trust.

Just after eight
AM
, as Lee and Gangl were inspecting the defenses on the schloss’s north side, firing erupted from the gatehouse. When the two officers got there, Basse explained that one of Gangl’s men had apparently used a rope to lower himself from the veranda outside the VIPs’ dining area to the base of the sloping foundation wall directly west of the gatehouse. One of the wall’s supporting stone buttresses had hidden him from view until he took off running down into the ravine, heading in the direction of Hopfgarten. With a pointed glance at Gangl, Basse said that none of the “tame Krauts” had opened fire on their erstwhile comrade. By the time the Americans in the gatehouse realized what was happening, the escaping Wehrmacht trooper had run through the breach in the concertina made earlier by the Waffen-SS men and was well into the trees. Though the GIs had opened up with M1s and Pollock’s BAR, they hadn’t hit the fleeing soldier.
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A quick headcount by Gangl and Lieutenant Höckel showed the escapee to be a German-born soldier of no great political conviction who’d probably decided to go over to the Waffen-SS simply to avoid immediate execution should the castle be overrun. Whatever his motives, the man’s escape was a dire development. He knew exactly how many troops were defending Schloss Itter, where they were positioned, the type and number of their weapons, and even how much ammunition they had—information he would almost certainly reveal to the SS men in order to demonstrate his loyalty. What must have been worse still, from Lee’s point of view, was the fact that none of the other Germans had fired at the defector as
he loped toward the trees. Did that mean that the man’s comrades harbored the same idea—to find a way to give themselves up to the Waffen-SS and claim they’d been coerced into helping the Americans in hopes of avoiding a bullet in the back of the head?

While we don’t know the exact course of the discussion Lee and Gangl must have had following the deserter’s departure—were there recriminations, accusations, apologies?—we do know that Gangl was able to convince Lee of the remaining Wehrmacht troops’ loyalty by the simple fact that the tanker allowed the Germans to keep their weapons. If Lee had harbored any doubts about the trustworthiness of the remaining German soldiers, he would have immediately disarmed them and locked them away in one of Schloss Itter’s many cells. And though we can’t say with certainty, it’s also probable that having convinced Lee, Gangl then took the time to go about reminding his troops that the best chance they had of surviving the next few hours and going home to their families was to continue to throw in their lot with the Allies.

Having dealt with one setback, Lee was almost immediately faced with another. After their discussion about the German soldier’s escape, the tanker and Gangl had gone up to the top floor of the keep to fill Schrader in on what had happened and to get a better view of any increased enemy activity that might have resulted from the German corporal’s defection. They didn’t have to wait long for an answer: just after eight thirty Lee, peering through binoculars, spotted two ominous weapons—a 20mm anti-aircraft cannon
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and an 88mm gun—being emplaced in a tree line barely eight hundred yards to the northwest of the castle.
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The sight likely made Lee cringe; the rapid-fire 20mm was lethal against soft-skinned vehicles and personnel, and the 88 had a fearsome and well-earned reputation as a killer of Allied tanks. But worse was yet to come. Gangl nudged Lee and pointed south down the Ittererstrasse toward Hopfgarten: a string of military trucks was emerging from the town and driving in the direction of the castle. After passing the junction with the Ittererstrasse, the vehicles stopped and began disgorging troops, who immediately ran into the woods at the base of the hill. Focusing the binoculars, Lee could easily see that the troops leaping from the tailgates of the trucks were wearing characteristic Waffen-SS camouflage.
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The tanker estimated that the new arrivals numbered between 100 and 150, and Schrader pointed out that at least two of the vehicles bore the mailed-fist insignia of the 17th SS Panzer-Grenadier Division.

While the appearance of the 88 and the truckloads of troops was certainly not a positive development, Lee and the two German officers agreed that it could explain why the schloss had not yet been attacked in force. The enemy soldiers in the woods along the schlossweg and on the parallel ridgeline to the east were probably just a reconnaissance element tasked with probing the castle’s defenses as they awaited the arrival of the main assault group. Though there was a slim chance that the 88 and the newly arrived Waffen-SS men were being deployed in order to engage the U.S. 36th Infantry Division rather than to assault Schloss Itter, the officers assumed—correctly, though they wouldn’t know that for some time
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—that the Waffen-SS troops had been specifically ordered to eliminate the French VIPs and their American and German protectors. And, that being the case, Lee, Gangl, and Schrader all understood that the enemy would waste little time before mounting an all-out attack on the castle.

Realizing that the 88 and the large contingent of Waffen-SS troops would pose as great a threat to the U.S. forces advancing from Kufstein as they did to those holed up in Schloss Itter, Lee knew he had to get the word out. But with
Besotten Jenny
’s radio inoperable—it had failed at some point between Wörgl and the castle—the question was, how? To Lee’s surprise, Schrader had a simple answer: try the telephone. The officer pointed out that the handset in the ground-floor orderly room was connected directly to the telephone exchange in Wörgl, and as long as the lines hadn’t been cut, they should be able to reach someone who could pass the word on to the Americans. Gangl suggested they call Alois Mayr and Rupert Hagleitner at the Neue Post Inn; who better to contact the U.S. forces than the local Austrian resistance leaders? Lee immediately agreed and told Gangl to make the call.

Within minutes the Wehrmacht officer was on the line with Mayr, who promised to pass the intelligence on to the first Americans he saw. Then, knowing that Schloss Itter would need all the defenders it could get, Gangl ordered Second Lieutenant Wegscheider and Corporal Linsen to get to the castle as quickly as they could. The two men immediately jumped in a kübelwagen and sped off toward Itter, accompanied by seventeen-year-old Hans Waltl, the only resistance member Mayr and Hagleitner felt they could spare. What would have been a twenty-minute drive in peacetime took the trio nearly forty-five, given that they were forced to take several sudden detours onto unpaved side roads to bypass Waffen-SS roadblocks
on the main routes out of Wörgl. By looping to the north of the schloss and then approaching from the northeast end of the Ittererstrasse, the three men were able to avoid most of the troops moving into position between Hopfgarten and the castle, and Wegscheider—deciding that bravado was the only ploy that would get them past the gathering Waffen-SS troops—told Linsen to sound the kübelwagen’s horn as they raced through Itter village and down the last few hundred yards of the schlossweg toward the gatehouse. The soldiers lining the road were apparently taken in by the ruse, because Wegscheider and his companions made it unscathed to the entrance to the schloss access road. Abandoning the kübelwagen, the three men ran the last yards to the gatehouse, where Gangl—who’d come down to warn Basse and the GIs of the men’s arrival—welcomed them with a relieved smile.
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The hurried greetings over, Gangl told the new arrivals to follow him to the keep, where he wanted them to take up positions alongside their comrades. As the group traversed the Great Hall, Gangl realized that virtually all the French VIPs were in the rear courtyard in direct defiance of Lee’s orders that they stay inside—Daladier and Jouhaux were strolling upright around the perimeter, looking like they hadn’t a care in the world; Mabire, Reynaud, and the Cailliaus were taking souvenir photos of each other near the central fountain; Clemenceau, Gamelin, and Borotra were deep in discussion near the door leading down into the main building; and Augusta Bruchlen was just walking out of the Great Hall.
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Even Schrader’s wife and children were out enjoying the morning sunshine and bracing mountain air.

While we don’t know how Gangl felt about the French VIPs’ defiance of Lee’s orders or their cavalier disregard for their own safety, we do know that any rebuke he might have been about to voice was rendered completely unnecessary by the 88mm round that at that moment slammed into the west side of the keep’s third floor, destroying Gamelin’s room and blasting loose a cascade of stone, shattered glass, and splintered furniture. Almost immediately the woods surrounding the castle erupted with automatic weapons and rifle fire; bullets hammered into the castle’s walls and blew windows out of their frames. Then the 20mm cannon to the northwest added its voice to the chorus, coughing out fist-sized rounds that exploded on impact with the side of the keep, gouging holes in the stonework the size of dinner plates.

It was a few minutes after ten, and the battle for Schloss Itter had begun in earnest.