CHAPTER 8

Aftermath

AS CAPTAIN JOE GILL’S infantrymen quickly set about establishing a security perimeter around Schloss Itter, 142nd Infantry Regiment commander George Lynch ordered John Kramers to maneuver the chattering, gesticulating French VIPs and liberated number prisoners back into the castle’s front courtyard. The jubilant crowd squeezed through the gatehouse portals, Meyer Levin and René Lévesque dashing from person to person gathering quotes and Eric Schwab photographing civilians and soldiers alike.

A very tired Jack Lee walked up to Lynch, saluted, and, gesturing at the French VIPs loudly thanking Zvonko Čučković and Andreas Krobot for their courageous rides, said, “Take them colonel, they’re all yours.”¹ Lynch smiled and was about to respond when Čučković, spotting Kurt-Siegfried Schrader in his Waffen-SS uniform, let out a yell and rushed toward the startled officer as if to attack him. Krobot jumped between the two men, restraining the Croat handyman and explaining that the German had helped protect the French VIPs “with his life.”² As an only slightly less angry Čučković moved away, Schrader approached Lynch. Saluting far more smartly than had the exhausted Lee, the German said he had the pleasure to formally hand over the French former prisoners, who had been “under his protection.”

Protecting the liberated VIPs was also high on Lynch’s task list, of course—there were still armed enemy units in the area, after all, and no cease-fire had yet been officially declared—and he had received orders from Major General McAuliffe to move the former prisoners as soon as possible to the 103rd Infantry Division’s command post in Innsbruck. Through Kramers, Lynch directed the French to return to their rooms, pack only what they could carry in hand luggage, and then assemble in the castle’s Great Hall while he set about organizing the first leg of their journey back to France.

While thrilled to have been rescued, the VIPs were obviously not willing to let go of the enmity, rivalries, and petty backbiting that had characterized their time at Schloss Itter. As they drifted into the Great Hall with their bags, several of them took the opportunity to voice their complaints to Kramers. As Meyer Levin later wrote, “Some of them whispered about others who had been quite friendly with the German commandant of Itter, and Major Kramers shrewdly observed that perhaps some of these people were as happy to be liberated from each other’s company as they were to be liberated from imprisonment.”³

René Lévesque was equally struck by the fact that liberation had obviously done nothing to ease the personal animosities of the French VIPs. When he entered the Great Hall to continue his interviews, the young Canadian war correspondent found them “sitting around in little groups seeming very disinclined to talk to one another.”⁴ Lévesque noted that Daladier and Reynaud were seated in opposite corners of the room and studiously avoiding each other.

Despite the obvious tension, the young reporter could not pass up the chance to interview two such august personages. Initially unsure which gentleman to approach first, Lévesque took a decidedly pragmatic approach: respecting the chronology of their public service, he began with Daladier.

The “old bull of the Vaucluse”⁵ had thinned down a little, but he was still a rugged customer, though he had a hesitant look as if he might be worried about awkward questions. As far as that went, he’d had plenty of time to prepare himself. “Monsieur le Premier Ministré,” I asked him after we’d been formally introduced, “would you mind sharing with us some of the reflections that time and distance have certainly given you a chance to elaborate?” “Cher Monsieur,” he replied, “I have indeed many things to reveal, and above all a great many things to set straight. I intend to publish a full account as soon as I return to France. But here, you understand,” he said, lowering his voice, “there are indiscreet ears belonging to certain individuals who will be unmasked in my memoirs as they deserve to be. I can hardly say more.”⁶

The “old bull” obviously intended Lévesque to realize that the “indiscreet ears” belonged to his arch political enemy, for as he finished speaking, he shot what the young reporter called “a murderous look” at Reynaud, who was sitting across the room “affecting the most complete indifference.” When Lévesque approached Reynaud, whom he described as a “dry, pointed little fellow,” he was treated to a virtual repeat of his conversation with Daladier:

He too, Reynaud said, had plenty to expose, and certain people—same murderous look—had better watch themselves! Not only were [Daladier and Reynaud] not on speaking terms, they could hardly wait to carve each other up. None the wiser, I had to settle for a simple statement of our discovery without further adornment.⁷

Once all the VIPs were ready, Kramers shepherded them down to the courtyard, out the front gate, and onto the schlossweg, where Krobot and the female former number prisoners were waiting with bags in hand. Soldiers loaded their luggage into the back of a two-and-a-half-ton truck waiting in front of the church. Schloss Itter’s former prisoners boarded a line of waiting jeeps—the French being careful, of course, to segregate themselves into the same little groups they’d formed during their imprisonment. Just before seven PM the convoy of vehicles set off for Innsbruck, with Kramers’s jeep leading the way and a truckload of 142nd infantrymen following to provide security.⁸

The French VIPs stayed in Innsbruck overnight and were suitably feted by, and photographed with, the 103rd’s MacAuliffe. On May 6 they were driven across the German border to Augsburg, and that evening they dined with Seventh Army commander Alexander Patch. The American general had originally intended to fly the French notables home from Augsburg aboard a U.S. Army Air Forces C-47, but French 1st Army commander Jean de Lattre de Tassigny asked permission to undertake the VIPs’ return to France. Patch agreed, and on May 7 the former prisoners were driven to de Lattre’s headquarters in Lindau, on the German shore of Lake Constance. Upon the group’s arrival, Weygand, Borotra, and de La Rocque were led away; the 1st Army commander announced that the trio would be put on trial in France for their “collaborationist” activities. The other former prisoners were treated to yet another sumptuous banquet, and the following morning all but Daladier were driven to Strasbourg, where they boarded General de Gaulle’s personal aircraft for the flight to Paris. The Bull of the Vaucluse, for his part, drove to Paris with his son Jean, an officer on de Lattre’s staff.⁹

For Krobot and the female former number prisoners, the way home led east, not west. After ensuring that they’d all received a thorough medical examination and enjoyed several days of good food and clean beds courtesy of the U.S. Army, Kramers deposited them at a displaced-persons camp operated by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

That Zvonko Čučković did not accompany his fellow former prisoners was the result of some quick thinking on his part. Within hours of the liberation of Schloss Itter the Croat convinced French liaison officer Eric Lutten that someone should gather up all the personal items the VIPs had not been able to take with them and then ensure that the articles were safely reunited with their owners—in France. Zvonko volunteered for the mission, of course, and was given a travel document authorizing him to accompany the items to Paris and stipulating that he report back to French authorities in Austria by May 23. He made the trip, returned on schedule, and within weeks was repatriated to Yugoslavia.¹⁰

The aftermath of the Schloss Itter battle was rather anticlimactic for Jack Lee and his men. The four infantrymen who’d taken part in the fight—Pollock, Worsham, Petruckovich, and Sutton—rejoined their unit, then assembling in Itter village. After turning Gangl’s body over to the priest at St. Joseph’s Church, Lee sent Basse and Boche Buster back to rejoin the 23rd TB. Once the burnt-out Besotten Jenny had been unceremoniously towed away by a tank-recovery vehicle, Lee and his four crewmen, accompanied by the surviving “tame” Germans, boarded a truck for the ride back to Kufstein. There the Wehrmacht men who’d risked their lives to help the GIs defend the French notables were marched off to a POW cage for processing.

The end of the battle for Schloss Itter did not mark the end of the castle’s role in World War II history, however. Even before the French VIPs had departed for Innsbruck, the 142nd Infantry’s George Lynch made the fortress his regimental command post, and over the following twenty-four hours he helped broker—through meetings with Georg von Hengl—a local cease-fire and the ultimate surrender of all German forces in Tyrol. Following Germany’s unconditional capitulation in the early morning hours of May 7, Schloss Itter became (though for less than twenty-four hours) the provisional headquarters of Allied occupation forces in Austria.¹¹

Several weeks after Germany’s surrender Basse and Lee were recognized for their leadership during the battle for Schloss Itter, the former with the Silver Star and the latter with the Distinguished Service Cross.¹² Lee’s citation noted his

extraordinary heroism in action, as Commanding Officer of Company B, 23rd Tank Battalion, in the vicinity of Wörgl, Austria, and the Itter Castle on 4–5 May 1945. Captain Lee with a small group of soldiers infiltrated into hostile territory, demoralized enemy forces, prevented the destruction of two key bridges, and caused 200 German soldiers to surrender. He found many prominent French prisoners at Itter Castle, and immediately organized a defense with both American and German troops. Despite a fanatical SS attack and heavy artillery barrage, Captain Lee’s men held until friendly troops arrived. Captain Lee’s initiative, boldness, courage, resourcefulness and outstanding qualities of leadership exemplify the highest traditions of the Army and the United States.¹³

WHILE THE BATTLE OF SCHLOSS Itter may have been a defining moment in the lives of many of its participants, it was not—except for Sepp Gangl and those unnamed attackers who may have died in the assault—the final moment. The various key players in the last full-fledged ground combat action of World War II in Europe—the French, Germans, Americans, and others—went back to their normal lives, and it is only right that we briefly examine how some of those lives played out.

THE FRENCH

ÉDOUARD DALADIER

The Bull of the Vaucluse returned to politics after the war, serving as a deputy in France’s Constituent Assembly and from 1953 to 1958 as mayor of Avignon. His son Jean later compiled and edited Daladier’s wartime diaries. Published as Journal de Captivité, 1940–1945 (Prison Journal, 1940–1945) several years after Daladier’s death in October 1970 at age eighty-six, the book did exactly what the former Schloss Itter captive had told René Levesque it would do: excoriate his political rivals, especially Paul Reynaud.

MAURICE GAMELIN

Following his postwar return to France, Gamelin devoted himself to completing his memoirs, titled Servir. The three-volume work—much of which was written during the general’s time in Schloss Itter—was published in 1946 and 1947 to relatively lukewarm reviews. In 1954 Gamelin published a further volume covering his World War I service. He died in April 1958 at the age of eighty-six.

LÉON JOUHAUX AND AUGUSTA BRUCHLEN

His years of imprisonment may have further damaged Léon Jouhaux’s health, but they didn’t dim his dedication to the workers of France or to the international labor movement. After his liberation he resumed his leadership of the CGT, but in 1947 the organization’s Communist members forced his resignation. In reaction to what he saw as increasing Communist domination of the French labor movement he helped found the left-centrist Workers’ Force, which he led for the remainder of his life. In 1947 Jouhaux was also elected president of the French National Economic Council and in 1951 helped establish the International Labor Organization as an agency of the United Nations. Jouhaux was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1951 and died on April 28, 1954.

Augusta Bruchlen aided Jouhaux in all his postwar efforts on behalf of workers, and she adopted the name Augusta Léon-Jouhaux following their marriage in 1948. She was an important labor leader in her own right, serving as director of the International Labor Organization’s Paris office from 1950 to 1971. Prison pour hommes d’Etat, her account of the Schloss Itter years, was published in 1973. This remarkable woman was named a commander of the Légion d’honneur in May 1992 and a Grand Officier of the same in July 2001. She died at the age of 104 on April 28, 2003, forty-nine years to the day after Léon Jouhaux.

PAUL REYNAUD AND CHRISTIANE MABIRE

Like his archrival Daladier, Paul Reynaud returned to politics soon after his liberation from Schloss Itter. He won election to the Chamber of Deputies in 1946 and over the following decade held several cabinet posts, including minister of finance and economic affairs. Published in 1951, Au Coeur de la Mêlée (titled In the Thick of the Fight in English) the larger of Reynaud’s two wartime memoirs,¹⁴ devoted only 4 of more than 680 pages to events at Schloss Itter; the majority of the book was dedicated to explaining his own actions and generally belittling those of his many political rivals—including Daladier, of course. Reynaud was initially a strong supporter of Charles de Gaulle, though in 1962 he broke with the former general over what he saw as de Gaulle’s drive to consolidate his power through manipulation of the constitution. After losing his seat in the Chamber of Deputies, Reynaud dedicated himself to writing on various topics. He died at age eighty-seven on September 21, 1966.

Christiane Mabire married Reynaud in December 1949 and ultimately bore three children: sons Serge and Alexandre and daughter Evelyne. After her husband’s death Madame Reynaud led a very private life. She wrote a short, unpublished memoir dealing with her experiences in Ravensbrück and Schloss Itter before passing away in 2002 at the age of eighty-nine.¹⁵

MARCEL GRANGER

After his liberation from Schloss Itter, Granger personally carried two suitcases full of documents back to Paris: one contained Maxime Weygand’s voluminous notes for his intended postwar memoirs, and the other Paul Reynaud’s notes for his book. While some sources indicate that Granger then returned to North Africa, it has proven impossible to discover any solid details about the final years of the man whom Édouard Daladier described in his memoir of the Schloss Itter years as “a true gentleman” and “a fine man, highly patriotic and brave, and a wonderful example of the average Frenchman.”¹⁶

JEAN BOROTRA

Though in the immediate postwar years the French government considered trying the Bounding Basque as a collaborator for his service in the Vichy government, nothing came of the charges, and Borotra’s popularity was undiminished. He resumed his commercial career, working until 1975. Nor did he give up tennis; he served as vice president of the French Lawn Tennis Association and continued to play in international senior competitions well into his nineties. Borotra died in June 1994 at age ninety-five.

MAXIME AND MARIE-RENÉE-JOSÉPHINE WEYGAND

The general and his wife were apprehensive about how they would be received upon their return to France, and rightly so. Maxime Weygand was arrested by the French government on May 10, 1945, and charged with “attempts against the internal security of the state.” The following July the High Court of Justice ordered the seizure of all his property and put the aged and ill former general under guard at a Paris hospital. Called as a witness in the trial of Marshal Philippe Pétain, Weygand did verbal battle with Paul Reynaud, who was acting for the prosecution. Weygand’s own trial sputtered on for three years, and he was finally acquitted in 1948. He returned to writing, turning out books and articles on a host of subjects. Marie-Renée-Joséphine died in 1961, and Weygand himself passed away on January 28, 1965, at age ninety-eight.

MICHEL CLEMENCEAU

The son of the Tiger entered the rough and tumble of post–World War II French politics, serving in the first and second National Constituent Assemblies from 1946 to 1951. After withdrawing from politics, he returned to private industry and died on March 4, 1964, at ninety-one.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCQUE

During his time at Schloss Itter the former leader of the Croix de feu wrote what would ultimately prove to be his final political tract. Titled Au service de l’avenir (Serving the Future), the book was published in 1946, repeated his fundamental political and moral beliefs, and was obviously meant as a first attempt at rehabilitating his reputation. De La Rocque did not live to see that effort succeed, however. Placed under police supervision and then house arrest following his return to France, he died in April 1946 during surgery meant to alleviate lingering pain from one of his World War I injuries.

MARIE-AGNÈS AND ALFRED CAILLIAU

Though the Cailliaus’ imprisonment at Schloss Itter lasted barely a month, the harsh conditions they’d experienced before arriving at the Austrian fortress left lasting scars—both physical and mental. Alfred returned to work as an engineer but was plagued by poor health until his death in December 1956 at the age of seventy-nine. Marie-Agnès was awarded the Légion d’honneur in June 1975 in recognition of her wartime activities on behalf of the French resistance. Her personal reminiscence of her eventful life, Souvenirs personnels, was published following her death in March 1982 at the age of ninety-three.

THE NUMBER PRISONERS

Sadly, it has proven impossible to track Andres Krobot or any of the female number prisoners following their handover to the UNRRA.

ZVONIMIR ČUČKOVIĆ

Following his return to Yugoslavia at the conclusion of his brief postliberation trip to Paris, Zvonko Čučković set up a small electrical contracting business in Belgrade. He consolidated the incredibly detailed notes he’d kept during his time at Schloss Itter into the manuscript “Zwei Jahren auf Schloss Itter,” and provided copies to both the West German and the French governments. Čučković corresponded with several of the French notables after the war, and he provided Augusta Léon-Jouhaux with many of the details she used in her book Prison pour hommes d’Etat. Čučković died in Belgrade in 1984.

THE GERMANS

JOSEF GANGL

Following the liberation of Schloss Itter the Wehrmacht officer’s body was first taken to St. Joseph’s Church in Itter village but was eventually interred in Wörgl’s main municipal cemetery. Gangl is considered an Austrian national hero because of his alliance with the anti-Nazi resistance movement, his efforts to protect the civilian population of Wörgl, and his participation in the defense of the French VIPs at Schloss Itter. A major street in Wörgl is named after him.

SEBASTIAN WIMMER

Despite his efforts to disappear, Schloss Itter’s former commandant was arrested within weeks after Allied forces occupied Tyrol. He was held at the fortress of Kufstein, the medieval castle overlooking the city, which was run as a POW camp by the French (who were the primary occupation force in that part of Austria). Thérèse Wimmer contacted the Jouhauxs and other former Itter prisoners, asking them to intervene on her husband’s behalf. Several of the former VIP prisoners did so, via the French government’s occupation headquarters, the Mission de Contrôle en Autriche.¹⁷

As an SS-TV officer, Wimmer was automatically considered a war criminal and logically should have been tried for his role in the 1939 Polish massacres and his administrative duties at Dachau and Madjanek. Inexplicably, he was released by the French in 1949, after which he went to work as a common laborer on a farm near Wörgl. His continued heavy drinking apparently drove his wife away, for in May 1951 he returned alone to his hometown of Dingolfing, Bavaria, and lived with his father at Bruckstrasse 101. He killed himself there on December 10, 1952, at the age of fifty.

STEFAN OTTO

Though his name appears on several postwar lists of suspected war criminals, the former SD officer was apparently never apprehended, tried, or imprisoned. As of this writing no information has come to light about his whereabouts or status.

KURT-SIEGFRIED SCHRADER

Following their liberation the French VIPs at Schloss Itter gave Schrader a note, in French, which read “On May 4 [sic], 1945, Captain S. Schrader ensured the safety of the French detainees at Itter castle and stayed with them during the German attacks.”¹⁸ While not exactly a ringing endorsement, the letter—which was signed by all of the VIPs—helped ensure that the decorated Waffen-SS officer spent only a relatively short period of time as a POW. After his release in 1947 he rejoined his family and worked for several years as a bricklayer. In the early 1950s the family moved to Münster, in northwestern Germany, and in 1953 Schrader was appointed to a position in the Interior Ministry of the state of North Rhein-Westphalia. He retired from that post in 1980 and reportedly died in the mid-1990s.

THE AMERICANS

JOHN T. KRAMERS

As interesting an experience as the Schloss Itter rescue operation might have been for the 103rd Infantry Division military-government officer, it was only one of many in John Kramers’s long career. He remained in the army after World War II, serving as a military attaché in the U.S. embassies in Finland, Egypt, Algeria, and Ethiopia, among others. His last assignment was as the garrison commander at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, and he retired from the army in 1967 as a colonel. After obtaining a degree in business from the University of Pennsylvania, he worked as a financial advisor, retiring in 2004. I am pleased to say that he was alive and well at age ninety-five at the time of this writing.

THE 142ND INFANTRY REGIMENT SOLDIERS

After rejoining their unit following the relief of Schloss Itter, the four GIs were told that they would be put in for decorations stemming from their actions in the battle, but none ever received an award. The four men eventually returned to the United States and, like millions of other former service members, got on with life. Unfortunately, for three of the four all I have been able to discover about their postwar lives are the dates and places of their deaths: Alex Petrukovich, Illinois, November 1973; William Sutton, Wisconsin, June 1979; and Alfred Worsham, Kentucky, June 1993. Arthur Pollock, on the other hand, is alive and remarkably well at the time of this writing: eighty-eight-years-old and in good health, and working five days a week in the family business.

THE 23RD TANK BATTALION SOLDIERS

As with the GIs from the 142nd Infantry Regiment, for three of Besotten Jenny’s four crew members I could locate only the dates and places of their deaths: Herbert G. McHaley, Indiana, November 1988; William T. Rushford, Michigan, March 1988; and Edward J. Szymczyk, December 1998. And, as in the case of Art Pollock, I was pleased to find Edward J. Seiner doing well at eighty-eight years of age; he is not, however, still working five-day weeks.

HARRY J. BASSE

Jack Lee’s second in command returned to California after the war, and he and his wife went into farming near Anaheim. They grew oranges until Harry retired in the early 1960s, and one of the groves they sold was razed to help make way for Disneyland. Harry spent his retirement doing the things he enjoyed: hunting, fishing, and spending time with his extended family. He was in good health until his last two years, according to his son. Harry Basse died in Bishop, California, on October 4, 1991, at the age of eighty-one.

JOHN C. LEE JR.

The man who engineered the rescue of the French VIPs and the defense of Schloss Itter attempted to jump-start his postwar life even before leaving the service. On the advice of his father, who in addition to being a Norwich physician was also an important player in Democratic Party politics in Chenango County, New York, while still in Germany with the 23rd Tank Battalion, Jack Lee filed the paperwork necessary to make himself a candidate for the Democratic nomination for county sheriff. It was apparently the first time a U.S. military officer serving overseas sought a stateside political office.

Not coincidentally, Lee’s candidacy was announced in his home county the same week that Meyer Levin’s account of the fight for Schloss Itter, “We Liberated Who’s Who,” appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. While the magazine piece and several laudatory articles about Lee’s actions in the battle—coupled with news of the young tank officer’s Distinguished Service Cross—undoubtedly helped garner him some votes, Lee was ultimately unable to parlay his war record into public office; he lost the election by a substantial margin.

Lee finally returned to the United States in late January 1946 and was released from active duty at Fort Dix, New Jersey, on February 2, and transferred to the inactive reserve with the rank of captain.¹⁹ And from that point on his life seems to have gone into a slow but seemingly inexorable downward spiral. Though he played several seasons of minor league football with the New Jersey Giants of the short-lived American Association, he was unable to win a berth on a pro team and turned to coaching local semipro and farm-club teams. He found work as a bartender, and, not surprisingly, his own drinking increased. At some point—the exact date is unclear—he and his wife, Virginia, split up, and she took their young son²⁰ to California and eventually obtained a divorce. In the early 1950s Lee decided to go into the hospitality business and made a deal to buy the historic Eagle Hotel in New Berlin, New York. He took possession of the structure but was ultimately unable to make the final payments, and when the former owner took him to court, Lee lost the hotel. In a separate legal difficulty, Lee was charged with assaulting his sister’s estranged husband and was ultimately fined $50 and put on probation.

Details of Jack Lee’s subsequent life are few, though we do know some things. He married a second time, to a woman named Stella Evans, a waitress whom he’d met while working as a bartender. She eventually divorced him—also because of his drinking. After the failure of his second marriage Lee lived for a few years in Texas City, Texas, but by the time of his father’s death in 1961 he was living in Long Beach, California; during his time in the Golden State (perhaps searching for Virginia and his son?) he apparently spent many hours with his old friend Harry Basse. How Lee made his living is unclear, as is the date when he returned to Norwich. At some point he married for a third time, to the former Nellie Porter, though he never had additional children. As to the last important date in Jack Lee’s life there is no doubt: he died at Chenango Memorial Hospital in Norwich on January 15, 1973, at the relatively young age of fifty-four. The cause of death was listed as “asphyxiation,” likely as the result of acute alcohol poisoning.²¹

While Lee’s obituary in the local newspaper mentioned his role in the battle for Schloss Itter—which the piece’s author located in France rather than Austria—the man who’d led the rescue mission and the castle’s defense had perhaps the most succinct summation of that improbable fight: A few months before his death, Lee was asked by a reporter in Norwich how he felt about the long-ago incident. The hero of “the Last Battle” thought for a minute and then replied, “Well, it was just the damnedest thing.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

WRITING HISTORY IS ALWAYS CHALLENGING, in that the passage of time often obscures the truth rather than revealing it. Eyewitnesses pass away, memories fade, and records—if they were kept at all—are destroyed as being no longer relevant or simply disappear into bureaucratic oblivion. And there is an added difficulty when we try to write accurate accounts of military actions: the exhaustion, fear, exhilaration, panic, and sheer volume of war ensure that participants in the same battle will forever remember it in profoundly different ways.

That being said, it is the historian’s duty to diligently search out whatever documents remain and, if writing about relatively recent events, any participants who may still be alive. Much as a detective evaluates evidence through knowledge of the subject and the application of both logic and common sense, the historian assesses the available information and then weaves all the various strands into an account that is as accurate and complete as possible. For many who choose to write history, myself included, the hunt for the information on which the final story is based is the most enjoyable part of the process, even though it is often the most frustrating.

Fortunately, in researching The Last Battle I have been ably and generously assisted by a number of people in the United States and abroad. Their help has been immensely important, and I greatly appreciate it. Any errors or omissions in this volume are, of course, mine alone.

Above all, I wish to thank my wife, Margaret Spragins Harding. This book would literally not have been possible without her love, support, counsel, limitless patience, and extraordinary skills as a French linguist. She is the most remarkable human being I have ever encountered, and I am truly blessed to have her in my life.

I would also particularly like to thank Dr. Alfred Beck, an eminent historian and true gentleman, who many years ago—when we both worked at the U.S. Army Center of Military History—first told me of an odd little battle in Austria in May 1945 that involved Germans, Americans, and a gaggle of French VIPs. Thanks also to my agent, Scott Mendel, for his excellent advice and guidance; Robert Pigeon, my editor at Da Capo, for his friendship and assistance in shaping and improving the manuscript; and Bryce Zabel, friend and screenwriter, for suggesting that the Schloss Itter story would make just as good a book as it will a screenplay.

I am also indebted to:

IN THE UNITED STATES:

My colleagues Michael W. Robbins, David Lauterborn, Dan Smith, and Jennifer Berry at Weider History Group’s Military History magazine for putting up with my frequent absences and almost continuous preoccupation while writing this book.

Karen Jensen and Wendy Palitz, both of Weider’s World War II magazine; editor Karen for commissioning me to write the article from which this book evolved, and art director Wendy for both her friendship and the article’s wonderful design.

Thomas Culbert and Mike Constandy for their dogged research work at the National Archives.

Joe Basse for providing information on, and photos of, his father, Harry Basse.

Robert D. Lee for providing information on, and photos of, his uncle John C. Lee.

John Kramers, Arthur Pollock, and Edward Seiner for their personal recollections of the battle for Schloss Itter.

Victoria Haglan for her excellent German translations.

Patricia E. Evans, Chenango County, New York, historian, for locating and providing background material on John Lee and his family.

Gail Wiese, Jennifer Payne, and Kelly Gonzalez of Norwich University’s Archives and Special Collections for their help in researching John Lee’s time at the university.

Veterans of the 12th Armored Division F. George Hatt and Steve Czecha and 23rd Tank Battalion veterans James Francis and John McBride, all for their help in researching their units and the men who served in them.

Lisa Sharik and the staff of the Texas Military Forces Museum and Kyle Wiskow and the staff of the 12th Armored Division Museum for their research assistance.

John P. Moore for providing vital background information on Kurt-Siegfried Schrader.

John Browning for information on his brother William Browning, squad leader in Company E, 142nd Infantry Regiment.

Ron Thomassin for providing photos of Harry Basse.

Megan Lewis at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for her research efforts on Sebastian Wimmer and Stefan Otto.

IN AUSTRIA:

The staff of Gemiende Itter, who were tremendously helpful both via e-mail and during my visit to Schloss Itter; Robert Kaller of Vienna’s Institut für Zeitgeschichte; Hedi Wechner, current mayor of Wörgl; Otto Hagleitner, for information on his father, Rupert; and Dr. Wilfred Beimroh and the staff of the Tiroler Landesarchiv.

IN FRANCE:

Evelyne Demey Paul-Reynaud, for sharing family history and photographs of her parents taken while they were imprisoned in Schloss Itter.

Lise Pommois, for sharing photos of 23rd Tank Battalion operations in Alsace.

IN GERMANY:

The research and reference staffs of the Stadtarchive Ludwigsburg, KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau, and the Bundesarchiv’s Militärarchiv.

IN POLAND:

Marta Grudzińska at the Majdanek Museum and Archive for information on Sebastian Wimmer’s activities at the infamous concentration camp.

IN SWITZERLAND:

Remo Becci, archivist of the United Nations International Labor Organization office in Geneva, for providing background information on and photographs of Augusta Léon-Jouhaux.