Hey, 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 Ittter eid?
Well, here we go. We already don't know what to call.
It, so we're gonna call it Itter after John Ritter. But it's also called Schlossitter, which is castle, and it's located in Austria, the Tyrolean region of Austria. And the reason why it's significant is too it's one of the last battles of the European Theater of World War two, Like I can't name any other battles after it, 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 Crue, real ragtag group. Yeah, but I didn't put both of them, Lounce. You got to put it over the O two.
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 Crue and he put Umlas over the U just clearly as a little, uh 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 it could just pretty cobody hedging, you know, it could have been the last one.
Yeah, all right. So this castle is sitting up there since the thirteenth century. Since eighteen seventy eight, 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, as a hotel for a while, but notably for our story.
After the Nazis annex Austrian nineteen thirty eight, they took it over and a few years later, in nineteen forty three, it became part of Dacau, 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, so 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, Tennis Starr who'd become a politician, and one of the sisters of Charles de Gaull, who was like, I guess he was the head of the military in World War Two? 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.
They were also, like you said, some Czech prisoners from Yugoslavian prisoners, and they were there for a couple of years, and in May of nineteen forty five, the beginning of May nineteen forty five. The war was not just starting to wind down, it was coming to like a like a car smashing into a tree kind of stop. Because
Hitlary 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 that Germany had lost World War Two 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. The 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 Twid the Butcher of Dachau, the guy who ran the prison camp, Edward Vitter. He showed up at the castle because remember this was like an annex of the Dachaut prison system, and he was on the run from the Allies who had just liberated the camp right after he'd escaped. But being a horrible, terrible Nazi, as all Nazis are, he ordered the execution of two thousand prisoners on his way out the door. The people
at Castle Edter had heard about this. I mean, that's kind of a big deal, even in World War Two, even in Germany, and they the fact that Vitterer showed up, they're like, well, this is this is it for us? But instead Vitder took his own life. He shot himself in the heart. That didn't work, so then he shot himself in the head. Well he had shot himself in the heart.
Yeah, so he really finished the job.
Yeah.
A couple of days, I guess there 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, and 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 they're 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 gonna make a run for it, you guys, and I'm gonna 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.
And 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 and Simpson's yeah, that's funny. So yeah, Major John Kramer says, we're going to go help you guys, and he leads a column of tanks over. He 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.
That's why s K. You should know why SK definitely should know. But Josh Clark.
All 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, Sep Gongle, 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. He 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, let's go save these prisoners.
Yeah. So Gangle is on his way now to Castle Itter, and on the way he runs into a tank commander and his tank, the Bisottan Jenny is the name of the tank, and the commander's name is jack C. Lee, Junior Captain, and Gangle tells him what's going on, and Jackson Lee says, you know, sir, I really like to
take part in that. Let's go. So he grabs a few members of his company, a few members of a nearby all black company d of the seventeenth Armored Infantry Battalion and 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 people who almost were like, yeah, I want to go get those people out of that castle. And they said, come on, And this is the group that's moving toward Castle ter and they finally get there, I think about twelve 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 arrived at the castle, like you said, about twelve hours after. This ragtag group is there to defend them, and they take out Basot and Jenny right away. They take out that tank. It's a pretty smart move, I guess, to go ahead and get the heavy artillery down. It
was parked in front of the main gate. So 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 heavy artillery, which is kind of what they needed at that point.
Yeah. I think the Nazis had some eighty 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, right yeah. And at first like it looked like, okay, the people in the castle might be able to hold this off. There's like one hundred waff in 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 are you're fighting do still have bullets. And so by noon it was starting to look really grim. And also by this time, Gangle 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, but he was kind of co commanding with Gangle. 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 a Gongle because he turned coated against the Nazis. He's doing the right thing. He brought them there and and just like a movie scene, he's up on the on the top like trying to get an assessment of the situation and gets taken out by a sniper. It's like such a powerful movie scene, you know.
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 say, yeah, get him, get these people out of here alive.
Yeah, tells them, I said.
Tell the Nazis, I said.
Second, there's there's a really funny uh oh, yeah, who cares. I'll go a little long. There's a really funny Dana Gould comedy bit about his plan on his deathbed is to say, you know, I've read a million dollars and it's located at and that's kind of funny. But the real punchline they sees like he got a time it just right, he said, Otherwise you just have to lay there and pretend you're dead for the remaining mints of your life. That's pretty good stuff. Yeah, that's great stuff,
the great Dana Gold. All right, So Gongle is taken out, Lee 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, you know, 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 castle 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 flanked the Nazis, or attack the Nazis from the rear and just immediately scatter the people besieging this castle and the battle ends almost immediately.
Yeah, and oh man, if this is true, then it just rights 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 it like a little wink or something. But and then maybe they've fall.
In love, yeah, or and Kramer responds with the traffic.
Oh man, it's SuperFect, you know, very sadly well, I mean, I guess it's good news that Gongo was the only casualty. It's sad that that was him again because he was pretty brave for going against his own kind. But he was the only casualty out of all of that. And this ragtag group held off this forest until the reinforcements arrived. Like happy ending.
Major Lee lived to be an old man. I think he died in the seventies 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 at the Yen Yang, which means, of course short stuff is.
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