May 5th, 1945.
Austria.
The war in Europe has less than three days left.
Hitler is dead.
The German army is surrendering in waves.
But high in the Tolian Alps, a medieval fortress stands on a hill.
Castle.
And inside this castle, the strangest scene of World War II is taking place.
If you looked through a pair of binoculars, you wouldn’t believe your eyes.
On the castle walls, you would see American soldiers.
They are firing their machine guns.
But right next to them, shoulderto-shoulder, are German soldiers, not prisoners, not captives.
They are armed.
They are wearing vermached uniforms.
And they are shooting at other Germans.
And leading them, an American tank commander who looks like a movie star and a German major who just wants to go home.
They are fighting against a common enemy, the Vafen SS.
A fanatical division of SS troops is climbing the hill to slaughter everyone inside.
The Americans and the Germans have one tank.
They have limited ammo and they are protecting the most valuable prisoners of the war, French prime ministers and generals.
This isn’t a movie script.
This actually happened.
It is the only time in history that the US army and the German army fought as allies in World War II.
This is the story of the battle for Castle, the day enemies became brothers and the day the besotten Jenny, a Sherman tank held the line against the SS.
To understand why this battle happened, we have to look at who was inside the castle.
Schllo wasn’t a normal prison.
It was a luxury cage.
The Nazis used it to hold honor prisoners, high-profile French VIPs.
Inside were men who used to run France.
Edoard Deier, the former prime minister, Paul Reo, another prime minister, General Maxim Veong, the former head of the French army, and Jean Barotra, a famous tennis star.
They hated the Germans, but truthfully, they also hated each other.
They spent years arguing about politics while the SS guarded the doors.
But by May 1945, the guards were getting nervous.
The SS commander at the castle, Sebastian Vimemer, knew the war was lost.
He knew that if the Americans found him, he would be arrested.
But he also knew that he had orders from Himmler, no prisoner leaves alive.
On May 4th, Vimemer looked at the approaching American lines.
He looked at the fanatical SS units roaming the forests nearby, and he made a choice.
He ran away.
The SS guards fled.
The French VIPs were suddenly free, but they were trapped.
The castle was surrounded by woods filled with the 17th SS Panser Grenadier Division.
These were diehard Nazis.
They were executing anyone who tried to surrender.
If the French tried to walk out, the SS would massacre them.
The prisoners armed themselves with weapons left behind by the guards.
But they were old men.
They weren’t soldiers.
They needed help.
And they found it in the most unlikely place.
A few miles away in the town of Veral, Major Joseph Gangal was trying to keep his men alive.
Gangal was a vermached officer, a regular army soldier.
He was a hero of the Russian front, but he was also anti-Nazi.
He had been secretly helping the Austrian resistance.
He knew the SS were planning to blow up the town’s bridges and fight to the death.
Gangal wanted to save the town.
He wanted to save his men.
He was looking for someone to surrender to.
Then a messenger arrived from the castle.
A Czech cook had ridden a bicycle through the SS lines.
He told Gongal, “The French leaders are trapped.
The SS is coming to kill them.” Gangal faced a dilemma.
He couldn’t fight the SS alone.
He didn’t have enough men.
But he couldn’t let the SS murder the French VIPs.
It would be a stain on Germany’s honor.
So Gangal did something insane.
He grabbed a white flag.
He jumped into his Kubalvagen German jeep and he drove toward the American lines.
He wasn’t driving to fight.
He was driving to find a friend.
8 m away in the town of Kushstein.
The US 12th Armored Division had just arrived.
Leading the reconnaissance unit was Captain John Jack Lee.
Jack Lee was the perfect American tank commander.
He was cigar chomping, tough, loud.
He looked like he stepped out of a Hollywood set.
His men loved him.
He was resting his tank.
A Sherman named Besotten Jenny.
Suddenly, a German car approached with a white flag.
Lee put his hand on his pistol, but the German officer didn’t shoot.
He saluted.
It was Major Gangal.
Gangal explained the situation in broken English.
Captain, we have French VIPs trapped.
The SS is coming.
I want to help you save them.
Lee looked at Gongo, a German major asking to join forces.
It sounded like a trap.
But Lee was a gambler.
He chewed his cigar.
He looked at the map and he said, “All right, Fritz, let’s go get him.” He radioed his HQ.
I am taking a rescue mission to Castle.
I am taking the German major with me.
His superiors thought he was crazy, but they gave him the green light.
Lee gathered a small force, two tanks, seven infantrymen, and Gongal’s truckload of Vermach soldiers.
It was the strangest convoy of the war, an American tank in the lead, a German truck behind it, driving together into SS territory.
As they drove up the winding road to the castle, they ran into SS roadblocks.
The besotten Jenny blasted them out of the way.
The German soldiers in the truck fired their mouser rifles at the SS.
They fought their way to the castle gate.
The French VIPs came out to meet them.
They expected a massive American army.
Instead, they saw one tank, seven Americans, and a bunch of Germans.
The French were confused.
“Where is the rest of the army?” they asked.
Captain Lee climbed out of his tank.
He grinned.
“I am it.” Lee took command.
He was a captain, but he ordered the French prime ministers around like privates.
“Get inside,” he told them.
“Stay away from the windows.” He placed his tank, the Besotten Jenny, right in front of the main gate.
He told his gunner to aim at the road.
He positioned the German soldiers on the walls.
He positioned his American infantry in the towers.
He told Major Gungal, “You watch the south wall.
I’ll watch the gate.” Major Gungal saluted.
For the first time in 5 years, German and American soldiers shared cigarettes.
They shared food.
They checked each other’s weapons.
They knew that when the sun came up, they were all going to die together.
May 5th morning, the fog lifted.
And then the first shot.
The SS had arrived.
About 150 men from the 17th SS Panzer Grenaders.
They had anti-tank guns.
They had mortars.
They had machine guns.
They were furious.
They saw the American tank at the gate and they saw their own countrymen, Gungal’s men, shooting at them from the walls.
To the SS, Gungal was a traitor.
They focused their fire on the castle.
Bullets chipped away at the ancient stone walls.
The French VIPs, to their credit, didn’t hide.
Reo and Delier grabbed rifles and started shooting from the windows.
Even the tennis star Jean Barotra joined the fight.
But the SS had a bigger weapon, an 88 mm anti-tank gun.
They aimed it at the gate, at the Besotten Jenny.
The shell hit the tank.
The Botten Jenny burst into flames.
The American crew bailed out just in time.
Their only heavy weapon was gone.
Now it was just rifles against an army.
Captain Lee ran from position to position.
He was calm.
He cut the fuse on his last cigar.
He told his men, “Don’t worry.
They have to come through the gate and we’ll pile them up like cordwood.” The battle raged for hours.
The defenders were running low on ammunition.
The SS were inching closer.
They were preparing to storm the walls.
Major Gangal was on the wall directing fire.
He saw Prime Minister Paul Reo standing in the open exposing himself to fire.
Gangal ran to him.
“Get down!” he shouted.
He pushed Reo out of the way.
A sniper bullet caught Major Gangal in the chest.
He fell.
The German officer died, saving a French politician.
He died fighting for the Americans against his own country’s fanatics.
He was the only defender killed in the battle.
The hero of the day was a German.
The defenders are down to their last bullets.
The tank is destroyed.
The SS is preparing the final assault.
Before we see the miraculous ending, hit that subscribe button.
We bring you the stories that sound like fiction but are 100% true.
Join us.
It was noon.
Captain Lee checked his ammo.
They were almost dry.
He knew they couldn’t hold for another hour.
He needed to get a message to the American main force, but the radio in the tank was destroyed.
Jean Barotra, the tennis star, stepped forward.
I will go, he said.
I am fast.
I can run.
It sounded suicidal.
But Barotra didn’t wait.
He vaulted over the castle wall.
He sprinted across the open field.
The SS fired at him.
Bullets kicked up dirt around his feet.
He dodged.
He weaved.
And he disappeared into the woods.
He ran for miles until he found an American relief column coming up the road.
He ran up to the lead tank, breathless.
the castle,” he gasped.
“They are dying.
You must hurry.” Back at the castle, the SS were launching their final attack.
They were at the gate.
They were blowing it open.
Captain Lee told his men to fix bayonets.
He prepared to fight handto hand in the courtyard.
The German soldiers checked their magazines, empty.
And then a sound.
Not the sound of gunfire, the sound of engines.
Around the corner of the road came the 142nd Infantry Regiment.
Sherman tanks, hundreds of soldiers.
They opened fire on the SS.
The SS troops realized they were trapped.
They scattered into the woods.
The siege was broken.
The American relief soldiers ran into the castle.
They found Captain Lee.
He was tired.
His face was black with smoke.
He looked at the relief commander.
He took the cigar out of his mouth and he said, “What took you so long?” The prisoners were saved.
The French VIPs were driven to safety.
Within days, the war was officially over.
Captain Jack Lee received the Distinguished Service Cross.
He went home to New York.
He opened a hotel.
He never bragged about the battle.
Major Joseph Gangal was buried in the town of Veral.
He is remembered as a hero in Austria today.
A street is named after him.
He is the German soldier who died fighting the Nazis.
The battle for Castle was a small skirmish in a huge war.
But it proved something important.
It proved that even in the middle of the greatest conflict in history, humanity can survive.
Enemies can become friends and men can choose to do the right thing even when the world has gone mad.
Years later, when people asked Jack Lee about the battle, he would just smile.
He would say, “It was the weirdest thing I ever saw.
Me and the crows fighting side by side.” It remains the only battle where the US Army and the German army fought as allies.
A strange heroic ending to a terrible war.
Major Gongal died saving a French politician.
Was he a traitor to Germany or a hero to humanity? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
And if you want to know about the time Patton almost got fired before D-Day, check out this video.
Thanks for watching.
May 5th, 1945.
Austria.
The war in Europe has less than three days left.
Hitler is dead.
The German army is surrendering in waves.
But high in the Tolian Alps, a medieval fortress stands on a hill.
Castle.
And inside this castle, the strangest scene of World War II is taking place.
If you looked through a pair of binoculars, you wouldn’t believe your eyes.
On the castle walls, you would see American soldiers.
They are firing their machine guns.
But right next to them, shoulderto-shoulder, are German soldiers, not prisoners, not captives.
They are armed.
They are wearing vermached uniforms.
And they are shooting at other Germans.
And leading them, an American tank commander who looks like a movie star and a German major who just wants to go home.
They are fighting against a common enemy, the Vafen SS.
A fanatical division of SS troops is climbing the hill to slaughter everyone inside.
The Americans and the Germans have one tank.
They have limited ammo and they are protecting the most valuable prisoners of the war, French prime ministers and generals.
This isn’t a movie script.
This actually happened.
It is the only time in history that the US army and the German army fought as allies in World War II.
This is the story of the battle for Castle, the day enemies became brothers and the day the besotten Jenny, a Sherman tank held the line against the SS.
To understand why this battle happened, we have to look at who was inside the castle.
Schllo wasn’t a normal prison.
It was a luxury cage.
The Nazis used it to hold honor prisoners, high-profile French VIPs.
Inside were men who used to run France.
Edoard Deier, the former prime minister, Paul Reo, another prime minister, General Maxim Veong, the former head of the French army, and Jean Barotra, a famous tennis star.
They hated the Germans, but truthfully, they also hated each other.
They spent years arguing about politics while the SS guarded the doors.
But by May 1945, the guards were getting nervous.
The SS commander at the castle, Sebastian Vimemer, knew the war was lost.
He knew that if the Americans found him, he would be arrested.
But he also knew that he had orders from Himmler, no prisoner leaves alive.
On May 4th, Vimemer looked at the approaching American lines.
He looked at the fanatical SS units roaming the forests nearby, and he made a choice.
He ran away.
The SS guards fled.
The French VIPs were suddenly free, but they were trapped.
The castle was surrounded by woods filled with the 17th SS Panser Grenadier Division.
These were diehard Nazis.
They were executing anyone who tried to surrender.
If the French tried to walk out, the SS would massacre them.
The prisoners armed themselves with weapons left behind by the guards.
But they were old men.
They weren’t soldiers.
They needed help.
And they found it in the most unlikely place.
A few miles away in the town of Veral, Major Joseph Gangal was trying to keep his men alive.
Gangal was a vermached officer, a regular army soldier.
He was a hero of the Russian front, but he was also anti-Nazi.
He had been secretly helping the Austrian resistance.
He knew the SS were planning to blow up the town’s bridges and fight to the death.
Gangal wanted to save the town.
He wanted to save his men.
He was looking for someone to surrender to.
Then a messenger arrived from the castle.
A Czech cook had ridden a bicycle through the SS lines.
He told Gongal, “The French leaders are trapped.
The SS is coming to kill them.” Gangal faced a dilemma.
He couldn’t fight the SS alone.
He didn’t have enough men.
But he couldn’t let the SS murder the French VIPs.
It would be a stain on Germany’s honor.
So Gangal did something insane.
He grabbed a white flag.
He jumped into his Kubalvagen German jeep and he drove toward the American lines.
He wasn’t driving to fight.
He was driving to find a friend.
8 m away in the town of Kushstein.
The US 12th Armored Division had just arrived.
Leading the reconnaissance unit was Captain John Jack Lee.
Jack Lee was the perfect American tank commander.
He was cigar chomping, tough, loud.
He looked like he stepped out of a Hollywood set.
His men loved him.
He was resting his tank.
A Sherman named Besotten Jenny.
Suddenly, a German car approached with a white flag.
Lee put his hand on his pistol, but the German officer didn’t shoot.
He saluted.
It was Major Gangal.
Gangal explained the situation in broken English.
Captain, we have French VIPs trapped.
The SS is coming.
I want to help you save them.
Lee looked at Gongo, a German major asking to join forces.
It sounded like a trap.
But Lee was a gambler.
He chewed his cigar.
He looked at the map and he said, “All right, Fritz, let’s go get him.” He radioed his HQ.
I am taking a rescue mission to Castle.
I am taking the German major with me.
His superiors thought he was crazy, but they gave him the green light.
Lee gathered a small force, two tanks, seven infantrymen, and Gongal’s truckload of Vermach soldiers.
It was the strangest convoy of the war, an American tank in the lead, a German truck behind it, driving together into SS territory.
As they drove up the winding road to the castle, they ran into SS roadblocks.
The besotten Jenny blasted them out of the way.
The German soldiers in the truck fired their mouser rifles at the SS.
They fought their way to the castle gate.
The French VIPs came out to meet them.
They expected a massive American army.
Instead, they saw one tank, seven Americans, and a bunch of Germans.
The French were confused.
“Where is the rest of the army?” they asked.
Captain Lee climbed out of his tank.
He grinned.
“I am it.” Lee took command.
He was a captain, but he ordered the French prime ministers around like privates.
“Get inside,” he told them.
“Stay away from the windows.” He placed his tank, the Besotten Jenny, right in front of the main gate.
He told his gunner to aim at the road.
He positioned the German soldiers on the walls.
He positioned his American infantry in the towers.
He told Major Gungal, “You watch the south wall.
I’ll watch the gate.” Major Gungal saluted.
For the first time in 5 years, German and American soldiers shared cigarettes.
They shared food.
They checked each other’s weapons.
They knew that when the sun came up, they were all going to die together.
May 5th morning, the fog lifted.
And then the first shot.
The SS had arrived.
About 150 men from the 17th SS Panzer Grenaders.
They had anti-tank guns.
They had mortars.
They had machine guns.
They were furious.
They saw the American tank at the gate and they saw their own countrymen, Gungal’s men, shooting at them from the walls.
To the SS, Gungal was a traitor.
They focused their fire on the castle.
Bullets chipped away at the ancient stone walls.
The French VIPs, to their credit, didn’t hide.
Reo and Delier grabbed rifles and started shooting from the windows.
Even the tennis star Jean Barotra joined the fight.
But the SS had a bigger weapon, an 88 mm anti-tank gun.
They aimed it at the gate, at the Besotten Jenny.
The shell hit the tank.
The Botten Jenny burst into flames.
The American crew bailed out just in time.
Their only heavy weapon was gone.
Now it was just rifles against an army.
Captain Lee ran from position to position.
He was calm.
He cut the fuse on his last cigar.
He told his men, “Don’t worry.
They have to come through the gate and we’ll pile them up like cordwood.” The battle raged for hours.
The defenders were running low on ammunition.
The SS were inching closer.
They were preparing to storm the walls.
Major Gangal was on the wall directing fire.
He saw Prime Minister Paul Reo standing in the open exposing himself to fire.
Gangal ran to him.
“Get down!” he shouted.
He pushed Reo out of the way.
A sniper bullet caught Major Gangal in the chest.
He fell.
The German officer died, saving a French politician.
He died fighting for the Americans against his own country’s fanatics.
He was the only defender killed in the battle.
The hero of the day was a German.
The defenders are down to their last bullets.
The tank is destroyed.
The SS is preparing the final assault.
Before we see the miraculous ending, hit that subscribe button.
We bring you the stories that sound like fiction but are 100% true.
Join us.
It was noon.
Captain Lee checked his ammo.
They were almost dry.
He knew they couldn’t hold for another hour.
He needed to get a message to the American main force, but the radio in the tank was destroyed.
Jean Barotra, the tennis star, stepped forward.
I will go, he said.
I am fast.
I can run.
It sounded suicidal.
But Barotra didn’t wait.
He vaulted over the castle wall.
He sprinted across the open field.
The SS fired at him.
Bullets kicked up dirt around his feet.
He dodged.
He weaved.
And he disappeared into the woods.
He ran for miles until he found an American relief column coming up the road.
He ran up to the lead tank, breathless.
the castle,” he gasped.
“They are dying.
You must hurry.” Back at the castle, the SS were launching their final attack.
They were at the gate.
They were blowing it open.
Captain Lee told his men to fix bayonets.
He prepared to fight handto hand in the courtyard.
The German soldiers checked their magazines, empty.
And then a sound.
Not the sound of gunfire, the sound of engines.
Around the corner of the road came the 142nd Infantry Regiment.
Sherman tanks, hundreds of soldiers.
They opened fire on the SS.
The SS troops realized they were trapped.
They scattered into the woods.
The siege was broken.
The American relief soldiers ran into the castle.
They found Captain Lee.
He was tired.
His face was black with smoke.
He looked at the relief commander.
He took the cigar out of his mouth and he said, “What took you so long?” The prisoners were saved.
The French VIPs were driven to safety.
Within days, the war was officially over.
Captain Jack Lee received the Distinguished Service Cross.
He went home to New York.
He opened a hotel.
He never bragged about the battle.
Major Joseph Gangal was buried in the town of Veral.
He is remembered as a hero in Austria today.
A street is named after him.
He is the German soldier who died fighting the Nazis.
The battle for Castle was a small skirmish in a huge war.
But it proved something important.
It proved that even in the middle of the greatest conflict in history, humanity can survive.
Enemies can become friends and men can choose to do the right thing even when the world has gone mad.
Years later, when people asked Jack Lee about the battle, he would just smile.
He would say, “It was the weirdest thing I ever saw.
Me and the crows fighting side by side.” It remains the only battle where the US Army and the German army fought as allies.
A strange heroic ending to a terrible war.
Major Gongal died saving a French politician.
Was he a traitor to Germany or a hero to humanity? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
And if you want to know about the time Patton almost got fired before D-Day, check out this video.
Thanks for watching.
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