Three days before Germany's official surrender, in a medieval castle in the Austrian Alps, American and German soldiers stood side by side on the battlements, fighting a common enemy. It may be the single most improbable engagement of the Second World War.
Castle Itter in Tyrol had been used by the SS as a prison for high-value French captives. Its guests included former Prime Ministers Edouard Daladier and Paul Reynaud — who had declared war on Germany — General Maxime Weygand, the French tennis champion Jean Borotra, and Major General Gustave Gamelin. French tennis star Borotra would later play tennis in the courtyard when conditions permitted, a surreal sight in wartime captivity.
By early May 1945, the SS in the region was fragmenting. Some guards fled. Wehrmacht Captain Josef Gangl, a former Nazi who had become a secret member of the Austrian resistance, contacted American forces and also established communication with the French prisoners. He believed the SS would massacre the prisoners rather than let them fall into Allied hands.
On May 4, US Captain John Lee arrived at Castle Itter with a Sherman tank and a small force of American soldiers. Gangl's Wehrmacht troops — men who had been fighting the Americans just weeks before — joined them inside the castle. The French prisoners, for their part, also picked up weapons.
When SS troops attacked on May 5, they found an extraordinary coalition defending the castle: American GIs, Wehrmacht soldiers, Austrian resistance members, and armed French prisoners including two former prime ministers. Former tennis champion Jean Borotra actually vaulted over the castle wall under fire to seek additional help from American forces.
The battle lasted a few hours. Josef Gangl was killed by an SS sniper — he died defending the French prisoners he had worked to protect. The arrival of more American forces eventually ended the siege.
Gangl is today honored in Austria as a resistance hero. A street in Munich bears his name. John Lee survived the war and returned to America. The French VIP prisoners were liberated just days before Germany's official surrender — a fitting end to a war that had brought the world's strangest alliances.