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Short Stuff: Battle of Itter Castle · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry sitting in for Dave, which makes
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: this an official short stuff. Don't accept substitutes.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: That's right. And I'm only gonna say this at the beginning,
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: but boy, oh boy, this should be a movie, this episode.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: It's insane that it's not.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, really great cinematic story in every way, the way it,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: you know, is laid out there, you know.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Battle of Castle Itter would it be Ittter eid?
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Well, here we go. We already don't know what to call.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It, so we're gonna call it Itter after John Ritter.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: But it's also called Schlossitter, which is castle, and it's
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: located in Austria, the Tyrolean region of Austria. And the
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: reason why it's significant is too it's one of the
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: last battles of the European Theater of World War two,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Like I can't name any other battles after it, but
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: that doesn't really mean that much. And then the second
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: reason is because it is a really unusual battle in
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: that Germans got together with Americans and French and fought
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: the Nazis in this battle.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and other randos from different places like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Like it was a like you mentioned a real Motley Crue,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: real ragtag group. Yeah, but I didn't put both of them, Lounce.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: You got to put it over the O two.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Oh I didn't. Oh, I'm sorry, man, I screwed up.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: It was pretty great everyone Josh put this together and
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: he typed out Motley Crue and he put Umlas over
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: the U just clearly as a little, uh little love
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: letter to me.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: It was Yeah, I got it, but I'm sorry, I
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: screwed up the love letter.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: No, it's fine. It's the thought that counts, that's what
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: they say, right.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's really patronizing.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: What if this was the very last battle? That makes
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: it even more cinematic.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I mean that's what I read. It was like one
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: of the last, and it could just pretty cobody hedging,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: you know, it could have been the last one.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right. So this castle is sitting up there
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: since the thirteenth century. Since eighteen seventy eight, it's been
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: kind of in its present form, and it's been a
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: bunch of things. It was a private estate for a while,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: as a hotel for a while, but notably for our story.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: After the Nazis annex Austrian nineteen thirty eight, they took
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: it over and a few years later, in nineteen forty three,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: it became part of Dacau, you know, the death camp,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: and it served as a sort of a VIP prison
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: for some high value prisoners of war that they thought
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: could like we're not going to put these people to death.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: We think we might be able to use them as hostages,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: so we'll hold them up in this castle.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Right, And there were some like real VIPs in there.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: There were two French generals, two former French prime ministers, Yeah,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Tennis Starr who'd become a politician, and one of the
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: sisters of Charles de Gaull, who was like, I guess
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: he was the head of the military in World War Two?
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Correct or was he the No, he was the current
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: prime minister right in exile.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Oh I thought he just built the airport.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hand by hand, but that was a side project
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: that he did on weekends.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: They were also, like you said, some Czech prisoners from
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Yugoslavian prisoners, and they were there for a couple of years,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: and in May of nineteen forty five, the beginning of
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: May nineteen forty five. The war was not just starting
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: to wind down, it was coming to like a like
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: a car smashing into a tree kind of stop. Because
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Hitlary just killed himself in Berlin. Mussolini had been strung
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: up and hung out to dry literally by partisans in Italy,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: and it was just very clear that that Germany had
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: lost World War Two and the European theater was coming
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: to an end.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. They were literally about to offer up
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: their formal surrender. But if you're in this castle, you're
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: a little worried because the SS at this point, there's
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: some SS that are like, hey, you know, we're going
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: to lay down our arms. The war is clearly over.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Let's just get this over with. There's other SS that
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: are like, nine, I'm going to go down in a
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: blaze of glory and kill everyone that I can before
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: they formally call this thing over. And so if you
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: were in this castle as a VIP prisoner, you were
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: worried that they were going to be coming for you.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: And they found out that that was true.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So one of the things that really unsettled them
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: is on May Twid the Butcher of Dachau, the guy
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: who ran the prison camp, Edward Vitter. He showed up
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: at the castle because remember this was like an annex
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: of the Dachaut prison system, and he was on the
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: run from the Allies who had just liberated the camp
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: right after he'd escaped. But being a horrible, terrible Nazi,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: as all Nazis are, he ordered the execution of two
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: thousand prisoners on his way out the door. The people
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: at Castle Edter had heard about this. I mean, that's
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: kind of a big deal, even in World War Two,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: even in Germany, and they the fact that Vitterer showed up,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: they're like, well, this is this is it for us?
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: But instead Vitder took his own life. He shot himself
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: in the heart. That didn't work, so then he shot
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: himself in the head. Well he had shot himself in
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the heart.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so he really finished the job.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: A couple of days, I guess there were briefly relieved
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: and they're like, oh, well, thank god. But a couple
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: of days after that, the commandment of the castle and
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: all the guards they left, and so all of a sudden,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: all these people are trapped in this castle, these prisoners.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: There's no way to get out, even if they could
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: get out. They know that they're probably hostile Germans nearby,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: and they don't want to meet up with them. So
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: a handyman, a Yugoslavian handyman in the castle said, you
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: know what, I'm gonna make a run for it, you guys,
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: and I'm gonna go and try and meet up with
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: the American troops that are coming our way and see
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: if I can get us some help and rescue. He
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: did make it to the Americans, which is again, if
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: this is a movie, it's like an amazing success story
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: that he found the Americans.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: And didn't get shot.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Americans were like, hey, listen, man, we're
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: legally the war's not quite over. We're not allowed to
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: be in that area yet. But they were led by
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Major John T. Kramer, and he said there will be
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: a podcaster one day that will coin the term nuts
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: to that, but I'm going to say it right now.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Let's send a small detachment of tanks that way and
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: see if we can help those guys out.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: I can't take credit for that. I learned that from
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Grandpa and Simpson's yeah, that's funny. So yeah, Major John
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Kramer says, we're going to go help you guys, and
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: he leads a column of tanks over. He turns the
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: steering wheels and heads them toward castle. Itter and I say,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: we take a break here because I think it's a
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: pretty good spot.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: That's why s K. You should know why SK definitely
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: should know. But Josh Clark.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: All right. So meanwhile back at the castle, these prisoners,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: they don't know what's happened to this Yugoslavian handyman that
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: went for help, because obviously it's you know, he can't
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: send word back. So another volunteer step forward. This is
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: the cook of the castle, and he said, all right,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: I'm going to try and go get help. He finds,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: oh god, this is such a movie. He finds a
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: German major, Sep Gongle, and this guy you said, you know,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: all Nazis were terrible. I guess you would call him
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: almost a former Nazi because he was one of the
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: dudes that was like, no, this is what we're doing,
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: isn't right. So he broke with the SS. He was
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: leading a little group of Allied friendly troops, so he
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: was a complete turncoat, and he said, all right, let's
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: get together and go get these prisoners, like we finally
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: have a job to do, like you know, guns of
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: the Navarone style. Let's go, let's go save these prisoners.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So Gangle is on his way now to Castle Itter,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: and on the way he runs into a tank commander
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: and his tank, the Bisottan Jenny is the name of
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: the tank, and the commander's name is jack C. Lee,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Junior Captain, and Gangle tells him what's going on, and
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Jackson Lee says, you know, sir, I really like to
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: take part in that. Let's go. So he grabs a
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: few members of his company, a few members of a
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: nearby all black company d of the seventeenth Armored Infantry
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Battalion and yeah, all played by Jim Brown in different disguises,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: and then he puts them all together and he and
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Gangle and their ragtag group of people start moving toward
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Castle Itter. And this is not like some sort of
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: First of all, this isn't sanctioned. This is not like
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: some obvious platoon that's already been assembled, like, this is
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: just a group of people people who almost were like, yeah,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: I want to go get those people out of that castle.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: And they said, come on, And this is the group
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: that's moving toward Castle ter and they finally get there,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I think about twelve hours before the siege finally began
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: on the castle.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so they suspected there were Germans coming their way,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: and they were right. The Waffen SS. They were the
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: combat detachment of the SS. Really bad dudes, very elite fighters.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: They arrived at the castle, like you said, about twelve
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: hours after. This ragtag group is there to defend them,
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: and they take out Basot and Jenny right away. They
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: take out that tank. It's a pretty smart move, I guess,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: to go ahead and get the heavy artillery down. It
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: was parked in front of the main gate. So with
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: that tank gone, they were basically, you know, fully free
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: to just assault this castle outright, and a battle starts,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: like a really gruesome battle. They inside the prison. They
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: had broken to the armory, so they had some stuff
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: to defend themselves with, like pistols, some rifles and machine guns.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: But this was These are pistols and machine guns and rifles,
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: not heavy artillery, which is kind of what they needed
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: at that point.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the Nazis had some eighty millimeter gun
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: that they were using to pound the castle walls. This
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: is like a medieval siege that's going on, but with
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: modern armory, right yeah. And at first like it looked like, okay,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: the people in the castle might be able to hold
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: this off. There's like one hundred waff in Ss attacking them.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: But then they started to run low on ammunition. And
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter what kind of gun you have,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: if you don't have bullets to shoot out of it,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: you're in trouble if the people who are you're fighting
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: do still have bullets. And so by noon it was
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: starting to look really grim. And also by this time,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Gangle had been killed by a Nazi sniper, and I
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: saw that Jack Lee, Captain Lee was already the de
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: facto commander. Even the two French generals were deferring to
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: his command, but he was kind of co commanding with Gangle.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Now he was alone commanding this whole thing by himself,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: and he came up with a plan basically to hide
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: everybody in the castle. Keep.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I really felt bad for a Gongle because he
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: turned coated against the Nazis. He's doing the right thing.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: He brought them there and and just like a movie scene,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: he's up on the on the top like trying to
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: get an assessment of the situation and gets taken out
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: by a sniper. It's like such a powerful movie scene,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the only thing about it you would have to
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: change is that he was probably killed instantly. He would
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: have to have been shot somewhere where he could say, yeah,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: get him, get these people out of here alive.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, tells them, I said.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Tell the Nazis, I said.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Second, there's there's a really funny uh oh, yeah, who cares.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: I'll go a little long. There's a really funny Dana
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Gould comedy bit about his plan on his deathbed is
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: to say, you know, I've read a million dollars and
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: it's located at and that's kind of funny. But the
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: real punchline they sees like he got a time it
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: just right, he said, Otherwise you just have to lay
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: there and pretend you're dead for the remaining mints of
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: your life. That's pretty good stuff. Yeah, that's great stuff,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: the great Dana Gold. All right, So Gongle is taken out,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Lee comes up with that plan to get hold up
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: in the keep, which is what a keep is for.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: That's where you take your last stand in a castle.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: So it's, you know, not a bad plan. He was like, Hey,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: let's feed this SS into that narrow passage that leads
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: to the keep and just see if we can pick
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: them off one by one as they come in there.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not a bad plan, but the chances
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: of anyone in the castle surviving during that plan is
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: pretty low. And then, just as things were at their
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: most hopeless. Seriously, this is how it happened. That column
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: of tanks that was originally contacted by the Yugoslavian handyman
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: who first made a run for it, led by Major Kramer,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: show up and they flanked the Nazis, or attack the
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Nazis from the rear and just immediately scatter the people
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: besieging this castle and the battle ends almost immediately.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and oh man, if this is true, then it
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: just rights itself, because supposedly Kramer got to the castle,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: met up with Captain Lee, and Lee said, what kept you?
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: That was a quote from Lee later on recounting it.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would punch that up to what took you
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: so long? Yeah, with it like a little wink or something.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: But and then maybe they've fall.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: In love, yeah, or and Kramer responds with the traffic.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Oh man, it's SuperFect, you know, very sadly well, I mean,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: I guess it's good news that Gongo was the only casualty.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: It's sad that that was him again because he was
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: pretty brave for going against his own kind. But he
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: was the only casualty out of all of that. And
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: this ragtag group held off this forest until the reinforcements arrived.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Like happy ending.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Major Lee lived to be an old man. I think
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: he died in the seventies and he was awarded the
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Distinguished Service.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Cross for this amazing Yeah.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right. This is movie stuff like out the
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Yin Yang right at the Yen Yang, which means, of
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: course short stuff is.
• 14:20
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• 14:26
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