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Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's the show that we recommend. Hi, this is Zibby Owens, host of Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly Moms don't have Time to Read Books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest best selling, buzziest or underrated authors and story creators whose I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to stay in the know. Get insider insights and connect with guests like Grammy Award winning singer Alicia Keys, critically acclaimed author Judy Blume and Academy Award winning screenwriter John Irving every single day. With Totally Booked, you aren't just listening, you're part of the story. So don't miss out. Follow Totally Booked with Zibby on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening now. ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com hello delicious friends, and welcome to who did what Now? The History podcast. That's not your history class with me, your host, Katy Charlwood, history harlot and reader of books. So yeah, this is definitely not your history class. Not. Not at all. One, there's too much swearing. And two, I get so many messages and comments. Stuff along the lines of if this was how history was taught, or if you were my teacher or if you taught history, I would be interested. I would have learned something, I would have done better in my exams, so on and so forth. Now granted, enthusiasm does count for a lot. Like if you have enthusiasm and knowledge, like if understand the subject and you're excited to talk about it. Yeah, people are gonna, people are gonna engage, there's gonna be better interaction with that and people are gonna learn better. And if you do get a really good teacher, like I had my leaving set, my leaving cert exams, my history teacher, Jerry shout out to Jerry really, really instilled that love of history for me. And yeah. Oh, my goodness. Like, here's the thing. Here's like, shout out to Jerry. Anyone who knows me in real life, who's actually listening to this podcast, and who knows Jerry. Yeah, I. I don't think he'd care that I've given him a shout out on it. Hey, Jerry. Jerry, I know that you are retired now and do a bunch of fancy, you know, history stuff with a bunch of colleges and unis in the country, but, yeah, that girl used to teach about 20 years ago for the leaving sale. Yeah, yeah, she gave you a shout out on a history podcast, by the way. I don't think you'd give a. But, no, Jerry was amazing. And when it comes to education, listen, schools and colleges and whatnot, they have a syllabus. There is a specific timeline or series of events they want you to cover, and you have a finite space of time, so you need to cover that, you know, and. And that means there are certain things that just won't be discussed or it will be seen as what is the most relevant to you. What do you need to know to understand the core points of this topic? Which is why when I cover stuff like, especially this month, this month, remind me never to do a full month on anything specific again. Especially anything this bad. Like, I. I don't know what I was thinking. This was a bad idea because it's. It's not good. It's very heavy. And do you know what it's like, actually, when you're like, six, seven videos and one podcast episode away to being finished talking about one of the most harrowing events in modern history? And then you think that you have, like, your finish line. You see the finish line. And it all started because people didn't understand the very basics of concentration camps. They didn't understand just the core parts. And that's how this whole thing, I kind of fell into it. And then I made a promise, and I don't go back on my word. So here we are. And so, yeah, I'm. I. I'm seeing. I'm approaching. I'm approaching that ribbon, guys. I'm approaching it. And then out of the corner of my eye, somebody says, slavery wasn't that bad. What? What? Slavery. Chattel slavery. The in which. In which not only you were enslaved, but the generations after you would be enslaved, where you had less rights than animals. Are you. Are you serious? I mean, I studied the slave trade and plantations and. And the elk. I also studied, like, the Trail of tears and, and how the United States of America is built on the blood and bones of the indigenous, the enslaved and the indentured. But anyway, like, a lot of people genuinely believe that chattel slavery wasn't that bad. And I'm thinking, like, Jesus, do, do I need, do I need to explain this? And I'm thinking I might have to just like October maybe, because I'm giving September as a palette cleanser to myself, because I need something that's not as incredibly horrific as we have been discussing this month. Which brings me to today's episode, which lovely segue there. I. I have found what I believe to the be the most positive, positive concentration camp story in the entire Holocaust. And you're thinking, that is a weird way to say it. And it is, you're not wrong. But also it's technically correct. The Battle of Castle Ita is the weirdest, the weirdest battle in the entire Second World War. I maintain this. And also I think it would make a great, like three part miniseries. Like, I feel like it would just be an easy, an easy tale to tell because you've got like three different aspects and I feel like it all come together really, really, really well. I feel like that would be like a very good, good thing. But anyway, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Katie, quit your jibble, Jabba, and fact me and fact you I will. But first we've got to get our source on our sources. Prison Pour Homme d' A by Auguste Leon Joy. The Last Battle When US and German soldiers joined forces in the waning hours of World War II in Europe by Stephen Harding. World War II's Strangest Battle When Americans and Germans Fought Together by Andrew Roberts. The Last Battle by Donald Lattner. SS Alibi of a Nation by Gerald Reitlinger. The Battle for Schloss Eitzer by Richard Pendaving. The insane story of a German American effort to rescue French prisoners during World War II by Sebastian Roblin. Women and Yugoslav A History of World War II resistance by Jelena Baltinitz. The Austrian castle where Nazis lost to German US Force by Bethany Bell. Secret agents, spies and saboteurs. Famous undercover missions of World War II. Bojanis Pjalkovic. We also have contemporary articles from Hellcat News, the Saturday Evening Post and the New York Times. And of course, we have our old favourites, biography.com and history.com. are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then let's begin. The Battle of Castle Ita has to be one of my favourite stories from the entire Second World War. It is completely Wild and probably most likely the most positive story you will ever hear, like from the Holocaust, which is such an odd thing to say about something so horrible, but it is what it is. So let's get to basics. Let's get our context on. You know, I still prefer like, let's slip into some context. Like that's my favorite part. That's my favorite. So we've got the Allies versus the Axis powers. So Allies were like the big three, uk, usa, ussr. And then you've also got Poland and France like along with them. Then you've got the Axis powers, which is like the German Reich. So you've got Germany and Austria and then you've got Italy and Japan. So they're all part of the Axis crew. So the Federal state of Austria was annexed by Germany on 12 March 1938. They marched in, they invaded and they took it over, absorbing it into the Reich. This was known as the Anschluss. So this is like before the war starts in 1939 when Germany invades Poland and when Austria is forced into the Reich. Not everybody is cool with that. Some people didn't agree that joining Germany was a great idea or, or that going to war with some of the biggest powers in the world was super either. Which brings us to the Austrian resistance, which is one we don't hear about too often. Now you've probably heard a wee bit about like the Polish and Dutch resistance in recent years, but typically the French and British resistance is what gets shared. Like that's like the most popular out there. And around 100,000 people that we know of were involved in the Austrian resistance, with thousands imprisoned or executed. And of course there were different splinters within the resistance itself. You had armed groups like the Austrian Freedom Front, the Koralma Partisan and more, who attacked facilities, infrastructure, demolishing bridges, damaging railway lines and offices. Basically anything to bugger up the Nazi supply chain. Then you had the Abwehr Intelligence Agency, so General Erwin Lahausen, he was appointed chief of ABWA Section two, which mainly dealt with sabotage and Brandeburger. Lahausen wanted the agents to be trained mainly for espionage as the higher ups were focused on sabotage. And so this led to like double agents, triple agents, counterintelligence, etc, etc, Then you have another part of the resistance in the Wehrmacht, also known as the Brandybergers. And so they were to deal with sabotage and infiltration like, like the sas, but worse. So some resistance fighters worked their way up to the Wehrmacht in order to destroy it from the inside and send intelligence. Then you have, how to put this? So this kind of becomes an issue because this makes like the Nazis like super, super duper, like suspicious. And so you have like spies trying to weed out these spies and it's like espionage on espionage, right? You, you have Nazi officers going undercover in Austria and this meant more political prisoners. And political prisoners, they were useful and they're basically bargaining chips, right? But of course, if you have political prisoners, if you're planning to use them at some point, you know, you have to be able to store them somewhere. And so they're figuring out where we're going to put them. And of course they had just the place, Castle Ita. So Castle Ita was in the North Tyrol and had been leased from the owner, Franz Grune in 1940. Now, least initially, three years later it was seized and it was converted into a prison in 1943. And then Camp labourers, they came up and like basically maintained it, did some work and it became a sub camp of Dachau. Its purpose was to hold high profile French prisoners that the Reich saw as valuable. But it also had like Austrian and Eastern European prisoners like Zominin Kukovic, a Croatian electrical engineer who joined the resistance when the Nazis invaded Yugoslavia, that used to be a country, for those of you who don't know, there used to be a country called Yugoslavia. And so he had a skill and that skill kept him alive. And so they kept him like, they kept like certain prisoners from the other camps, right? So these regular prisoners, shall we say, and they had them for like maintenance and labour because that wasn't something these high profile political prisoners were supposed to do. So it's quite interesting, right? You've got a motley crew in there. Like you have the right wing leader and closet French resistance fighter Francois de la Roque, trade union leader Leon Joy, tennis player Jean Beautran, like he's a famous tennis player as well. Right. Then you've got commanders in chief or former commanders in chief, Maxime regand and Maurice Ramlin, former prime ministers Edouard Dalidier and Paul Reynard. Then you have politician and diplomat Andre Francois Poncet, who was an ambassador to Germany pre war. So then you have politician Michel Clemenceau, son of the former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau. And last but not least, Marie Agnes de Gaulle, resistance fighter and Charles de Gaulle's sister. So you also had like the wives and husbands of like the political prisoners there as well. So there's, there's a good chunk there. So for those of you who don't know Charles de Gaulle, was the leader of the Free French forces who were resisting Nazi German rule and occupation. And like, spoilers. After the war, he would go on to be like the Prime Minister, which is the English word. So effectively, actually he would be the premier Ministre de la Republique Francaise, so the Prime Minister of the French Republic. So it's like a. It's like a big title. So these prisoners, they are all high profile, they're important and the Nazis wanted them close enough, but, like, not too close. So they're sort of hidden away, but still within Nazi reach. So they're near Tyrol in Austria. It's scenic, it's beautiful. It looks like casino to the Sound of Music. Like, it really is a stunning place. And it's what, 140 kilometers, which is math. Hang on. 86 miles south of Munich. Ah, Munich. I miss your pretzels. You know what's weird when I was in Munich is there were so many, like, prawns, like shrimp. And my boss was like, I've never seen them eat as much shrimp as when we were in Munich. And I'm like, we're landlocked. I'm not sure this is the best idea. But nobody died, so I'm going to assume everything's fine. I'm fairly certain nobody got food poisoning. So this castle, it is Schloss Eitel. It is nestled in the Alps and it's actually about. Yeah, it's actually about the same distance from Munich to Eita as it is from Eita to Neuschenstein Castle. Right. So sidebar. Neuschenstein Castle was the home of Ludwig II of Bavaria, the Marschenkonig, the fairy tale king. Like, that's like, inside Germany he's known as like the fairy tale king, but outside Germany he's known as Mad King Ludwig. Anyway, so the Nazi had also claimed, like, Neuschwanstein Castle. And that's one of the places where they were hoarding stolen gold. Like, because you know how they looted and stole everything from the property of Jewish people, so they would like kill them and then like chisel out their gold teeth and things. But before they did that, they would reclaim. I say reclaim. They would steal all, all of their property and claim it as their own. I touched on this a little bit in the, the previous episode with Amon Goot. Like when the ghettos were, were emptied, like when they removed people from there and they, you know, herded them off into either camps or, or extermination centers, they would just take all of the valuables so jewelry, clothes, art, furniture, like, they would all be collected and become part of, like, the Reich pot, if you will. And, yeah, the thing about the art is, like, they collected, like, artwork, but they hid it because it was more like the dragon, the hoarding the gold. And Hitler, as a general rule, didn't enjoy art that was artistic. Like, anything that had flair or whimsy or anything or an expression or impression. He liked photographs, really. I think he'd be better just looking at a photo because, like, if you ever look at his artwork, it's like, mate, why aren't you just doing architectural drawings? Like, that's. That's kind of your jam. Like, there wasn't imagination or Fleer and. Yeah, but listen, we're not here to talk about Hitler's artwork, but I just feel like that would have been a more constructive path for him to go down, as opposed to, you know, the current situation we are currently in, in this very short domino effect. But, yes, so they were just hoarding all of this stolen gold. And it's like, just up the road, right? It's like, so close. And Castle Ita. It's in the Alps. And the Nazi counterintelligence had been spreading the idea that the Nazis last stand. Like, they were like, if we're losing the war, if things go down, the last stand's going to happen in Austria. And, like, nobody wanted that. Because the thing about Austria, geographically, if you look at a map, right, it's landlocked, it's inland, it's landlocked, and you're right in the heart of Europe. Like, you've got rocky terrain, you've just got. It's not the most accessible of locations, and it would draw troops away from, like, other prominent areas. And so there was always this idea that, you know, oh, they'd go inland and then we'd have to follow them and then it's going to be a big pain. Like, that was never actually the plan, but that was what the seeds they were sowing. And so because it would be pulling people in from all over other parts of the war, the Allies already had their eyes on the area. And this led to the idea as well that the place would have this entire network of underground bunkers. That's. That's. No, that's not to say there were no underground bunkers in the Alps. They had them. They had them. That's where they put, like, the. Like the forgery stuff initially from Operation Bernard. Like, that's where they had smuggled it. And that's why they were like making them do a bit more counterfeit in there. But yet. There were bunkers in the Alps carved underground, but there was not a network of them. There wasn't like a secret Nazi city underneath the Alps. Like, that's conspiracy theory time. But yeah, there's, there's a couple of things there, but nothing really to write home about. And like around this area as well. Hitler's we hide about. Sorry, his home was around this. The Eagle's Nest. Oh, fuck, he's such a prick. I mean, mass murder aside. The Eagle's Nest, how fucking pretentious. Like, ugh. Anyway, Eagle's Nest here, Wolf's lair in Poland. Like, I just, I just, it's, it's, it's just screaming. I'm an alpha male energy. I simply cannot, friends. I simply cannot. So you've already got this area like under surveillance anyway for like the smorgasbord of reasons. And then you've got these VIP prisoners who were tucked away in the Alps and like, it's also pretty handy in case they needed to clean up. Like, like, like listen, listen. Kind of like the Bolsheviks and the Romanovs, if they need to cover some tracks, you know, they've got them contained. They can just pow, pow, pow, pow. You know, it's, it's. Yeah. There was never really any actual attempt or suggestion to use them in any kind of trade. It basically went from we're warring to oh no, last hand. Listen up. You can get the new iPhone 16e with Apple Intelligence for just $49.99 when you switch to Boost mobile. We pulled so many all nighters to give you this deal and ha. Stop messing with the mic.