A German general stands in the ruins of a destroyed city.

His uniform is torn and covered in dust.

His men are starving, out of ammunition, completely surrounded.

American tanks are closing in from every direction.

The war is lost.

Everyone knows it.

But when George S.

Patton’s messenger arrives with a demand for immediate surrender, the German general does something unthinkable.

He refuses.

He looks the American officer directly in the eye and says, “I will not surrender.

Tell your general to come and take the city himself if he can.

” When Patton received this message, he didn’t get angry.

He smiled because George S.

Patton lived for moments exactly like this.

What happened next would become one of the most brutal, dramatic confrontations of the entire Second World War.

And what Patton said to that German general would be remembered for generations.

Patton was terrifying, not just to his enemies, but to his own men.

He demanded absolute perfection.

He would drive to the front lines in his jeep, wearing his polished helmet and his ivory-handled revolvers, and personally scream at any soldier he found not fighting hard enough.

He once slapped a soldier suffering from combat fatigue across the face and called him a coward.

The scandal nearly destroyed his career, but Patton didn’t care.

He believed that weakness was a disease and he was the cure.

By the spring of 1945, Patton’s Third Army was the most feared military force on the planet.

They had swept across France after D-Day, liberated Paris, smashed through the German lines at the Battle of the Bulge, and were now driving deep into the heart of Nazi Germany itself.

Patton’s tanks moved so fast that they often outran their own supply lines.

His men captured towns before the Germans even knew they were coming.

The Nazi high command issued specific orders.

Avoid Patton at all costs.

Retreat before him.

Do not engage.

But not every German commander got that message.

And some were too proud, too fanatical or too stubborn to obey.

His name was General Dare Infantry Fritz Krommer, a hardcore Vermach veteran.

He had served on the Eastern Front against the Soviets.

He had survived Stalingrad.

He had seen horrors that would break most men.

And he had developed a reputation as one of the most stubborn, uncompromising officers in the entire German army.

By April 1945, Kramer was commanding a mixed force of Vermach regulars and Vaan SS troops in the industrial city of Ashafenburg on the main river in Bavaria.

The city was strategically important.

It controlled bridges, rail lines, and highways that Patton needed to continue his advance into Germany.

Kramer received orders directly from Hitler’s bunker in Berlin.

Ashafenborg was to be declared a fesong, a fortress city.

It was to be defended to the last man, the last bullet, the last breath.

No retreat, no surrender.

Anyone who abandoned their post would be shot.

Anyone who showed cowardice would be hanged from the nearest lampost.

And Kramer intended to follow those orders to the letter.

On March 25th, 1945, advanced elements of the American 45th Infantry Division operating under Patton’s Third Army reached the outskirts of Ashenburgg.

They expected the city to fall quickly.

Most German cities at this point in the war surrendered within hours, sometimes without a shot being fired.

The war was obviously lost.

German soldiers were surrendering by the thousands, desperate to avoid being captured by the Soviets.

But when the American commander sent a patrol forward under a white flag to demand the city’s surrender, something unexpected happened.

The patrol was met by a German officer who listened to the American demands with a stone face.

Then he delivered General Kramer’s response.

The garrison of Ashafenberg will not surrender.

The Furer has ordered us to fight to the last man.

Any American soldier who enters this city will die.

Tell your commander that if he wants a Schaffenburg, he will have to pay for it with blood.

The American patrol returned to their lines, stunned.

They reported the message to their commanding officer.

The word quickly traveled up the chain of command until it reached Patton himself.

Patton was at his forward headquarters pouring over maps when he received the news.

An aid later described the scene.

Patton read the message.

His face turned red.

Then slowly a cold smile spread across his lips.

“So Patton said quietly, we have a German who wants to die for Hitler.

How wonderful.

I will personally arrange to grant his wish.

” Patton immediately ordered a massive concentration of force against Ashenberg.

He diverted artillery battalions.

He called in air support.

He sent additional infantry and tank units to surround the city completely.

There would be no escape for the German garrison.

Patton wanted to make an example of them.

I want that city reduced to rubble, Patton told his staff.

and I want that German general brought to me alive if possible.

I have a few things I’d like to say to him.

What followed was 6 days of absolute hell.

The battle of Ashaffenburgg began on March 28th and would not end until April 3rd.

It was one of the bloodiest urban battles American forces faced in the entire European theater.

General Kramer had prepared his defenses well.

He positioned machine gun nests in the upper floors of buildings, giving them clear fields of fire down the narrow streets.

He ordered his engineers to mine the bridges and booby trap the roads.

He placed snipers in church steeples and factory towers.

He told his men that death was preferable to surrender and that any soldier who tried to desert would be executed on the spot.

The Americans advanced street by street, house by house, room by room.

It was brutal close quarters combat.

Germans would hide in sellers and attics, waiting for American soldiers to pass, then open fire from behind.

The Americans learned to throw grenades into every room before entering.

They learned to blast holes through walls rather than using doors that might be booby trapped.

The civilian population was caught in the middle.

Thousands of German women, children, and elderly were trapped in their basement as artillery shells rained down on the city.

The beautiful medieval buildings of a Shaffenburgg, some dating back to the 13th century, were reduced to burning rubble.

Patton visited the [clears throat] front lines personally, as he always did.

He drove through the shattered streets in his Jeep, ignoring the sniper fire.

His jaw set with grim determination.

He stopped to talk to wounded soldiers being evacuated from the fighting.

“Sir,” one young private asked, blood seeping through the bandages on his arm.

“Why won’t they just give up? Don’t they know the war is over?” Patton looked at the burning city, then back at the wounded soldier.

Son, Patton replied, “Some men would rather die than admit they were wrong.

It’s our job to help them with that.

” By the fifth day of fighting, the German defense was beginning to crack.

They were out of ammunition.

They were out of food.

They were out of hope.

Kramer’s force had been reduced from several thousand men to a few hundred desperate survivors huddled in the ruins of the city center.

SS officers roamed behind the lines, shooting any German soldier who tried to surrender or retreat.

One eyewitness reported seeing a 15-year-old boy conscripted into the Folkster militia just days earlier being executed by an SS sergeant for crying and begging to go home.

But even the SS could not stop the inevitable.

German soldiers began surrendering in small groups, risking execution to escape the American onslaught.

They emerged from the rubble with their hands raised, many of them weeping with relief.

The American soldiers treated them correctly, following the Geneva Convention, but there was no sympathy.

These men had prolonged a hopeless battle and caused hundreds of unnecessary casualties on both sides.

The Americans processed them silently with cold efficiency.

On April 3rd, American forces finally overran the last German positions.

The city of Ashafenborg had fallen.

General Fritz Kramer was captured trying to escape through the sewers beneath the city.

He was dirty, exhausted, and defeated.

His grand last stand had accomplished nothing except the destruction of a beautiful city and the deaths of hundreds of men on both sides.

Kramer was brought before the American divisional commander who informed him that General Patton wished to speak with him personally.

Kramer straightened his torn uniform as best he could.

Despite everything, he was still a German general.

He would face his enemy with dignity.

He was driven to Patton’s headquarters and escorted into the general’s office.

Patton was sitting behind a desk covered with maps and reports.

He was wearing his famous uniform, the three stars gleaming on his shoulders, the ivory- handled revolvers at his hips.

He did not stand when Kramer entered.

He did not offer him a seat.

For a long moment, Patton simply stared at the German general with undisguised contempt.

Then he spoke.

His high-pitched voice was calm, almost conversational, which made his words even more devastating.

General Kramer, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.

Kramer stood at attention, saying nothing.

You know, Patton continued, “I’ve killed a lot of Germans in this war, thousands of them.

And I have to tell you, most of them died fighting for something, for their country, for their families.

for their comrades.

Patton leaned forward, his eyes boring into Kramer.

But you, what did your men die for? A city that was going to fall anyway.

An order from a madman hiding in a bunker in Berlin.

You sacrificed hundreds of lives, German lives and American lives for nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Kramer’s jaw tightened, but he remained silent.

Patton stood up and walked around the desk until he was standing directly in front of the German general.

They were inches apart.

“I want you to understand something,” Patton said, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper.

“I respect a brave enemy.

I respect a man who fights for his country, even if his country is wrong.

But I do not respect a fool.

And you, General Kramer, are a fool.

You threw away the lives of your men for a lost cause, knowing it was lost because you were too proud or too cowardly to make the right decision.

Patton stepped back, his contempt almost palpable.

In another time, I might have had you shot for what you did, but we’re supposed to be civilized now.

So instead, you’ll spend the rest of your life knowing that your last act as a soldier was a stupid, pointless waste.

I hope that haunts you.

” Patton turned his back on Kramer and returned to his desk.

“Get him out of my sight.

” Kramer was led away.

He would spend the next several years in prisoner of war camps before eventually being released.

He lived until 1971, dying in obscurity in West Germany.

The Battle of Ashafenburg cost the Americans over 400 casualties, including more than 80 dead.

German losses were even higher.

Over 2,000 killed, wounded, or captured.

The city itself was devastated, much of its historic architecture destroyed forever.

Patton used a Schaffenburgg as a lesson for the rest of his campaign.

He had leaflets dropped on other German cities showing photographs of the destruction.

The message was clear.

This is what happens when you refuse to surrender.

This is what happens when you defy the American army.

Many German commanders got the message.

In the final weeks of the war, cities that might have resisted chose to surrender peacefully instead.

Thousands of lives were saved because German officers looked at what happened to Ashenburgg and decided that dying for Hitler was not worth it.

But Patton never forgot the German general who refused to surrender.

In his diary, he wrote about the encounter with characteristic bluntness.

met the German commander of Ashafenburgg today.

A stubborn fool who got his men killed for nothing.

I told him what I thought of him.

He had no answer.

None of them ever do.

George S.

Patton believed that war was the ultimate test of a man’s character.

He believed that courage, aggression, and the willingness to fight were the highest virtues a soldier could possess.

But he also believed in something else, knowing when a fight was lost.

Patton fought to win.

He took risks.

He pushed his men to their limits.

But he never threw away lives for nothing.

He never sacrificed soldiers for a lost cause just to prove a point.

That’s what made him different from the German general who refused to surrender.

Kramer followed orders blindly, even when those orders were suicidal.

Patton would never have done that.

If Patton had been in Kramer’s position with a hopeless situation and no chance of victory, he would have found a way to save his men and live to fight another day.

That’s the lesson of Ashafenberg.

Bravery is not the same as stupidity.

Honor is not the same as blind obedience.

And sometimes the most courageous thing a commander can do is admit that the fight is over.

Patton understood that the German general never did.

And that’s why Patton won.