Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry sitting in for Dave, which makes
Speaker 1: this an official short stuff. Don't accept substitutes.
Speaker 2: That's right. And I'm only gonna say this at the beginning,
Speaker 2: but boy, oh boy, this should be a movie, this episode.
Speaker 1: It's insane that it's not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really great cinematic story in every way, the way it,
Speaker 2: you know, is laid out there, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Battle of Castle Itter would it be Ittter eid?
Speaker 2: Well, here we go. We already don't know what to call.
Speaker 1: It, so we're gonna call it Itter after John Ritter.
Speaker 1: But it's also called Schlossitter, which is castle, and it's
Speaker 1: located in Austria, the Tyrolean region of Austria. And the
Speaker 1: reason why it's significant is too it's one of the
Speaker 1: last battles of the European Theater of World War two,
Speaker 1: Like I can't name any other battles after it, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't really mean that much. And then the second
Speaker 1: reason is because it is a really unusual battle in
Speaker 1: that Germans got together with Americans and French and fought
Speaker 1: the Nazis in this battle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and other randos from different places like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
Speaker 2: Like it was a like you mentioned a real Motley Crue,
Speaker 2: real ragtag group. Yeah, but I didn't put both of them, Lounce.
Speaker 2: You got to put it over the O two.
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't. Oh, I'm sorry, man, I screwed up.
Speaker 2: It was pretty great everyone Josh put this together and
Speaker 2: he typed out Motley Crue and he put Umlas over
Speaker 2: the U just clearly as a little, uh little love
Speaker 2: letter to me.
Speaker 1: It was Yeah, I got it, but I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: screwed up the love letter.
Speaker 2: No, it's fine. It's the thought that counts, that's what
Speaker 2: they say, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's really patronizing.
Speaker 2: What if this was the very last battle? That makes
Speaker 2: it even more cinematic.
Speaker 1: I mean that's what I read. It was like one
Speaker 1: of the last, and it could just pretty cobody hedging,
Speaker 1: you know, it could have been the last one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right. So this castle is sitting up there
Speaker 2: since the thirteenth century. Since eighteen seventy eight, it's been
Speaker 2: kind of in its present form, and it's been a
Speaker 2: bunch of things. It was a private estate for a while,
Speaker 2: as a hotel for a while, but notably for our story.
Speaker 2: After the Nazis annex Austrian nineteen thirty eight, they took
Speaker 2: it over and a few years later, in nineteen forty three,
Speaker 2: it became part of Dacau, you know, the death camp,
Speaker 2: and it served as a sort of a VIP prison
Speaker 2: for some high value prisoners of war that they thought
Speaker 2: could like we're not going to put these people to death.
Speaker 2: We think we might be able to use them as hostages,
Speaker 2: so we'll hold them up in this castle.
Speaker 1: Right, And there were some like real VIPs in there.
Speaker 1: There were two French generals, two former French prime ministers, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Tennis Starr who'd become a politician, and one of the
Speaker 1: sisters of Charles de Gaull, who was like, I guess
Speaker 1: he was the head of the military in World War Two?
Speaker 1: Correct or was he the No, he was the current
Speaker 1: prime minister right in exile.
Speaker 2: Oh I thought he just built the airport.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hand by hand, but that was a side project
Speaker 1: that he did on weekends.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They were also, like you said, some Czech prisoners from
Speaker 1: Yugoslavian prisoners, and they were there for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: and in May of nineteen forty five, the beginning of
Speaker 1: May nineteen forty five. The war was not just starting
Speaker 1: to wind down, it was coming to like a like
Speaker 1: a car smashing into a tree kind of stop. Because
Speaker 1: Hitlary just killed himself in Berlin. Mussolini had been strung
Speaker 1: up and hung out to dry literally by partisans in Italy,
Speaker 1: and it was just very clear that that Germany had
Speaker 1: lost World War Two and the European theater was coming
Speaker 1: to an end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. They were literally about to offer up
Speaker 2: their formal surrender. But if you're in this castle, you're
Speaker 2: a little worried because the SS at this point, there's
Speaker 2: some SS that are like, hey, you know, we're going
Speaker 2: to lay down our arms. The war is clearly over.
Speaker 2: Let's just get this over with. There's other SS that
Speaker 2: are like, nine, I'm going to go down in a
Speaker 2: blaze of glory and kill everyone that I can before
Speaker 2: they formally call this thing over. And so if you
Speaker 2: were in this castle as a VIP prisoner, you were
Speaker 2: worried that they were going to be coming for you.
Speaker 2: And they found out that that was true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So one of the things that really unsettled them
Speaker 1: is on May Twid the Butcher of Dachau, the guy
Speaker 1: who ran the prison camp, Edward Vitter. He showed up
Speaker 1: at the castle because remember this was like an annex
Speaker 1: of the Dachaut prison system, and he was on the
Speaker 1: run from the Allies who had just liberated the camp
Speaker 1: right after he'd escaped. But being a horrible, terrible Nazi,
Speaker 1: as all Nazis are, he ordered the execution of two
Speaker 1: thousand prisoners on his way out the door. The people
Speaker 1: at Castle Edter had heard about this. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: kind of a big deal, even in World War Two,
Speaker 1: even in Germany, and they the fact that Vitterer showed up,
Speaker 1: they're like, well, this is this is it for us?
Speaker 1: But instead Vitder took his own life. He shot himself
Speaker 1: in the heart. That didn't work, so then he shot
Speaker 1: himself in the head. Well he had shot himself in
Speaker 1: the heart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he really finished the job.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: A couple of days, I guess there were briefly relieved
Speaker 2: and they're like, oh, well, thank god. But a couple
Speaker 2: of days after that, the commandment of the castle and
Speaker 2: all the guards they left, and so all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: all these people are trapped in this castle, these prisoners.
Speaker 2: There's no way to get out, even if they could
Speaker 2: get out. They know that they're probably hostile Germans nearby,
Speaker 2: and they don't want to meet up with them. So
Speaker 2: a handyman, a Yugoslavian handyman in the castle said, you
Speaker 2: know what, I'm gonna make a run for it, you guys,
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna go and try and meet up with
Speaker 2: the American troops that are coming our way and see
Speaker 2: if I can get us some help and rescue. He
Speaker 2: did make it to the Americans, which is again, if
Speaker 2: this is a movie, it's like an amazing success story
Speaker 2: that he found the Americans.
Speaker 1: And didn't get shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Americans were like, hey, listen, man, we're
Speaker 2: legally the war's not quite over. We're not allowed to
Speaker 2: be in that area yet. But they were led by
Speaker 2: Major John T. Kramer, and he said there will be
Speaker 2: a podcaster one day that will coin the term nuts
Speaker 2: to that, but I'm going to say it right now.
Speaker 2: Let's send a small detachment of tanks that way and
Speaker 2: see if we can help those guys out.
Speaker 1: I can't take credit for that. I learned that from
Speaker 1: Grandpa and Simpson's yeah, that's funny. So yeah, Major John
Speaker 1: Kramer says, we're going to go help you guys, and
Speaker 1: he leads a column of tanks over. He turns the
Speaker 1: steering wheels and heads them toward castle. Itter and I say,
Speaker 1: we take a break here because I think it's a
Speaker 1: pretty good spot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 3: That's why s K. You should know why SK definitely
Speaker 3: should know. But Josh Clark.
Speaker 2: All right. So meanwhile back at the castle, these prisoners,
Speaker 2: they don't know what's happened to this Yugoslavian handyman that
Speaker 2: went for help, because obviously it's you know, he can't
Speaker 2: send word back. So another volunteer step forward. This is
Speaker 2: the cook of the castle, and he said, all right,
Speaker 2: I'm going to try and go get help. He finds,
Speaker 2: oh god, this is such a movie. He finds a
Speaker 2: German major, Sep Gongle, and this guy you said, you know,
Speaker 2: all Nazis were terrible. I guess you would call him
Speaker 2: almost a former Nazi because he was one of the
Speaker 2: dudes that was like, no, this is what we're doing,
Speaker 2: isn't right. So he broke with the SS. He was
Speaker 2: leading a little group of Allied friendly troops, so he
Speaker 2: was a complete turncoat, and he said, all right, let's
Speaker 2: get together and go get these prisoners, like we finally
Speaker 2: have a job to do, like you know, guns of
Speaker 2: the Navarone style. Let's go, let's go save these prisoners.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Gangle is on his way now to Castle Itter,
Speaker 1: and on the way he runs into a tank commander
Speaker 1: and his tank, the Bisottan Jenny is the name of
Speaker 1: the tank, and the commander's name is jack C. Lee,
Speaker 1: Junior Captain, and Gangle tells him what's going on, and
Speaker 1: Jackson Lee says, you know, sir, I really like to
Speaker 1: take part in that. Let's go. So he grabs a
Speaker 1: few members of his company, a few members of a
Speaker 1: nearby all black company d of the seventeenth Armored Infantry
Speaker 1: Battalion and yeah, all played by Jim Brown in different disguises,
Speaker 1: and then he puts them all together and he and
Speaker 1: Gangle and their ragtag group of people start moving toward
Speaker 1: Castle Itter. And this is not like some sort of
Speaker 1: First of all, this isn't sanctioned. This is not like
Speaker 1: some obvious platoon that's already been assembled, like, this is
Speaker 1: just a group of people people who almost were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to go get those people out of that castle.
Speaker 1: And they said, come on, And this is the group
Speaker 1: that's moving toward Castle ter and they finally get there,
Speaker 1: I think about twelve hours before the siege finally began
Speaker 1: on the castle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they suspected there were Germans coming their way,
Speaker 2: and they were right. The Waffen SS. They were the
Speaker 2: combat detachment of the SS. Really bad dudes, very elite fighters.
Speaker 2: They arrived at the castle, like you said, about twelve
Speaker 2: hours after. This ragtag group is there to defend them,
Speaker 2: and they take out Basot and Jenny right away. They
Speaker 2: take out that tank. It's a pretty smart move, I guess,
Speaker 2: to go ahead and get the heavy artillery down. It
Speaker 2: was parked in front of the main gate. So with
Speaker 2: that tank gone, they were basically, you know, fully free
Speaker 2: to just assault this castle outright, and a battle starts,
Speaker 2: like a really gruesome battle. They inside the prison. They
Speaker 2: had broken to the armory, so they had some stuff
Speaker 2: to defend themselves with, like pistols, some rifles and machine guns.
Speaker 2: But this was These are pistols and machine guns and rifles,
Speaker 2: not heavy artillery, which is kind of what they needed
Speaker 2: at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the Nazis had some eighty millimeter gun
Speaker 1: that they were using to pound the castle walls. This
Speaker 1: is like a medieval siege that's going on, but with
Speaker 1: modern armory, right yeah. And at first like it looked like, okay,
Speaker 1: the people in the castle might be able to hold
Speaker 1: this off. There's like one hundred waff in Ss attacking them.
Speaker 1: But then they started to run low on ammunition. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter what kind of gun you have,
Speaker 1: if you don't have bullets to shoot out of it,
Speaker 1: you're in trouble if the people who are you're fighting
Speaker 1: do still have bullets. And so by noon it was
Speaker 1: starting to look really grim. And also by this time,
Speaker 1: Gangle had been killed by a Nazi sniper, and I
Speaker 1: saw that Jack Lee, Captain Lee was already the de
Speaker 1: facto commander. Even the two French generals were deferring to
Speaker 1: his command, but he was kind of co commanding with Gangle.
Speaker 1: Now he was alone commanding this whole thing by himself,
Speaker 1: and he came up with a plan basically to hide
Speaker 1: everybody in the castle. Keep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really felt bad for a Gongle because he
Speaker 2: turned coated against the Nazis. He's doing the right thing.
Speaker 2: He brought them there and and just like a movie scene,
Speaker 2: he's up on the on the top like trying to
Speaker 2: get an assessment of the situation and gets taken out
Speaker 2: by a sniper. It's like such a powerful movie scene,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the only thing about it you would have to
Speaker 1: change is that he was probably killed instantly. He would
Speaker 1: have to have been shot somewhere where he could say, yeah,
Speaker 1: get him, get these people out of here alive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, tells them, I said.
Speaker 1: Tell the Nazis, I said.
Speaker 2: Second, there's there's a really funny uh oh, yeah, who cares.
Speaker 2: I'll go a little long. There's a really funny Dana
Speaker 2: Gould comedy bit about his plan on his deathbed is
Speaker 2: to say, you know, I've read a million dollars and
Speaker 2: it's located at and that's kind of funny. But the
Speaker 2: real punchline they sees like he got a time it
Speaker 2: just right, he said, Otherwise you just have to lay
Speaker 2: there and pretend you're dead for the remaining mints of
Speaker 2: your life. That's pretty good stuff. Yeah, that's great stuff,
Speaker 2: the great Dana Gold. All right, So Gongle is taken out,
Speaker 2: Lee comes up with that plan to get hold up
Speaker 2: in the keep, which is what a keep is for.
Speaker 2: That's where you take your last stand in a castle.
Speaker 2: So it's, you know, not a bad plan. He was like, Hey,
Speaker 2: let's feed this SS into that narrow passage that leads
Speaker 2: to the keep and just see if we can pick
Speaker 2: them off one by one as they come in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not a bad plan, but the chances
Speaker 1: of anyone in the castle surviving during that plan is
Speaker 1: pretty low. And then, just as things were at their
Speaker 1: most hopeless. Seriously, this is how it happened. That column
Speaker 1: of tanks that was originally contacted by the Yugoslavian handyman
Speaker 1: who first made a run for it, led by Major Kramer,
Speaker 1: show up and they flanked the Nazis, or attack the
Speaker 1: Nazis from the rear and just immediately scatter the people
Speaker 1: besieging this castle and the battle ends almost immediately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and oh man, if this is true, then it
Speaker 2: just rights itself, because supposedly Kramer got to the castle,
Speaker 2: met up with Captain Lee, and Lee said, what kept you?
Speaker 1: That was a quote from Lee later on recounting it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would punch that up to what took you
Speaker 2: so long? Yeah, with it like a little wink or something.
Speaker 2: But and then maybe they've fall.
Speaker 1: In love, yeah, or and Kramer responds with the traffic.
Speaker 2: Oh man, it's SuperFect, you know, very sadly well, I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess it's good news that Gongo was the only casualty.
Speaker 2: It's sad that that was him again because he was
Speaker 2: pretty brave for going against his own kind. But he
Speaker 2: was the only casualty out of all of that. And
Speaker 2: this ragtag group held off this forest until the reinforcements arrived.
Speaker 2: Like happy ending.
Speaker 1: Major Lee lived to be an old man. I think
Speaker 1: he died in the seventies and he was awarded the
Speaker 1: Distinguished Service.
Speaker 2: Cross for this amazing Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right. This is movie stuff like out the
Speaker 1: Yin Yang right at the Yen Yang, which means, of
Speaker 1: course short stuff is.
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