Stephen Harding - The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe

WHEN U.S. AND GERMAN SOLDIERS

JOINED FORCES IN THE WANING HOURS

OF WORLD WAR II IN EUROPE

STEPHEN HARDING

DA CAPO PRESS

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

Copyright 2013 by Stephen Harding

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information, address Da Capo Press, 44 Farnsworth Street, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA 02210.

Designed by Pauline Brown

Maps by Steve Walkowiak

Typeset in Palatino LT Std by the Perseus Books Group

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Harding, Stephen, 1952

The last battle: when U.S. and German soldiers joined forces in the waning hours of World War II in Europe / Stephen Harding.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-30682-209-4 (e-book) 1. World War, 19391945CampaignsAustriaTyrol. 2. World War, 19391945Prisoners and prisons, German. 3. Prisoners of warAustriaItterHistory20th century. 4. Prisoners of warFranceHistory20th century. 5. Daladier, Edouard, 18841970Captivity, 19401945. 6. Reynaud, Paul, 18781966Captivity, 19401945. I. Title.

D765.45.T9H37 2013

940.54'213642dc23

2012044706

First Da Capo Press edition 2013

Published by Da Capo Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

www.dacapopress.com

Da Capo Press books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail .

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

As always, for Mari, with love

ON THE MORNING OF MAY 4, 1945, Captain John C. Jack Lee Jr. sat cross-legged atop the turret of his M4 Sherman tank, comparing the narrow streets before him with the terrain features marked on the map that lay partially open across his lap. Lee, a stocky twenty-seven-year-old from Norwich, New York, had spent the last five months leading Company B of the 23rd Tank Battalionand, at times, much of the entire U.S. 12th Armored Divisionon a headlong advance across France, into Germany, and now, in what would turn out to be the last days of World War II in Europe, into the Austrian Tyrol.

Lees tank was parked at the intersection of two streets in the town of Kufstein, Austria, three miles southwest of the German border on the south bank of the swift-flowing Inn River. All three of the 23rds tank companies had crossed the frontier the day before, leading the 12th Armored Divisions Combat Command R on its drive southward from the suburbs of Munich. Lees company had spearheaded the drive into Kufstein and had fought its way through a well-defended German roadblock before quickly clearing the town of its few defenders. Now, with the situation stabilized and lead elements of the 36th Infantry Division moving in to assume responsibility for the area, Lee and his men could catch a few minutes rest.

JUST A FEW MILES TO THE SOUTHWEST another tired officer was also scanning a map, trying to determine what the coming hours would hold for him and his men. Josef Sepp Gangl, a decorated Bavarian-born major in the German Wehrmacht, knew that the American juggernaut was rolling his way and that its arrival would likely be heralded by thunderous artillery barrages, the roar of tank fire, and the rattle of automatic weapons.

Gangl was not unduly troubled by the possibility of his own death; hed come to grips with his own mortality fighting the Russians on the Eastern Front and the Allies in Normandy. He was concerned about the men he led, however, for not all were soldiers, and many werent even German. A few days earlier, knowing the war was lost and loath to spend any more lives defending a system hed long before stopped believing in, Gangl had declared his own personal armistice and joined forces with the Austrian anti-Nazi resistance. His only goal now was to keep the advancing Americansand, for that matter, any German units still loyal to the fhrer and the Reichfrom butchering the men whod chosen to follow him.

ATOP A ROCKY PROMONTORY overlooking the flatlands over which the Americans would soon advance, a gaggle of argumentative Frenchmen were also pondering what fate had in store for them. Peering over the battlements of a castle that had stood atop its mountain for centuries, and that had been their prison until that very morning, the men knew their newfound freedom was no protection against the wrath of die-hard SS units still roaming the thick forest around them. They needed deliverance, and they needed it soon. If help did not come before the sun set, they would almost certainly die within the walls of their Tyrolean fortress.

THE WARMTH OF THE SPRING SUN and Jack Lees exhaustion made it difficult for him to focus on the map. He was profoundly tired and hoped, more fervently than he let on to his men, that Kufstein would be Company Bs last battle. Like virtually every other soldier in the European theater of operations, Lee knew that the war could end at any momentAdolf Hitler had killed himself five days earlier, and organized German opposition was crumblingand, while the young officer would in some ways hate to see the conflict come to a close, he didnt want any of his men to be the last American killed in Europe.