Stephen Harding - The Last Battle

Christiane Mabire married Reynaud in December 1949 and ultimately bore three children: sons Serge and Alexandre and daughter Evelyne. After her husband’s death Madame Reynaud led a very private life. She wrote a short, unpublished memoir dealing with her experiences in Ravensbrück and Schloss Itter before passing away in 2002 at the age of eighty-nine. [313] 15. I am indebted to Mr. Reynaud’s daughter, Evelyne Demey Paul-Reynaud, for information on her mother’s later life.

MARCEL GRANGER

After his liberation from Schloss Itter, Granger personally carried two suitcases full of documents back to Paris: one contained Maxime Weygand’s voluminous notes for his intended postwar memoirs, and the other Paul Reynaud’s notes for his book. While some sources indicate that Granger then returned to North Africa, it has proven impossible to discover any solid details about the final years of the man whom Édouard Daladier described in his memoir of the Schloss Itter years as “a true gentleman” and “a fine man, highly patriotic and brave, and a wonderful example of the average Frenchman.” [314] 16. Daladier, Prison Journal , 244.

JEAN BOROTRA

Though in the immediate postwar years the French government considered trying the Bounding Basque as a collaborator for his service in the Vichy government, nothing came of the charges, and Borotra’s popularity was undiminished. He resumed his commercial career, working until 1975. Nor did he give up tennis; he served as vice president of the French Lawn Tennis Association and continued to play in international senior competitions well into his nineties. Borotra died in June 1994 at age ninety-five.

MAXIME AND MARIE-RENÉE-JOSÉPHINE WEYGAND

The general and his wife were apprehensive about how they would be received upon their return to France, and rightly so. Maxime Weygand was arrested by the French government on May 10, 1945, and charged with “attempts against the internal security of the state.” The following July the High Court of Justice ordered the seizure of all his property and put the aged and ill former general under guard at a Paris hospital. Called as a witness in the trial of Marshal Philippe Pétain, Weygand did verbal battle with Paul Reynaud, who was acting for the prosecution. Weygand’s own trial sputtered on for three years, and he was finally acquitted in 1948. He returned to writing, turning out books and articles on a host of subjects. Marie-Renée-Joséphine died in 1961, and Weygand himself passed away on January 28, 1965, at age ninety-eight.

MICHEL CLEMENCEAU

The son of the Tiger entered the rough and tumble of post–World War II French politics, serving in the first and second National Constituent Assemblies from 1946 to 1951. After withdrawing from politics, he returned to private industry and died on March 4, 1964, at ninety-one.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCQUE

During his time at Schloss Itter the former leader of the Croix de feu wrote what would ultimately prove to be his final political tract. Titled Au service de l’avenir ( Serving the Future ), the book was published in 1946, repeated his fundamental political and moral beliefs, and was obviously meant as a first attempt at rehabilitating his reputation. De La Rocque did not live to see that effort succeed, however. Placed under police supervision and then house arrest following his return to France, he died in April 1946 during surgery meant to alleviate lingering pain from one of his World War I injuries.

MARIE-AGNÈS AND ALFRED CAILLIAU

Though the Cailliaus’ imprisonment at Schloss Itter lasted barely a month, the harsh conditions they’d experienced before arriving at the Austrian fortress left lasting scars—both physical and mental. Alfred returned to work as an engineer but was plagued by poor health until his death in December 1956 at the age of seventy-nine. Marie-Agnès was awarded the Légion d’honneur in June 1975 in recognition of her wartime activities on behalf of the French resistance. Her personal reminiscence of her eventful life, Souvenirs personnels , was published following her death in March 1982 at the age of ninety-three.

THE NUMBER PRISONERS

Sadly, it has proven impossible to track Andres Krobot or any of the female number prisoners following their handover to the UNRRA.

ZVONIMIR ČUČKOVIĆ

Following his return to Yugoslavia at the conclusion of his brief postliberation trip to Paris, Zvonko Čučković set up a small electrical contracting business in Belgrade. He consolidated the incredibly detailed notes he’d kept during his time at Schloss Itter into the manuscript “Zwei Jahren auf Schloss Itter,” and provided copies to both the West German and the French governments. Čučković corresponded with several of the French notables after the war, and he provided Augusta Léon-Jouhaux with many of the details she used in her book Prison pour hommes d’Etat . Čučković died in Belgrade in 1984.

JOSEF GANGL

Following the liberation of Schloss Itter the Wehrmacht officer’s body was first taken to St. Joseph’s Church in Itter village but was eventually interred in Wörgl’s main municipal cemetery. Gangl is considered an Austrian national hero because of his alliance with the anti-Nazi resistance movement, his efforts to protect the civilian population of Wörgl, and his participation in the defense of the French VIPs at Schloss Itter. A major street in Wörgl is named after him.

SEBASTIAN WIMMER

Despite his efforts to disappear, Schloss Itter’s former commandant was arrested within weeks after Allied forces occupied Tyrol. He was held at the fortress of Kufstein, the medieval castle overlooking the city, which was run as a POW camp by the French (who were the primary occupation force in that part of Austria). Thérèse Wimmer contacted the Jouhauxs and other former Itter prisoners, asking them to intervene on her husband’s behalf. Several of the former VIP prisoners did so, via the French government’s occupation headquarters, the Mission de Contrôle en Autriche. [315] 17. Léon-Jouhaux, Prison pour hommes d’Etat , 149.

As an SS-TV officer, Wimmer was automatically considered a war criminal and logically should have been tried for his role in the 1939 Polish massacres and his administrative duties at Dachau and Madjanek. Inexplicably, he was released by the French in 1949, after which he went to work as a common laborer on a farm near Wörgl. His continued heavy drinking apparently drove his wife away, for in May 1951 he returned alone to his hometown of Dingolfing, Bavaria, and lived with his father at Bruckstrasse 101. He killed himself there on December 10, 1952, at the age of fifty.

STEFAN OTTO

Though his name appears on several postwar lists of suspected war criminals, the former SD officer was apparently never apprehended, tried, or imprisoned. As of this writing no information has come to light about his whereabouts or status.

KURT-SIEGFRIED SCHRADER

Following their liberation the French VIPs at Schloss Itter gave Schrader a note, in French, which read “On May 4 [sic], 1945, Captain S. Schrader ensured the safety of the French detainees at Itter castle and stayed with them during the German attacks.” [316] 18. The letter is quoted in Schrader, “Erinnerungen, Gedanken, Erkenntnisse,” 40. While not exactly a ringing endorsement, the letter—which was signed by all of the VIPs—helped ensure that the decorated Waffen-SS officer spent only a relatively short period of time as a POW. After his release in 1947 he rejoined his family and worked for several years as a bricklayer. In the early 1950s the family moved to Münster, in northwestern Germany, and in 1953 Schrader was appointed to a position in the Interior Ministry of the state of North Rhein-Westphalia. He retired from that post in 1980 and reportedly died in the mid-1990s.