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Itter Castle viewed from the east, along the pathway to the entrance, in 1979. Steve J. Morgan via Wikimedia Commons

Five days after Hitler killed himself in his bunker in Berlin and two days before Germany surrendered, American and German troops were fighting together side by side in what has been called World War II's strangest battle

It was the last days of the war in Europe on May 5, 1945, when French prisoners, Austrian resistance fighters, German soldiers, and American tankers all fought in defense of Itter Castle in Austria.

In 1943, the German military turned the small castle into a prison for "high value" prisoners, such as French prime ministers, generals, sports stars, and politicians.

By May 4, 1945, with Germany and its military quickly collapsing, the commander of the prison and his guards abandoned their post.

The prisoners were now running the asylum, but they couldn’t just walk out the front door and enjoy their freedom. The Waffen SS, the German paramilitary unit commanded by Heinrich Himmler, had plans to recapture the castle and execute all of the prisoners.

That's when the prisoners enlisted the help of nearby American troops led by Capt. John "Jack" Lee, local resistance fighters, and yes, even soldiers of the Wehrmacht to defend the castle through the night and early morning of May 5. The book "The Last Battle" by Stephen Harding tells the true tale of what happened next.

From The Daily Beast:

"There are two primary heroes of this — as I must reiterate, entirely factual — story, both of them straight out of central casting. "Jack Lee was the quintessential warrior: smart, aggressive, innovative — and, of course, a cigar-chewing, hard-drinking man who watched out for his troops and was willing to think way, way outside the box when the tactical situation demanded it, as it certainly did once the Waffen-SS started to assault the castle. "The other was the much-decorated Wehrmacht officer Major Josef 'Sepp' Gangl, who died helping the Americans protect the VIPs. This is the first time that Gangl's story has been told in English, though he is rightly honored in present-day Austria and Germany as a hero of the anti-Nazi resistance."

As the New York Journal of Books notes in its review of Harding's work, Army Capt. Lee immediately assumed command of the fight for the castle over its leaders — Capt. Schrader and Maj. Gangl — and they fought against a force of 100 to 150 SS troops in a confusing battle, to say the least.

During the six-hour battle, the SS managed to destroy the sole American tank of the vastly outnumbered defenders, and Allied ammunition ran extremely low. But the Americans were able to call for reinforcements, and once they showed up the SS backed off, according to Donald Lateiner in his review.

About 100 SS troops were taken prisoner, according to the BBC. The only friendly casualty of the battle was Maj. Gangl, who was shot by a sniper. The nearby town of Wörgl later named a street after him in his honor, while Capt. Lee received the Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery in the battle.

As for the book, apparently it has been optioned to be made into a movie. With a crazy story like this, you'd think it would have already been made.

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