Capitulation of German Army Group South - July ‘97 World War II Feature

 | World War II  | 0 comments  | Print This Post  | Email This Post

After the surrender was signed, Samuell returned to Waidhofen, where the rest of the platoon had remained. The 1st Platoon was again fed an evening meal from the German mess, after which Samuell met with the German army group staff. Samuell described what had happened at Steyr, and the operations officer mentioned the fact that he had already received a message from Gyldenfeldt over the platoon radio. He informed Samuell that arrangements had been made to move as many members of the army group as they could across the river at Steyr by midnight on May 8.

The next day, Gyldenfeldt released Rhatican’s section from its communications role at the castle. Samuell received orders to return to Steyr with the remainder of the platoon on May 8.

The war in Europe was over, but the men of the platoon felt then, as many survivors of the war do today, that if Rendulic and Gyldenfeldt had decided to fight in a southern German redoubt, the U.S. Army would have had a very difficult time routing them from the mountains. The platoon summarized its history in a statement written by Dominic Morabito soon after the surrender: “We may not have won the war by our lonesome, but we sure as hell finished it.” *

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to