by Ian Gardner
A day or so later we were sent to a nearby airfield to be deloused and inoculated against typhoid and tetanus before being fitted out with new uniforms. From here we went to Strasbourg and had a wonderful night on the town. The following day, complete with brand new sleeping bags, we set off by truck for Camp Lucky Strike, stopping overnight in Epinal.
After spending four days at Le Havre we boarded a ship on May 26 and sailed for the States … my war was now over – thank God.
* The murdered man may well have been Pvt Albert Gray (G Co 3 Ptn), who had been captured during a night patrol into Recogne on January 2, 1945.
13
“Candle for the dead”
Southern Bavaria – April 28–May 3, 1945
The day before Dave Morgan was liberated an advance party from the 506th left for Ulm. The regiment, along with A and B batteries, 81st AA Bn, C/326th Airborne Engineer Bn, and 321st GFA, were to be attached to VI Corps (from Seventh Army), commanded by MajGen Lucian Truscott. The mission was not only to protect Truscott’s flanks but also help stabilize southwest Bavaria behind Tony McAuliffe’s 103rd ID.
Earlier, on April 22, Regimental HQ had moved to Götzenburg Castle at Jagsthausen in the Heilbronn region (previously liberated by Seventh Army) situated midway between Würzburg and Stuttgart. Capt Jean Hollstein from Fayetteville, North Carolina, was posted in and took over I Co from Gene Brown, who returned to Regt HQ Co. Several more officers also joined the battalion, such as Capt George Lancaster (battalion S1) and 2nd Lt Bruno Schroeder (battalion S2). Schroeder had previously been with Regimental HQ as a staff sergeant before receiving a battlefield commission. 1st Lt Robert Stocking (ex HQ Co) and second lieutenants Robert Bausman (ex Service Co), Carl Pinsky, and Cecil Fisher (ex I Co) were all assigned to G Co.
A few days later the regiment was sent by train to Ludwigshafen, near Heidelberg. During the seemingly endless journey from Gohr the train stopped at several towns to stock up on coal and water. Before crossing the Rhine, Lou Vecchi remembers one station in particular where there was a large supply of rations stored on the platform: “Dozens bailed out of the boxcars to ‘liberate’ the food and the MPs were powerless to stop them. During later stops our people were running amok looting the nearest houses. A few of my guys came back with a wood-burning stove that we fired up and were able to cook with for the remainder of the journey!”
Before the 506th departed from Jagsthausen, Ray Calandrella went to see Capt Anderson to inquire if now it might be possible to take the ZI option and go home. “Andy Anderson was quite cynical but listened intently to what I had to say before commenting, ‘Calandrella, what on earth do you mean escaped? Son, the way I heard you were damn well rescued. Now get your sorry face out of here … dismissed!’” Ray was a little taken aback by Anderson’s response, but as usual Andy was only joking and let Ray sweat for a while before sending word that it had all been arranged and he would be going home the following morning!
Ray ended up with the 101st divisional rear echelon at Kaufbeuren (southwest of Landsberg) until May 3, when he received shipment orders to Camp Lucky Strike. He recalls:
On the way, I diverted to Paris because I’d promised to see Helen Briggs before she was transferred to head up a new American Red Cross operation in Reims called “Club Lorraine.” When I got back to the States, all the men who’d been POWs got a two-month furlough instead of the standard 30 days. Initially I felt a bit of a fraud having only spent three months in captivity, but when they offered me a choice of either Atlantic City, the Vanderbilt mansion at Ashville, North Carolina, or Lake Placid, I was more than happy to oblige. Luckily I chose Lake Placid, where although still officially in a military environment we were treated like royalty. There were all the outdoor adventure activities you could wish for. It was truly amazing. We were also interviewed by students who had been given the job of trying to ascertain what items of personal value may have been stolen from us by the Germans. Some people really pushed the boat out and made up all sorts of stories and were subsequently compensated for things like expensive watches and jewelry that never existed.
Landsberg – the gates to oblivion
On April 28, as the 506th Battle Group was traveling through Bavaria behind LtGen Alexander Patch’s Seventh Army, they were ordered south toward the medieval walled town of Landsberg am Lech, 40 miles west of the regional capital, Munich. At the time the division was stretched to its furthest geographical limits. The Germans had established a stop line (15 miles long) west of the mighty river Lech, from Obermeitinge in the north to Erpfting, 3 miles southwest of Landsberg.
A full 24 hours before the 506th occupied Landsberg, the 12th Armored Division (commanded by MajGen Roderick Allen) was in the process of pushing enemy forces back across the Lech. As the Germans withdrew they demolished all road and rail bridges behind them. However, one crossing point remained partially serviceable near Beuerbach at Schwabstadel but could only be used by infantry. In the meantime, 4 miles further south at Kaufering (next to the damaged railway bridge), the engineers were working frantically to build a pontoon crossing for the tanks but this would not be ready for at least another 48 hours. Later that day the 103rd ID, supported by the 10th Armored Division, attacked the southwestern edge of Landsberg. As the name suggests Landsberg am Lech straddles the river, which courses south downhill through a series of impressive weirs and hydroelectric dams.
Previously the town had played an important role in the development of National Socialism. Adolf Hitler had been imprisoned here in 1923, and while serving a five-year term for “high treason,” began to write the first part of Mein Kampf, his political directive for the future Nazi state. Nine months later, due to growing popularity and political pressure, Hitler was released. Several years afterwards when Hitler finally came to power, Cell No. 7 at Landsberg Prison was made into a shrine. The party had a plaque placed on the door that proclaimed “Der Führer” as Germany’s “greatest son.”
While engaged in combat operations the troops from Seventh Army began to notice a thick stifling odor permeating around the town. One by one the 92nd and 101st cavalry regiments from Combat Command B, 12th Armored, discovered three slave labor camps designated by the SS as “Kauferings” due to their close proximity to the railhead at Kaufering.
These three facilities were KZ-I, III, and IV, but there were seven more camps still waiting to be discovered. A total of ten labor facilities had been established in June 1944 to house 21,000 slave workers whose job was to build three enormous factories (partially underground) west of the Lech, codenamed “Walnut II” (Walnuss), “Vineyard II” (Weingut), and “Diana II.” The factories were built to produce the new twin-engine push-pull Dornier Do335 A-1 “Pfeil” (Arrow) fighter-bomber as well as the Focke Wulf FW190 D9 and the Messerschmitt ME262 jet fighter. A testament to the workforce, Weingut II is still in use today by the German Air Force. However, a total of 6,364 people died during the construction of the three factories and other associated regional forced labor programs. It is also incredible to note that, by 1945, nearly 20,000 labor camps were scattered throughout the Third Reich.
By the time US forces arrived, a vast majority of the slave force had already been evacuated eastwards by train or on foot. KZ-IV (Camp 4) at Hurlag was a sick camp and served as a ghoulish “hospice,” where those no longer able to work were sent to die. Normally these unfortunate individuals would have been sent back to Auschwitz for extermination but that option had ceased months ago. At Kaufering itself, a short distance south of the camp was a rail junction that acted as the central hub for slave labor continuously arriving from larger camps across the Reich. Up until this time names such as Auschwitz/ Birkenau, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Flossenbürg, and Dachau were still largely unknown to the advancing Allies.
Shortly after dawn on April 27, Capt John Paul Jones of C/134th Armored Ordnance Bn was helping to recover a broken-down tank when he noticed a handful of emaciated people emerging from woodland who told him about the barracks that we
re smoldering nearby.
Later that morning a small team was sent to investigate and what they found was sickening. Over 300 disease-ridden skeletal corpses had been partially dragged from the huts and dumped in piles at collection points around the camp. Another 40 bodies were gathered between two huts, where they had been doused in fuel and set on fire. Of the 80 neatly arranged sunken barracks around 12 (situated along the edge of the perimeter fence) had been razed to the ground. Bizarrely, at one end of the camp, piled high on the edge of a makeshift parade ground, were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of filthy overcoats.
The camp commandant was 55-year-old Hauptmann der Wehrmacht Johann Eichelsdorfer. A father of three, Eichelsdorfer lived and worked just outside the wire in the SS quarters, pampered by a small staff of female servants, who were all Jewish. Before taking over KZ-IV in January 1945, Eichelsdorfer had previously worked in other Kauferings and another camp at Augsberg. By April there were 2,900 inmates at Hurlag, overseen by 33 guards including two senior NCOs, SS-Oberscharführer Riedel (in charge of catering), and SSHauptscharführer Vetter. The overall commander of the camps around Landsberg was SS-Sturmbannführer Förschner, whose immediate superior was Dachau commandant SS-Obersturmbannführer Weiter.
The chief medical officer for all ten camps was Dr Max Blanke, who lived near KZ-IV in Hurlag village with his wife Agathe. It would appear that 36-year-old Blanke did very little, if nothing, to ease the suffering of the people at Camp 4. Despite its being an infirmary, daily work kommandos (labor details) were still sent out to bury those who had died and bring back food and firewood. Although each hut had its own stove, wood was strictly rationed, even during the bitterly cold winter. Of the 600 Czechoslovakian Jews who found themselves at Hurlag during this time, only a handful made it out alive.
On April 25, with Seventh Army fast approaching, the order was given by SS-Obersturmbannführer Weiter to evacuate the Kaufering prisoners to Dachau. Those unable to walk from KZ-IV were sent to the railway sidings opposite the camp, where dozens of open boxcars were waiting. Although only a short distance away, the process was painfully slow for the decrepit typhus-ridden prisoners. To speed things up, Eichelsdorfer cut an exit through the barbed-wire perimeter fence. In the meantime, Dr Blanke set about procuring all available horse-drawn transport, while Eichelsdorfer and his guards destroyed as much evidence as they possibly could.
During the night dozens collapsed en route to the train. In the morning bodies littered the sidings, as those still living shuffled toward the waiting boxcars. Dr Blanke went home to Hurlag after the train departed for Dachau. That afternoon he poisoned his wife Agathe before committing suicide. Many senior camp staff, like Reidel and Vetter, simply disappeared and were never seen or heard from again. Captured a few days later, Johann Eichelsdorfer was brought back to KZ-IV by the Americans to face the world’s media and final justice.
Tragically, shortly after leaving the station, the packed train was attacked by a squadron of P-47s, killing a number of prisoners. Ironically, the pilots had targeted the open carriages thinking they were full of German troops. Before reaching Dachau, the train was attacked again and more innocent people killed. If that was not bad enough, because of the intense overcrowding at Dachau, 7,000 prisoners (including those from Landsberg) were then forced to march southeast toward Tegernsee. Many were shot during the journey or died from hunger and exhaustion before the guards eventually fled, leaving any survivors to be picked up by the advancing Allies.
Man’s inhumanity
By now the 506th PIR had reached a temporary holding area west of Landsberg. On April 28, selected personnel from Regt HQ and E companies were sent to KZ-I to assist the 12th Armored with the humanitarian clean-up operation. Situated northwest of Landsberg, close to the underground factories Weingut and Diana II, the semi-abandoned site was made up of around 60 wooden huts. Camp commandant SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Förschner and his staff were nowhere to be found. Förschner had been running the camp for the last three months and, like Eichelsdörfer, tormented without pity his prisoners who were predominantly women from Hungary and Lithuania. Around 100 slave workers had been left behind suffering from typhoid and the latter stages of malnutrition.
Now working for the 506th public relations section, T/4 Dave Phillips describes his memories of that day:
The wooden barracks were all built into the ground except for the roofs. In the hut I entered there must have been around 20 people lying in their own excrement on two wide shelves that ran the length of the building bisected by a narrow central walkway.
On his back in the aisle lay a naked, emaciated male whose skin was quivering with a barely perceptible shiver. My presence produced no reaction as I tried to explain to the people that they were now free. A few looked at me but the rest simply continued to stare at the ceiling, which was just a few inches from their faces. Two youngsters who seemed in a slightly better physical condition managed a smile and started to talk. The teenagers had been members of the Dutch Underground, captured shortly before our invasion of the Netherlands, so I asked them about the naked man on the floor. It seemed that when a person was close to death all clothing would be removed and recycled before the individual was rolled into the aisle for collection [to KZ-IV].
After leaving the hut, Phillips stopped another inmate and recalls: “Like the others he was terribly emaciated with a horribly blackened mouth. While we were talking through an interpreter, I noticed what appeared to be a set of goal posts behind him just like you’d see on an American football field and inquired, ‘What the hell are they for?’ ‘Sometimes,’ the guy told me, ‘if a women prisoner happened to give birth, the SS guards would suspend the baby from those posts and charge on horseback, impaling the infant with their cavalry swords.’ The man then went on to say that many of the female inmates were often sexually abused and beaten by the guards!”
When the 506th arrived, the gates were open and some prisoners who were able to walk had already made their way into Landsberg looking for food. Members of Regimental HQ were detailed to go after the starving inmates and bring them back to the camp. Col Sink contacted a nearby graves registration unit, who in turn got hold of SHAEF HQ for additional emergency care. “Before outside help arrived we did everything in our power to make the survivors comfortable,” recalls Ed Shames. “Most, like me, readily gave up our own food but all that did was send the poor wretches convulsing in agony to the floor. When the International Red Cross eventually arrived they immediately told us to stop feeding the people because their digestive systems were not able to cope with our army rations!”
Without further delay the medics set up a high-protein feeding program that primarily contained an easy-to-digest nutritional mixture of raw eggs, milk, and sugar. “If we’d have caught the individuals responsible for this hellish place, then I think we would have executed each and every one of those bastards without pity,” continues Ed. One of the Dutch survivors, whom Dave Phillips had spoken to earlier, befriended Piet Luitens and volunteered for the regimental IPW team.
Earlier that morning 4th ID began a push from Beuerbach in the north. But it would be a further two days before Munich surrendered. Simultaneously Combat Command A (116th Cavalry Regt) and Combat Command B (92nd and 101st cavalry regiments) crossed the recently repaired railway bridge at Kaufering and headed toward the Lech. When Combat Command B reached the river they changed course to take on the 17.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division, who were defending a new stop line further east near Lake Ammersee.
Meanwhile elements of H/506 moved up to invest the southern edge of Landsberg. Capt “Skunk” Walker’s men were temporarily attached to L Co, 411th IR whose XO, Bill Prosser, recalls: “Around 700 Hungarian troops had just surrendered on the eastern side of the city. However, 100 German soldiers across the Lech in the southern district still wanted to fight. L Co had been given the job of mopping them up and bringing in the Hungarians.”
Defending the shallow valley overlooking the river was a German 20mm
antiaircraft gun. After the two-man crew was neutralized, L Co continued through sparse woodland until reaching the large hydroelectric dam at the foot of the hill. The newly commissioned concrete barrier spanned the Lech along the regional border with Gau Swabia. Luckily for L Co, Staustufe 15 (as the dam was officially known) had not been demolished due to the enormous collateral flood damage it would have caused to Landsberg, less than 1 mile away to the north.
The GIs found a subterranean passageway through the dam, enabling them to cross the river. Once on the western bank, L Co turned north in single file and almost immediately came under fire from the high ground to their right. At this point L Co were forced to split into five groups, and as they were observing strict radio silence, command and control became a problem. The company consolidated along the edge of the river and waited for mobile artillery support to arrive before finally moving into Landsberg.
Things were much quieter for Capt Walker, Bob Stroud, and their men who were following on behind. Stroud had only just returned to 1 Ptn from hospital after being wounded at Bastogne. Hank DiCarlo and Pvt John Kelly went ahead and scouted a route past the knocked-out antiaircraft gun down to Staustufe 15.
Opening the eastern access door to the dam, they could clearly hear the turbines humming away in the background. DiCarlo reflects: “Upon closer investigation we followed a set of steps and quickly found our way into the deserted tunnel. I nudged Kelly, who was a 6ft 2in Texan, and motioned him forward: ‘After you, Cowboy.’” DiCarlo and Kelly climbed the hill on the other side and halted at the top to take stock. Over to Hank’s right was Landsberg. Beyond the main B17 highway in front of them, the two men could see a forest and several columns of dense black smoke rising into the sky. As DiCarlo surveyed the landscape he noticed a crowd of Volkssturm (Home Guard) militia handing over their weapons and armbands to the 411th IR.