Posted on 05/10/2015 1:08:52 PM PDT by MuttTheHoople
The most extraordinary things about Stephen Harding's The Last Battle, a truly incredible tale of World War II, are that it hasn’t been told before in English, and that it hasn’t already been made into a blockbuster Hollywood movie. Here are the basic facts: on 5 May 1945—five days after Hitler’s suicide—three Sherman tanks from the 23rd Tank Battalion of the U.S. 12th Armored Division under the command of Capt. John C. ‘Jack’ Lee Jr., liberated an Austrian castle called Schloss Itter in the Tyrol, a special prison that housed various French VIPs, including the ex-prime ministers Paul Reynaud and Eduard Daladier and former commanders-in-chief Generals Maxime Weygand and Paul Gamelin, amongst several others. Yet when the units of the veteran 17th Waffen-SS Panzer Grenadier Division arrived to recapture the castle and execute the prisoners, Lee’s beleaguered and outnumbered men were joined by anti-Nazi German soldiers of the Wehrmacht, as well as some of the extremely feisty wives and girlfriends of the (needless-to-say hitherto bickering) French VIPs, and together they fought off some of the best crack troops of the Third Reich. Steven Spielberg, how did you miss this story?
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Interesting book. I have it on my kindle. Highly recommend.
Sounds interesting but I don’t like the appropriation of Cornelius Ryan’s title, The Last Battle.
Ryan wrote a series of WWII histories, including one titled the Last Battle.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Battle_(Cornelius_Ryan_book)
That is extremely interesting!
“Steven Spielberg, how did you miss this story?”
Don’t bother. Spielberg is a flaming lberal and obama ass kisser. It’s pretty well-known here in Hollywood he had first crack at the American Sniper script until Eastwood moved quickly.
I heard the original director wasn’t going to be nearly as pro American in the telling of the story. That would have been awful.
The craziest story i heard was of Germans and Americans playing soccer during a one day WWI truce.
Then went back to fighting the next day.
Lots of largely forgotten stories out of WWII.
Like the German communist atrocities inside Buchenwald.
Them “crack troop” 17th SS were “crack” alright. Right up until they ran into the 23rd Tank Battalion of the U.S. 12th Armored Division.
That WWI truce was Brits and Germans. When that Christmas truce happened we weren’t in the war yet. But fortunately the Generals were able to get the fighting to start again/
Germans and Brits. Happened in late 1914 during an impromptu enlisted men’s Christmas Day cease fire. The commands on both sides were appalled and it was never allowed to happen again. Very sad. Most if not all the men who participated were probably dead and moldering by the end of that brutal and pointless war.
Screw Spielberg and all his elitist Hollywood friends. I’m so so so glad Eastwood did that movie.
I hope I live long enough to watch these liberal root in there own filth.
From what I understand one country was afraid the other country would attack fist and it just catapulted into a war. I know that is simplistic. I know it started with the assignation of some archduke
Or maybe I’m wrong about that too lol
Terrible thing is it put off more horrendous war only 20 years
“Like the German communist atrocities inside Buchenwald.”
What happened there? I looked on google and just found stories of inmates of the camp organizing a resistance and taking over the camp shortly before it was liberated. I saw one stormfront type article complaining that 80 German guards were summarily “murdered” by Americans when they were caught.
Have a link to what you are referring to?
You would do well to read The Guns of August.
bump
Thanks. I looked it up. I like history books. Will read it.
I’m sure they were excellent combat troops, but the best troops on earth would have difficulty taking a fortified hilltop castle defended by armor and machine guns. One has to wonder what they thought they were going to accomplish, even if they did take the castle...At that point in the war, even the most devoted nazi should have thought ‘why bother?’
According to wikipedia (so taken with a huge grain of salt) there was one SS soldier with the defenders as well.
Das ist sehr gut !!
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