Short Stuff: Battle of Itter Castle

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0:08Hey and welcome to the short stuff I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry sitting in for Dave which makes this an official short stuff Don't accept substitutes That's right and I'm only gonna say this at the beginning but boy oh boy this should be a movie this episode It's insane that it's not Yeah, really great cinematic story in every way the way it, you know, is laid out there, you know. Yeah, the Battle of Castle Itter. Would it be Itter or Itter? Well, here we go. We already don't know what to call it. So we're going to call it Itter after John Ritter. But it's also called Schloss Itter, which is Castle.

0:46And it's located in Austria, in the Tyrolean region of Austria. And the reason why it's significant is two. It's one of the last battles of the European theater of World War II. Like, I can't name any other battles. But that doesn't really mean that much. And then the second reason is because it is a really unusual battle in that Germans got together with Americans and French and fought the Nazis in this battle. Yeah, and other randos from different places like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Like it was a, like you mentioned, a real motley crew, real ragtag group. Yeah, but you didn't put both umlauts.

1:30You got to put it over the O too. Oh, I didn't. Oh, I'm sorry. Man, I screwed up. It was pretty great, everyone. Josh put this together and he typed out motley crew and he put umlauts over the U. Just clearly as a little love letter to me. It was. Yeah, I got it. But I'm sorry, I screwed up the love letter. No, it's fine. It's the thought that counts. That's what they say, right? Yeah, but that's really patronizing. What if this was the very last battle? That makes it even more cinematic. I mean, that's what I read. It was like one of the last. And that could just be somebody hedging, you know, and it could have been the last one.

2:06Yeah. All right. So this castle is sitting up there since the 13th century. Since 1878, it's been kind of in its present form. And it's been a bunch of things. It was a private estate for a while. It was a hotel for a while. But notably for our story, after the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, they took it over. And a few years later, in 1943, it became part of Dachau, you know, the death camp. And it served as a sort of a VIP prison for some high-value prisoners of war that they thought could, like, we're not going to put these people to death. We think we might be able to use them as hostages.

2:43so we'll hold them up in this castle. Right. And there were some like real VIPs in there. There were two French generals, two former French prime ministers. Yeah. A tennis star who'd become a politician and one of the sisters of Charles de Gaulle who was like, I guess he was the head of the military in World War II, correct? Or was he the, no, he was the current prime minister, right? In exile. Oh, I thought he just built the airport. Yeah, hand by hand. But that was a side project that he did on weekends. Yeah, yeah. There were also, like you said, some Czech prisoners, some Yugoslavian prisoners.

3:18And they were there for a couple of years. And in May of 1945, the beginning of May 1945, the war was not just starting to wind down. It was coming to like a car smashing into a tree kind of stop because Hitler just killed himself in Berlin. Mussolini had been strung up and hung out to dry, literally by partisans in Italy. And it was just very clear that Germany had lost World War II and the European theater was coming to an end. Yeah, that's right. They were literally about to offer up their formal surrender. But if you're in this castle, you're a little worried because the SS at this point, there's some SS that are like, hey, you know, we're going to lay down our arms.

4:06The war is clearly over. Let's just get this over with. There's other SS that are like, nine, I'm going to go down in a blaze of glory and kill everyone that I can before they formally call this thing over. And so if you were in this castle as a VIP prisoner, you were worried that they were going to be coming for you. And they found out that that was true. Yeah. So one of the things that really unsettled them is on May 2nd, the butcher of Dachau, the guy who ran the prison camp, Eduard Witter, he showed up at the castle because remember, this was like an annex of the Dachau prison system. And he was on the run from the allies who had just liberated the camp right after he'd escaped.

4:47But being a horrible, terrible Nazi, as all Nazis are, he ordered the execution of 2 ,000 prisoners on his way out the door. the people at Castle Itter had heard about this I mean that's kind of a big deal even in World War II even in Germany and the fact that Witter showed up they're like well this is it for us but instead Witter took his own life he shot himself in the heart that didn't work so then he shot himself in the head while he had shot himself in the heart yeah so he really finished the job a couple of days I guess they were briefly relieved And they're like, oh, well, thank God. But a couple of days after that, the commandment of the castle and all the guards, they left.

5:31And so all of a sudden, all these people are trapped in this castle, these prisoners. There's no way to get out. Even if they could get out, they know that there are probably hostile Germans nearby, and they don't want to meet up with them. So a handyman, a Yugoslavian handyman in the castle said, you know what? I'm going to make a run for it, you guys. and I'm going to go and try and meet up with the American troops that are coming our way and see if I can get us some help and rescue. He did make it to the Americans, which is, again, if this is a movie, it's like an amazing success story that he found the Americans.

6:04And didn't get shot. Yeah. And the Americans were like, hey, listen, man, we're legally, the war's not quite over. We're not allowed to be in that area yet. But they were led by Major John T. Kramer. And he said there will be a podcaster one day that will coin the term nuts to that. but I'm going to say it right now. Let's send a small detachment of tanks that way and see if we can help those guys out. I can't take credit for that. I learned that from grandpa on Simpsons. Oh, was that him? Yeah. That's funny. So yeah, major John Kramer says, we're going to go help you guys. And he, he leads a column of tanks over.

6:41He turns the steering wheels and heads them toward castle itter. And I say we take a break here because I think it's a pretty good spot. Yeah, let's do it.

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7:39I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses. Listen to Shell Game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

8:16All right. So meanwhile, back at the castle, these prisoners, they don't know what's happened to this Yugoslavian handyman that went for help because obviously it's, you know, he can't send word back. So another volunteer step forward, this is the cook of the castle. And he said, all right, I'm going to try and go get help. He finds, oh, God, this is such a movie. He finds a German major, Sepp Gangl. And this guy, you said, you know, all Nazis were terrible. I guess you would call him almost a former Nazi because he was one of the dudes that was like, no, this is what we're doing isn't right. So he broke with the SS.

8:50He was leading a little group of allied friendly troops. So he was a complete turncoat. And he said, all right, let's get together and go get these prisoners. Like we finally have a job to do, like, you know, guns of the Navarone style. Let's go save these prisoners. Yeah. Yeah. So Gangle's on his way now to Kessel Itter. And on the way, he runs into a tank commander. And his tank, the Besat and Jenny is the name of the tank. And the commander's name is Jack C. Lee Jr. He's captain. And Gangle tells him what's going on. And Jack C. Lee says, you know, sir, I'd really like to take part in that.

9:31Let's go. So he grabs a few members of his company, a few members of a nearby all-black company D of the 17th Armored Infantry Battalion. Good movie stuff. Yeah, all played by Jim Brown in different disguises. And then he puts them all together, and he and Gangle and their ragtag group of people start moving toward Castle Itter. And this is not like some sort of, first of all, this isn't sanctioned. This is not like some obvious platoon that's already been assembled. Like this is just a group of people who are almost were like, yeah, I want to go get those people out of that castle. And they said, come on.

10:10And that's this is the group that's moving toward Castle Itter. And they finally get there, I think, about 12 hours before the siege finally began on the castle. Yeah. So they suspected there were Germans coming their way and they were right. The Waffen SS, they were the combat detachment of the SS. Really bad dudes, very elite fighters. They arrive at the castle, like you said, about 12 hours after this ragtag group is there to defend them. And they take out Basat and Jenny right away. They take out that tank. It was a pretty smart move, I guess, to go ahead and get the heavy artillery down. It was parked in front of the main gate.

10:46So with that tank gone, they were basically, you know, fully free to just assault this castle outright. And a battle starts, like a really gruesome battle. They, inside the prison, they had broken to the armory. So they had some stuff to defend themselves with, like pistols, some rifles and machine guns. But this was these are pistols and machine guns and rifles, not not heavy artillery, which is kind of what they needed at that point. Yeah, I think the Nazis had some 80 millimeter gun that they were using to pound the castle walls. This is like a medieval siege that's going on, but with modern armory.

11:20Right. Yeah. And at first, like it looked like, OK, the people in the castle might be able to hold this off. There's like 100 Waffen SS attacking them. But then they started to run low on ammunition. And it doesn't really matter what kind of gun you have. If you don't have bullets to shoot out of it, you're in trouble if the people who you're fighting do still have bullets. And so by noon, it was starting to look really grim. And also by this time, Gengel had been killed by a Nazi sniper. And I saw that Jack Lee, Captain Lee, was already the de facto commander. Even the two French generals were deferring to his command.

11:58But he was kind of co-commanding with Gangl. Now he was alone commanding this whole thing by himself. And he came up with a plan basically to hide everybody in the castle keep. Yeah, I really felt bad for Gangl because he turncoded against the Nazis. He's doing the right thing. He brought them there. and just like a movie scene, he's up on the top trying to get an assessment of the situation and gets taken out by a sniper. It's such a powerful movie scene. Yeah, the only thing about it you would have to change is that he was probably killed instantly. He would have to have been shot somewhere where he could tell Lee to, yeah, get them, get these people out of here alive.

12:43Yeah, tells them I said, ugh. Tell the Nazis I said, suck it there's there's a really funny uh oh yeah who cares i'll go a little long there's a really funny uh dana gould comedy bit about uh his plan on his deathbed is to say you know i've buried a million dollars and it's located at oh man and he and that's kind of funny but the the real punchline. He's like, you got to time it just right. He said, otherwise, you just have to lay there and pretend you're dead for the remaining minutes of your life. It's pretty good stuff. Yeah, it's great stuff. The great Dana Gould. All right. So Gongel is taken out.

13:29Lee comes up with that plan to get hold up in the keep, which is what a keep is for. That's where you take your last stand in a castle. So it's not a bad plan. He was like, hey, let's feed this SS into that narrow passage that leads to the keep and just see if we can pick them off one by one as they come in there. Yeah. And it's not a bad plan, but the chances of anyone in the Kessel surviving during that plan is pretty low. And then just as things were at their most hopeless, seriously, this is how it happened. That column of tanks that was originally contacted by the Yugoslavian handyman who first made a run for it, led by Major Kramer, show up and they flank the Nazis or attack the Nazis from the rear and just immediately scatter the people besieging this castle.

14:15And the battle ends almost immediately. Yeah. And, oh man, if this is true, then it just writes itself because supposedly Kramer got to the castle, met up with Captain Lee and Lee said, what kept you? That was a quote from Lee later on recounting it. Yeah. I would punch that up to what took you so long. Yeah. With like a little wink or something. But and then maybe they fall in love. Yeah, and Kramer responds with traffic. Oh, man. That's so perfect. You know, very sadly, well, I mean, I guess it's good news that Gonga was the only casualty. It's sad that that was him again because he was pretty brave for going against his own kind.

14:59But he was the only casualty out of all of that. And this ragtag group held off this force until the reinforcements arrived. Like, happy ending. Major Lee lived to be an old man. I think he died in the 70s. And he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for this. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. This is movie stuff like out the yin-yang. Right out the yin-yang. Which means, of course, short stuff is out.

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