December 17, 2025 • 14 mins
At the end of WWII in Europe, one of the strangest battles of the war took place between German troops fighting alongside Americans and French to beat back an assault by the Nazi SS.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh and
there's Chuck and Jerry sitting in for Dave, which makes
this an official short stuff. Don't accept substitutes.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's right. And I'm only gonna say this at the beginning,
but boy, oh boy, this should be a movie, this episode.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's insane that it's not.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, really great cinematic story in every way, the way it,
you know, is laid out there, you know.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah, the Battle of Castle Itter would it be Ittter eid?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, here we go. We already don't know what to call.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
It, so we're gonna call it Itter after John Ritter.
But it's also called Schlossitter, which is castle, and it's
located in Austria, the Tyrolean region of Austria. And the
reason why it's significant is too it's one of the
last battles of the European Theater of World War two,
Like I can't name any other battles after it, but
(00:56):
that doesn't really mean that much. And then the second
reason is because it is a really unusual battle in
that Germans got together with Americans and French and fought
the Nazis in this battle.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, and other randos from different places like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
Like it was a like you mentioned a real Motley Crue,
real ragtag group. Yeah, but I didn't put both of them, Lounce.
You got to put it over the O two.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Oh I didn't. Oh, I'm sorry, man, I screwed up.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
It was pretty great everyone Josh put this together and
he typed out Motley Crue and he put Umlas over
the U just clearly as a little, uh little love
letter to me.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
It was Yeah, I got it, but I'm sorry, I
screwed up the love letter.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
No, it's fine. It's the thought that counts, that's what
they say, right.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, but that's really patronizing.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
What if this was the very last battle? That makes
it even more cinematic.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I mean that's what I read. It was like one
of the last, and it could just pretty cobody hedging,
you know, it could have been the last one.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, all right. So this castle is sitting up there
since the thirteenth century. Since eighteen seventy eight, it's been
kind of in its present form, and it's been a
bunch of things. It was a private estate for a while,
as a hotel for a while, but notably for our story.
After the Nazis annex Austrian nineteen thirty eight, they took
it over and a few years later, in nineteen forty three,
(02:22):
it became part of Dacau, you know, the death camp,
and it served as a sort of a VIP prison
for some high value prisoners of war that they thought
could like we're not going to put these people to death.
We think we might be able to use them as hostages,
so we'll hold them up in this castle.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Right, And there were some like real VIPs in there.
There were two French generals, two former French prime ministers, Yeah,
Tennis Starr who'd become a politician, and one of the
sisters of Charles de Gaull, who was like, I guess
he was the head of the military in World War Two?
Correct or was he the No, he was the current
prime minister right in exile.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Oh I thought he just built the airport.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, hand by hand, but that was a side project
that he did on weekends.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
They were also, like you said, some Czech prisoners from
Yugoslavian prisoners, and they were there for a couple of years,
and in May of nineteen forty five, the beginning of
May nineteen forty five. The war was not just starting
to wind down, it was coming to like a like
a car smashing into a tree kind of stop. Because
Hitlary just killed himself in Berlin. Mussolini had been strung
(03:33):
up and hung out to dry literally by partisans in Italy,
and it was just very clear that that Germany had
lost World War Two and the European theater was coming
to an end.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, that's right. They were literally about to offer up
their formal surrender. But if you're in this castle, you're
a little worried because the SS at this point, there's
some SS that are like, hey, you know, we're going
to lay down our arms. The war is clearly over.
Let's just get this over with. There's other SS that
are like, nine, I'm going to go down in a
(04:09):
blaze of glory and kill everyone that I can before
they formally call this thing over. And so if you
were in this castle as a VIP prisoner, you were
worried that they were going to be coming for you.
And they found out that that was true.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, So one of the things that really unsettled them
is on May Twid the Butcher of Dachau, the guy
who ran the prison camp, Edward Vitter. He showed up
at the castle because remember this was like an annex
of the Dachaut prison system, and he was on the
run from the Allies who had just liberated the camp
right after he'd escaped. But being a horrible, terrible Nazi,
(04:45):
as all Nazis are, he ordered the execution of two
thousand prisoners on his way out the door. The people
at Castle Edter had heard about this. I mean, that's
kind of a big deal, even in World War Two,
even in Germany, and they the fact that Vitterer showed up,
they're like, well, this is this is it for us?
But instead Vitder took his own life. He shot himself
(05:08):
in the heart. That didn't work, so then he shot
himself in the head. Well he had shot himself in
the heart.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, so he really finished the job.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
A couple of days, I guess there were briefly relieved
and they're like, oh, well, thank god. But a couple
of days after that, the commandment of the castle and
all the guards they left, and so all of a sudden,
all these people are trapped in this castle, these prisoners.
There's no way to get out, even if they could
get out. They know that they're probably hostile Germans nearby,
and they don't want to meet up with them. So
(05:39):
a handyman, a Yugoslavian handyman in the castle said, you
know what, I'm gonna make a run for it, you guys,
and I'm gonna go and try and meet up with
the American troops that are coming our way and see
if I can get us some help and rescue. He
did make it to the Americans, which is again, if
this is a movie, it's like an amazing success story
that he found the Americans.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
And didn't get shot.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, and the Americans were like, hey, listen, man, we're
legally the war's not quite over. We're not allowed to
be in that area yet. But they were led by
Major John T. Kramer, and he said there will be
a podcaster one day that will coin the term nuts
to that, but I'm going to say it right now.
Let's send a small detachment of tanks that way and
see if we can help those guys out.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I can't take credit for that. I learned that from
Grandpa and Simpson's yeah, that's funny. So yeah, Major John
Kramer says, we're going to go help you guys, and
he leads a column of tanks over. He turns the
steering wheels and heads them toward castle. Itter and I say,
we take a break here because I think it's a
(06:44):
pretty good spot.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
That's why s K. You should know why SK definitely
should know. But Josh Clark.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
All right. So meanwhile back at the castle, these prisoners,
they don't know what's happened to this Yugoslavian handyman that
went for help, because obviously it's you know, he can't
send word back. So another volunteer step forward. This is
the cook of the castle, and he said, all right,
I'm going to try and go get help. He finds,
oh god, this is such a movie. He finds a
German major, Sep Gongle, and this guy you said, you know,
(07:35):
all Nazis were terrible. I guess you would call him
almost a former Nazi because he was one of the
dudes that was like, no, this is what we're doing,
isn't right. So he broke with the SS. He was
leading a little group of Allied friendly troops, so he
was a complete turncoat, and he said, all right, let's
get together and go get these prisoners, like we finally
(07:55):
have a job to do, like you know, guns of
the Navarone style. Let's go, let's go save these prisoners.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah. So Gangle is on his way now to Castle Itter,
and on the way he runs into a tank commander
and his tank, the Bisottan Jenny is the name of
the tank, and the commander's name is jack C. Lee,
Junior Captain, and Gangle tells him what's going on, and
Jackson Lee says, you know, sir, I really like to
(08:25):
take part in that. Let's go. So he grabs a
few members of his company, a few members of a
nearby all black company d of the seventeenth Armored Infantry
Battalion and yeah, all played by Jim Brown in different disguises,
and then he puts them all together and he and
(08:45):
Gangle and their ragtag group of people start moving toward
Castle Itter. And this is not like some sort of
First of all, this isn't sanctioned. This is not like
some obvious platoon that's already been assembled, like, this is
just a group of people people who almost were like, yeah,
I want to go get those people out of that castle.
And they said, come on, And this is the group
(09:06):
that's moving toward Castle ter and they finally get there,
I think about twelve hours before the siege finally began
on the castle.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, so they suspected there were Germans coming their way,
and they were right. The Waffen SS. They were the
combat detachment of the SS. Really bad dudes, very elite fighters.
They arrived at the castle, like you said, about twelve
hours after. This ragtag group is there to defend them,
and they take out Basot and Jenny right away. They
take out that tank. It's a pretty smart move, I guess,
(09:36):
to go ahead and get the heavy artillery down. It
was parked in front of the main gate. So with
that tank gone, they were basically, you know, fully free
to just assault this castle outright, and a battle starts,
like a really gruesome battle. They inside the prison. They
had broken to the armory, so they had some stuff
to defend themselves with, like pistols, some rifles and machine guns.
(09:59):
But this was These are pistols and machine guns and rifles,
not heavy artillery, which is kind of what they needed
at that point.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah. I think the Nazis had some eighty millimeter gun
that they were using to pound the castle walls. This
is like a medieval siege that's going on, but with
modern armory, right yeah. And at first like it looked like, okay,
the people in the castle might be able to hold
this off. There's like one hundred waff in Ss attacking them.
(10:26):
But then they started to run low on ammunition. And
it doesn't really matter what kind of gun you have,
if you don't have bullets to shoot out of it,
you're in trouble if the people who are you're fighting
do still have bullets. And so by noon it was
starting to look really grim. And also by this time,
Gangle had been killed by a Nazi sniper, and I
saw that Jack Lee, Captain Lee was already the de
(10:49):
facto commander. Even the two French generals were deferring to
his command, but he was kind of co commanding with Gangle.
Now he was alone commanding this whole thing by himself,
and he came up with a plan basically to hide
everybody in the castle. Keep.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, I really felt bad for a Gongle because he
turned coated against the Nazis. He's doing the right thing.
He brought them there and and just like a movie scene,
he's up on the on the top like trying to
get an assessment of the situation and gets taken out
by a sniper. It's like such a powerful movie scene,
you know.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, the only thing about it you would have to
change is that he was probably killed instantly. He would
have to have been shot somewhere where he could say, yeah,
get him, get these people out of here alive.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, tells them, I said.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Tell the Nazis, I said.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Second, there's there's a really funny uh oh, yeah, who cares.
I'll go a little long. There's a really funny Dana
Gould comedy bit about his plan on his deathbed is
to say, you know, I've read a million dollars and
it's located at and that's kind of funny. But the
(12:09):
real punchline they sees like he got a time it
just right, he said, Otherwise you just have to lay
there and pretend you're dead for the remaining mints of
your life. That's pretty good stuff. Yeah, that's great stuff,
the great Dana Gold. All right, So Gongle is taken out,
Lee comes up with that plan to get hold up
in the keep, which is what a keep is for.
That's where you take your last stand in a castle.
(12:30):
So it's, you know, not a bad plan. He was like, Hey,
let's feed this SS into that narrow passage that leads
to the keep and just see if we can pick
them off one by one as they come in there.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, and it's not a bad plan, but the chances
of anyone in the castle surviving during that plan is
pretty low. And then, just as things were at their
most hopeless. Seriously, this is how it happened. That column
of tanks that was originally contacted by the Yugoslavian handyman
who first made a run for it, led by Major Kramer,
(13:02):
show up and they flanked the Nazis, or attack the
Nazis from the rear and just immediately scatter the people
besieging this castle and the battle ends almost immediately.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, and oh man, if this is true, then it
just rights itself, because supposedly Kramer got to the castle,
met up with Captain Lee, and Lee said, what kept you?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
That was a quote from Lee later on recounting it.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yeah, I would punch that up to what took you
so long? Yeah, with it like a little wink or something.
But and then maybe they've fall.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
In love, yeah, or and Kramer responds with the traffic.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Oh man, it's SuperFect, you know, very sadly well, I mean,
I guess it's good news that Gongo was the only casualty.
It's sad that that was him again because he was
pretty brave for going against his own kind. But he
was the only casualty out of all of that. And
this ragtag group held off this forest until the reinforcements arrived.
(14:02):
Like happy ending.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Major Lee lived to be an old man. I think
he died in the seventies and he was awarded the
Distinguished Service.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Cross for this amazing Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yeah, you're right. This is movie stuff like out the
Yin Yang right at the Yen Yang, which means, of
course short stuff is.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Out stuff you should know. Is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh and
there's Chuck and Jerry sitting in for Dave, which makes
this an official short stuff. Don't accept substitutes.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's right. And I'm only gonna say this at the beginning,
but boy, oh boy, this should be a movie, this episode.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's insane that it's not.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, really great cinematic story in every way, the way it,
you know, is laid out there, you know.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah, the Battle of Castle Itter would it be Ittter eid?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, here we go. We already don't know what to call.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
It, so we're gonna call it Itter after John Ritter.
But it's also called Schlossitter, which is castle, and it's
located in Austria, the Tyrolean region of Austria. And the
reason why it's significant is too it's one of the
last battles of the European Theater of World War two,
Like I can't name any other battles after it, but
(00:56):
that doesn't really mean that much. And then the second
reason is because it is a really unusual battle in
that Germans got together with Americans and French and fought
the Nazis in this battle.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, and other randos from different places like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
Like it was a like you mentioned a real Motley Crue,
real ragtag group. Yeah, but I didn't put both of them, Lounce.
You got to put it over the O two.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Oh I didn't. Oh, I'm sorry, man, I screwed up.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
It was pretty great everyone Josh put this together and
he typed out Motley Crue and he put Umlas over
the U just clearly as a little, uh little love
letter to me.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
It was Yeah, I got it, but I'm sorry, I
screwed up the love letter.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
No, it's fine. It's the thought that counts, that's what
they say, right.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, but that's really patronizing.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
What if this was the very last battle? That makes
it even more cinematic.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I mean that's what I read. It was like one
of the last, and it could just pretty cobody hedging,
you know, it could have been the last one.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, all right. So this castle is sitting up there
since the thirteenth century. Since eighteen seventy eight, it's been
kind of in its present form, and it's been a
bunch of things. It was a private estate for a while,
as a hotel for a while, but notably for our story.
After the Nazis annex Austrian nineteen thirty eight, they took
it over and a few years later, in nineteen forty three,
(02:22):
it became part of Dacau, you know, the death camp,
and it served as a sort of a VIP prison
for some high value prisoners of war that they thought
could like we're not going to put these people to death.
We think we might be able to use them as hostages,
so we'll hold them up in this castle.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Right, And there were some like real VIPs in there.
There were two French generals, two former French prime ministers, Yeah,
Tennis Starr who'd become a politician, and one of the
sisters of Charles de Gaull, who was like, I guess
he was the head of the military in World War Two?
Correct or was he the No, he was the current
prime minister right in exile.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Oh I thought he just built the airport.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, hand by hand, but that was a side project
that he did on weekends.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
They were also, like you said, some Czech prisoners from
Yugoslavian prisoners, and they were there for a couple of years,
and in May of nineteen forty five, the beginning of
May nineteen forty five. The war was not just starting
to wind down, it was coming to like a like
a car smashing into a tree kind of stop. Because
Hitlary just killed himself in Berlin. Mussolini had been strung
(03:33):
up and hung out to dry literally by partisans in Italy,
and it was just very clear that that Germany had
lost World War Two and the European theater was coming
to an end.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, that's right. They were literally about to offer up
their formal surrender. But if you're in this castle, you're
a little worried because the SS at this point, there's
some SS that are like, hey, you know, we're going
to lay down our arms. The war is clearly over.
Let's just get this over with. There's other SS that
are like, nine, I'm going to go down in a
(04:09):
blaze of glory and kill everyone that I can before
they formally call this thing over. And so if you
were in this castle as a VIP prisoner, you were
worried that they were going to be coming for you.
And they found out that that was true.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, So one of the things that really unsettled them
is on May Twid the Butcher of Dachau, the guy
who ran the prison camp, Edward Vitter. He showed up
at the castle because remember this was like an annex
of the Dachaut prison system, and he was on the
run from the Allies who had just liberated the camp
right after he'd escaped. But being a horrible, terrible Nazi,
(04:45):
as all Nazis are, he ordered the execution of two
thousand prisoners on his way out the door. The people
at Castle Edter had heard about this. I mean, that's
kind of a big deal, even in World War Two,
even in Germany, and they the fact that Vitterer showed up,
they're like, well, this is this is it for us?
But instead Vitder took his own life. He shot himself
(05:08):
in the heart. That didn't work, so then he shot
himself in the head. Well he had shot himself in
the heart.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, so he really finished the job.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
A couple of days, I guess there were briefly relieved
and they're like, oh, well, thank god. But a couple
of days after that, the commandment of the castle and
all the guards they left, and so all of a sudden,
all these people are trapped in this castle, these prisoners.
There's no way to get out, even if they could
get out. They know that they're probably hostile Germans nearby,
and they don't want to meet up with them. So
(05:39):
a handyman, a Yugoslavian handyman in the castle said, you
know what, I'm gonna make a run for it, you guys,
and I'm gonna go and try and meet up with
the American troops that are coming our way and see
if I can get us some help and rescue. He
did make it to the Americans, which is again, if
this is a movie, it's like an amazing success story
that he found the Americans.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
And didn't get shot.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, and the Americans were like, hey, listen, man, we're
legally the war's not quite over. We're not allowed to
be in that area yet. But they were led by
Major John T. Kramer, and he said there will be
a podcaster one day that will coin the term nuts
to that, but I'm going to say it right now.
Let's send a small detachment of tanks that way and
see if we can help those guys out.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I can't take credit for that. I learned that from
Grandpa and Simpson's yeah, that's funny. So yeah, Major John
Kramer says, we're going to go help you guys, and
he leads a column of tanks over. He turns the
steering wheels and heads them toward castle. Itter and I say,
we take a break here because I think it's a
(06:44):
pretty good spot.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
That's why s K. You should know why SK definitely
should know. But Josh Clark.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
All right. So meanwhile back at the castle, these prisoners,
they don't know what's happened to this Yugoslavian handyman that
went for help, because obviously it's you know, he can't
send word back. So another volunteer step forward. This is
the cook of the castle, and he said, all right,
I'm going to try and go get help. He finds,
oh god, this is such a movie. He finds a
German major, Sep Gongle, and this guy you said, you know,
(07:35):
all Nazis were terrible. I guess you would call him
almost a former Nazi because he was one of the
dudes that was like, no, this is what we're doing,
isn't right. So he broke with the SS. He was
leading a little group of Allied friendly troops, so he
was a complete turncoat, and he said, all right, let's
get together and go get these prisoners, like we finally
(07:55):
have a job to do, like you know, guns of
the Navarone style. Let's go, let's go save these prisoners.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah. So Gangle is on his way now to Castle Itter,
and on the way he runs into a tank commander
and his tank, the Bisottan Jenny is the name of
the tank, and the commander's name is jack C. Lee,
Junior Captain, and Gangle tells him what's going on, and
Jackson Lee says, you know, sir, I really like to
(08:25):
take part in that. Let's go. So he grabs a
few members of his company, a few members of a
nearby all black company d of the seventeenth Armored Infantry
Battalion and yeah, all played by Jim Brown in different disguises,
and then he puts them all together and he and
(08:45):
Gangle and their ragtag group of people start moving toward
Castle Itter. And this is not like some sort of
First of all, this isn't sanctioned. This is not like
some obvious platoon that's already been assembled, like, this is
just a group of people people who almost were like, yeah,
I want to go get those people out of that castle.
And they said, come on, And this is the group
(09:06):
that's moving toward Castle ter and they finally get there,
I think about twelve hours before the siege finally began
on the castle.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, so they suspected there were Germans coming their way,
and they were right. The Waffen SS. They were the
combat detachment of the SS. Really bad dudes, very elite fighters.
They arrived at the castle, like you said, about twelve
hours after. This ragtag group is there to defend them,
and they take out Basot and Jenny right away. They
take out that tank. It's a pretty smart move, I guess,
(09:36):
to go ahead and get the heavy artillery down. It
was parked in front of the main gate. So with
that tank gone, they were basically, you know, fully free
to just assault this castle outright, and a battle starts,
like a really gruesome battle. They inside the prison. They
had broken to the armory, so they had some stuff
to defend themselves with, like pistols, some rifles and machine guns.
(09:59):
But this was These are pistols and machine guns and rifles,
not heavy artillery, which is kind of what they needed
at that point.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah. I think the Nazis had some eighty millimeter gun
that they were using to pound the castle walls. This
is like a medieval siege that's going on, but with
modern armory, right yeah. And at first like it looked like, okay,
the people in the castle might be able to hold
this off. There's like one hundred waff in Ss attacking them.
(10:26):
But then they started to run low on ammunition. And
it doesn't really matter what kind of gun you have,
if you don't have bullets to shoot out of it,
you're in trouble if the people who are you're fighting
do still have bullets. And so by noon it was
starting to look really grim. And also by this time,
Gangle had been killed by a Nazi sniper, and I
saw that Jack Lee, Captain Lee was already the de
(10:49):
facto commander. Even the two French generals were deferring to
his command, but he was kind of co commanding with Gangle.
Now he was alone commanding this whole thing by himself,
and he came up with a plan basically to hide
everybody in the castle. Keep.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, I really felt bad for a Gongle because he
turned coated against the Nazis. He's doing the right thing.
He brought them there and and just like a movie scene,
he's up on the on the top like trying to
get an assessment of the situation and gets taken out
by a sniper. It's like such a powerful movie scene,
you know.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, the only thing about it you would have to
change is that he was probably killed instantly. He would
have to have been shot somewhere where he could say, yeah,
get him, get these people out of here alive.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, tells them, I said.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Tell the Nazis, I said.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Second, there's there's a really funny uh oh, yeah, who cares.
I'll go a little long. There's a really funny Dana
Gould comedy bit about his plan on his deathbed is
to say, you know, I've read a million dollars and
it's located at and that's kind of funny. But the
(12:09):
real punchline they sees like he got a time it
just right, he said, Otherwise you just have to lay
there and pretend you're dead for the remaining mints of
your life. That's pretty good stuff. Yeah, that's great stuff,
the great Dana Gold. All right, So Gongle is taken out,
Lee comes up with that plan to get hold up
in the keep, which is what a keep is for.
That's where you take your last stand in a castle.
(12:30):
So it's, you know, not a bad plan. He was like, Hey,
let's feed this SS into that narrow passage that leads
to the keep and just see if we can pick
them off one by one as they come in there.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, and it's not a bad plan, but the chances
of anyone in the castle surviving during that plan is
pretty low. And then, just as things were at their
most hopeless. Seriously, this is how it happened. That column
of tanks that was originally contacted by the Yugoslavian handyman
who first made a run for it, led by Major Kramer,
(13:02):
show up and they flanked the Nazis, or attack the
Nazis from the rear and just immediately scatter the people
besieging this castle and the battle ends almost immediately.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, and oh man, if this is true, then it
just rights itself, because supposedly Kramer got to the castle,
met up with Captain Lee, and Lee said, what kept you?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
That was a quote from Lee later on recounting it.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yeah, I would punch that up to what took you
so long? Yeah, with it like a little wink or something.
But and then maybe they've fall.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
In love, yeah, or and Kramer responds with the traffic.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Oh man, it's SuperFect, you know, very sadly well, I mean,
I guess it's good news that Gongo was the only casualty.
It's sad that that was him again because he was
pretty brave for going against his own kind. But he
was the only casualty out of all of that. And
this ragtag group held off this forest until the reinforcements arrived.
(14:02):
Like happy ending.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Major Lee lived to be an old man. I think
he died in the seventies and he was awarded the
Distinguished Service.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Cross for this amazing Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yeah, you're right. This is movie stuff like out the
Yin Yang right at the Yen Yang, which means, of
course short stuff is.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
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