AUGSBURG, SIXTY KILOMETRES northwest of Munich, is Germany’s second-oldest city after Trier (though Augsburg itself claims the first spot). Formerly one of the most important trade centres in Europe, it peaked economically in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. From then, it ceded regional prominence to Munich. During the Second World War, it remained an important communications centre and, in any case, RAF bombers spared few German cities. On February 25 and 26, 1944, British Bomber Command destroyed much of Augsburg. As the end of the war approached, what remained of the city faced further destruction: Augsburg was to be furiously defended. As ever, the price of disobedience would be death.

Augsburg’s commander, Generalmajor Franz Fehn, was fully committed to such a defence. There is some uncertainty over the military means at his disposal. According to his postwar statement under interrogation, Fehn had only eighty soldiers under his command.1 In the postwar account of Augsburg’s Nazi mayor, Josef Mayr, Fehn could in fact call on between six and seven thousand troops outside Augsburg and had another twenty-four battalions of Volkssturm troops (totalling a few thousand) within the city itself.2 Fehn’s figure is massively deflated, and Mayr’s figure is probably inflated, but it does not matter. Augsburg had multiple flak guns, and it only took a few dozen men firing them horizontally to provoke an American artillery or aerial assault, or both, on the city.

Fehn was opposed within Augsburg by a disparate group of teachers, doctors, clerics, and merchants who made up the Deutsche Freiheitsbewegung, or German Freedom Movement (GFM).3 The movement was an umbrella organization containing three groups, all of middle-class background. Georg Achatz, a merchant and National Socialist bureaucrat who had switched sides, it seems, out of conviction rather than opportunism, and Rudolf Lang, a doctor, were the main actors.4 They met in late 1944 and by December agreed that the city had to be saved from destruction.5 Other members of the group included Anton Setzer, a Jesuit director of a school for the blind, and Hubert Rauch.6 Rauch’s father was a local prison guard who empathized with imprisoned dissidents and had told his son of resisters such as Alfred Delp, a Jesuit critic of National Socialism and member of the Kreisau group who was arrested and murdered after July 20, 1944.7 The invocation of Delp is noteworthy: it was one of several instances in which those who opted for disobedience in the last months of the war connected their narrower actions to a longer tradition of German resistance.

In early March 1945, the various resistance groups came together for a meeting at Setzer’s school. The choice of locale was deliberate: the blind students would not be able to identify the activists by appearance. Thus, the German Freedom Movement was formed.8 It was, like the Wiedenhofen Group in Düsseldorf, a chiefly middle-class organization and possessed neither a long history of partnership nor strong material or psychological bonds that would justify it lasting beyond May 1945. But it did have a clear purpose: bringing the war to an end and saving Augsburg from total destruction.

It also had one important and unexpected asset: the support of the town’s mayor. Among those cities that surrendered without resistance in the last weeks of the war, Augsburg stands out as one in which leading National Socialists tried to convince leading figures in the army of the pointlessness of struggle—it was usually the other way around. In Augsburg, that National Socialist was Mayor Josef Mayr, a purse-lipped, gaunt, and not terribly robust-looking man (features that were by no means uncommon among those leading the so-called master race). Mayr joined the party in 1922, a sign of the true believer were there one.9 The Gauleiter of Swabia, Karl Wahl, was on the face of it a similarly unreconstructed fanatic: on April 9, he wrote in a local newspaper of the “great miracle” of “belief in the Führer,” whose own belief in victory would secure it for Germany; eleven days later, Wahl swore undying loyalty to Hitler on the Führer’s last birthday.10 But in subsequent weeks, both men tolerated the GFM and made no moves to have them arrested.11

There is some debate over what else they, and especially Mayr, did. In a report written after the war, Mayr claims to have singlehandedly saved the city and ignores completely the role played by the GFM.12 The truth was more complicated and far less flattering to Mayr. To his credit, he listened to Rudolf Lang’s appeal to spare the city, agreed not to destroy the bridges, and provided Lang with information on Augsburg’s defences.13 He may also have stalled on the calling up of Volkssturm troops; if so, both he and the local army commander must share credit, as the latter appears not to have objected.14 That the Gestapo placed Mayr under surveillance (in Mayr’s account, the Gestapo ordered his arrest) suggests that his actions had alienated him from the regime. Finally, Mayr also claims that he and Gauleiter Wahl appealed to Reichsstatthalter General von Epp on April 20 to declare Augsburg an open city.15 Epp refused. Beyond that, Wahl and Mayr’s claims that they issued counterorders and worked tirelessly to preserve infrastructure in the city can be dismissed. Until the last days, they parroted National Socialist rhetoric on the defence of the city; they collaborated in the establishment of defence points on bridges and roads across the city; and no significant body of postwar documentation or testimony attributes to them more than a passive role in preserving Augsburg.16 The decisive role in blocking them was played by civilian actors: Lang, Achatz, and the other members of the GFM.

Although there is some competition in postwar recollections for hero status, Rudolf Lang appears to have been the leader of the group. As the Americans approached, he gathered information on the city’s defences and defined two goals as paramount: (1) preserving bridges over the Lech and Wertach rivers, and (2) saving the city’s factories from destruction, whether by the SS, the Wehrmacht, or the invading Americans.17 Lang asked Achatz to put together a team to protect local industry from destruction. Achatz sought recruits from local men, and he dragooned French prisoners of war and forced labourers to undertake the job as well.18 Industrialists responded with enthusiastic support.19 As it was their factories facing destruction, this is in itself not surprising. But the price of disobedience remained death, so action beyond mere enthusiasm required some bravery. In one case, a fanatical National Socialist instructed an Augsburg munitions factory to manufacture more than a thousand machine guns; the majority was to be delivered to the Volkssturm.20 Achatz’s men succeeded in sabotaging production.21 As they disarmed others, they armed themselves: Anton Setzer gathered weapons from Volkssturm troops who had switched sides.22 Finally, the city’s police force lent its support to the resistance. Police officers seized the city’s main depot of explosives and ammunition and neutralized them. There would be no scorched earth in Augsburg.

In launching these and subsequent efforts, the GFM had to contend with the usual suspects both in the SS and Volkssturm as well as with the army. The city’s commander, Fehn, took all orders seriously and literally. All attempts by Mayr, Lang, or anyone else to persuade him to surrender the city came to nothing. He provided passive support to the resistance—he arrested no one for their entreaties, and he turned a blind eye at a couple of crucial points to their activity—but if the Americans entered or fired upon the city, Fehn was determined to put up a robust defence. And a robust German defence would lead, as day does to night, to a massive American artillery barrage and possibly aerial bombardment.

The GFM had no luck with anyone else in the German chain of command. Multiple officers agreed that it was pointless to defend the city, but they were unwilling to risk their lives to stop it.23 The GFM was twice on the verge of success when events conspired against them. They succeeded in convincing, after multiple appeals, a captain commanding six hundred men in a local military barracks to assist their resistance efforts; at the crucial moment, however, the captain and his men were called to the front.24 After a Dr. Röck and his son of the same name put together a small armed group (the provenance of which is unclear), they received word that the Gestapo was on their tail.25 They disappeared, and so did the armed group.

As the Americans closed in on the city, the GFM met once again. Anton Kaiser, a wounded soldier whose religious commitments got him into trouble with the Nazis, led the conversation, which covered both high principle—“Are we traitors?” asked one member—and simple practicalities—“Does anyone speak English?” asked another.26 As so often in resisters’ circles, debate was a substitute for decision: no firm plans were made.

But plans soon became urgently necessary: April 27 was Augsburg’s D-Day. Another scorched-earth order came through from Berlin, stating that the city’s bridges and industrial installations were to be destroyed. Weighing on the Wehrmacht were the executions following Remagen; disobedience meant death. Meeting in the Schillerstraße, southeast of the old quarter, Lang, Achatz, and the others decided to act.27 A local pastor and member of the group took Lang’s car and drove through the city’s suburbs with a message for members of the GFM: they should all try to make contact with the Americans and tell them the GFM wanted to surrender the city; that the GFM could provide information on how to occupy the city; and that, should contact prove impossible, the GFM would lead the Americans into the city.28 In all cases, they were to prevent a dreaded tactical bombing of the city.29

At 16:00, a call came through: someone had reached the American Fifteenth Infantry Regiment, Third Infantry Division commanded by Colonel Hallett Edson. An English-speaking Siemens engineer named Keller did the talking. Keller’s first appeals got him nowhere. Edson told him that they had two thousand bombers ready to launch a raid on the city.30 This was an exaggeration: the Americans were more than prepared to send in the bombers, but certainly not two thousand of them. And Edson, in any case, already knew about the resistance group. Early on April 27, Major General H. W. Blakeley of the nearby Fourth Division had phoned O’Daniel of the Third Infantry Division to tell him that two “industrialists” had reached him and were trying to arrange the surrender of the city.31 One was actually a churchwarden (Kirchenpfleger); it is not clear who the other one was.32 As Blakeley and O’Daniel spoke, Augsburg’s flak batteries, manned no doubt by civilians, fired white pillowcases into the air. O’Daniel ordered a moratorium on American artillery fire until the matter was clarified.33 Edson’s threat was designed to concentrate German minds, and it certainly did. Keller told them everything his group knew about the position and nature of defences around the city. When Edson asked about Fehn, the army commander, the Germans promised to do everything they could to persuade him but conceded that he was not yet prepared to surrender the city without a fight.34 Edson told the Germans to cease all shooting, to have the town’s citizens mark sniper-free houses with white flags, and to make their way across the bridges in small surrender parties holding white flags.35 And he gave them an hour to persuade Fehn.36 Edson also extended the Germans a lifeline: he reported Fehn’s willingness to surrender. Taking some liberty with the truth, Edson noted in his journal that the “commander of troops of the town wants to surrender but not formally.”37

When Keller reported the conversation to Lang, the group moved. Hubert Rauch wrapped a white towel around his stomach, jumped on his bicycle, and, trying to avoid SS positions, cycled out of the city, hoping to find the Americans.38 Rauch spoke no English, so Lang gave him a text to present to the Americans. He made it across the Wertach River and cycled until 3:00 the next morning, when an American soldier stopped him and placed him under arrest.39

At approximately the same time, another effort was being made to reach the Americans. The exact chain of events is disputed, but one thing is clear: as Franz Hesse spoke the best English, he received the commission. 40 As Hesse left, Lang and Achatz went to find Fehn. They travelled to the air-raid shelter in the Riedingerhaus, by then headquarters for both the city’s civilian and military administrations. The building itself was a heap of rubble. Seeking Fehn, they found Mayr and reported their conversation to him instead.41 Flustered and showing nothing of the cool resolve he later claimed in his postwar report, Mayr screamed at them: “You are insane to come here! God knows if you’ll ever leave this room!”42

Ignoring this, Lang repeated his arguments for surrendering the city and told Mayr that all his efforts to convince Fehn of them had failed. “Where is Gauleiter Wahl?” Lang continued. “Bring me to him, and I will try to convince him.”43 The two men left together while Achatz remained behind, prepared to take charge of the operation if Lang failed to return.44 When Lang and Mayr reached Wahl in his villa, Lang did the talking:

Wahl replied that it would be his head on the block: surrendering the city would expose him to the SS and Werewolves’ revenge. Lang replied:

Indeed, it will be your head. But that is nothing more than results of the efforts to which you have devoted yourself for the last twelve years.46 Of far greater importance is the fact that [the defence of the city] would mean the heads of 160,000 Augsburgers, most of them innocent women and children! If you manage to convince Fehn to abandon the pointless defence of this city against American occupation, you will have done in the twelfth hour a service to Augsburg that in the fullness of time will merit official and honourable mention [bei gegebener Gelegenheit zu Ihren Gunsten Erwähnung finden wird].

The last was a reference to postwar Allied and/or German prosecution.

Gauleiter Wahl first tried to stall. He pleaded for two days’ time in the hope that the expected fall of Berlin would occur within that time and thus give him more freedom to manoeuvre. Lang, now speaking very much like the one with power, refused:47 Wahl had to speak with Fehn immediately. The Gauleiter conceded defeat and accompanied Lang to Fehn’s headquarters, where he made (by Lang’s account) a powerful appeal to the commander to surrender.48 Mayr added another, similar appeal, as did further members of the GFM.49 They all failed. It was by now abundantly clear that Fehn would not budge. The GFM gave up on their efforts to secure a legal handover of the city to the Americans.

They decided instead to pursue an illegal one. Lang contacted local resisters and asked them to use the city’s telephone lines to send out a call to residents of the areas about to be occupied by American troops: “Hang out your white flags; the city is surrendering!”50 The men of the GFM jumped on bicycles and motorbikes and raced through the city, delivering the same message house to house. Anton Kaiser added authority by donning his full uniform and giving the same command to each house on the Ulmsstraße: “Order from Major Hörmann: fly the white flag immediately! The city is surrendering!”51

They were pushing at an open door. White flags sprung up across the city, and citizens—sometimes led by GFM men and sometimes acting alone—took to the streets and bridges to remove barricades.52 Finally, members of the GFM appealed directly to soldiers and Volkssturm troops in the city’s suburbs to lay down their arms. Call after call came through to the resisters’ headquarters, a building deliberately close to American lines, confirming that the appeal had succeeded.53

As promising as these developments were, there remained the problem of Fehn, who could still order enough of a defence of the city to undo the entire effort. Over the course of the day, twenty-seven GFM men, armed with machine guns, rifles, hand grenades, and pistols, positioned themselves around the air-raid shelter in the destroyed Riedingerhaus, to which Fehn had returned, ready to block the commander’s exit.54 With Fehn surrounded, the GFM waited for the Americans.

They would soon arrive. Late in the night of the twenty-seventh, Franz Hesse was picked up by the Third Battalion, Fifteenth Infantry Regiment under the command of Major John O’Connell. Hesse promised O’Connell that he “could and would secure the advance of American troops into the city of Augsburg.”55 Hesse rushed back into Augsburg by car. Thirty minutes later, he was back and told O’Connell that everything was ready: the main entry points to the city—the major bridges crossing the Wertach and the Lech—were in GFM hands, as was the city hall.56 A twenty-five-year-old Wehrmacht captain from Augsburg, Maximilian Wirsching, by his account spared the Hochzoller Bridge over the Lech (in southeast Augsburg).57 SS troops had ordered him to prepare the bridge for destruction. As Wirsching approached the bridges, two civilians from nearby houses came out, begging him to preserve them. He did: Wirsching waited until the SS withdrew from the area, then ordered two engineers to defuse the bombs and then to disappear. They did so, and he never saw them again. As Hesse spoke with O’Connell, civilians were guarding the bridge lest the army or, worse still, the SS reappear. Hesse also told O’Connell that they had Fehn surrounded, and that now would be the time to arrest him. It was all coming together. The GFM men in front of Fehn’s headquarters readied their weapons and prepared to open fire if Fehn attempted to leave the building. O’Connell, meanwhile, secured permission from regimental headquarters to take “K” company of three tanks and three trucks, all led by Hesse in his car, into the city.58 Augsburgers had removed roadblocks in their path, and the armour drove past these and houses covered with white flags. GFM men stood at points all around the city with instructions to guide the Americans to Fehn’s headquarters.59

As they approached the Wertach River, O’Connell saw approximately six civilians step out of the bushes; they were GFM men guarding the bridge.60 O’Connell ordered his men across the bridge. Jumping off the tanks, they dashed across and fanned out into the neighbouring streets, securing positions.61 With Hesse again in the lead, the company moved on to a railway overpass.62 According to a number of local accounts, American tanks had to clear several railway cars before crossing.63 O’Connell does not mention the cars in his report, which might suggest it was insufficiently significant to merit mention. This was not a coincidence. Earlier that day, one Wilhelm Martini, whose rank is unclear, received an order to block the bridges by filling three railway cars with rocks and tipping them over.64 He used a bulldozer to arrange the cars in such a manner that their contents could easily be pushed into the river and the cars themselves pushed by a tank back to their original position.65 The story is likely reliable, as O’Connell crossed without difficulty: with GFM members standing guard, Hesse led the Americans across the bridge.66 Because his company was thinning as it spread across the city, O’Connell decided against taking the bridges over the Lech and, instead, decided to push into the centre of Augsburg.67 Hesse, in the meantime, called someone from the GFM and learned that its men were holding Fehn.68 He reported this to O’Connell, and with the commander’s permission, the Augsburger led an armoured reconnaissance car and five jeeps toward Fehn’s headquarters.69

The GFM were waiting for them. Major O’Connell ordered an immediate assault on the German headquarters. The American soldiers and the armed GFM civilians stormed the bunker together, quickly overwhelming the guards.70 O’Connell demanded Fehn’s surrender. Fehn asked to speak with a military operations office (militärische Dienststelle); O’Connell allowed him five minutes.

Lang, Keller, and Achatz drew short breaths. They knew that only twenty-one civilians and a few Americans guarded the headquarters, and that the hundreds of SS men under Fehn’s command could easily overwhelm them. A shot then rang out: the acting Gauleiter, Anton Mündler, had killed himself. Confusion spread. The phone rang; Fehn answered it. Assuming the Americans spoke no German and the Germans no English, Fehn tried to call in SS reinforcements; a GI wrenched the phone from his hand.71 Lang urged O’Connell to act immediately.

O’Connell shouted: “Two minutes’ time!”

A German voice added, “No, one minute!” Fehn pulled out his pistol; it was knocked out of his hand.

After a moment’s silence, O’Connell said, “Time is up! … General, get up!”72 Fehn decided that the jig was finally up.

O’Connell led Fehn outside the building. The surprise on his face was obvious. Rather than the full regiment he expected, he saw a handful of American soldiers and another two dozen armed civilians. Two jeeps with white flags pulled up: Hubert Rauch had convinced a German-speaking American soldier of his story, and the unit commander sent the jeeps into the city.73 As Fehn stared in shock, the telephone rang in the headquarters. A Wehrmacht unit wanted orders. A GFM man said into the phone: “General Fehn and his staff are under arrest. You are to abstain from any further military action and to inform your units of the situation.”74 Augsburg was liberated.

*

WITH WHITE SHEETS AND handkerchiefs still fluttering from virtually every building in Augsburg, the Seventh Army moved on to that second citadel of Nazism: Munich. Major General Harry Collins’s Forty-Second and Major General Robert Frederick’s Forty-Fifth Infantry Divisions, motorized with borrowed or captured vehicles, led the way, and the Third Division joined them on its exit from Augsburg.75 Major General Orlando Ward’s Twentieth Armored Division and General Smith’s Twelfth Armored Division of XXI Corps joined (the latter without authorization) what had become a divisional race toward the Bavarian capital.76

As they did, resisters within Munich launched an effort to ensure the city’s bloodless surrender. Rupprecht Gerngross, the head of a Wehrmacht interpreters’ unit, had been part of longstanding anti-Nazi circles in Munich and took inspiration from Stauffenberg and July 20.77 Leading a group of some four hundred individuals known as the Freiheitsaktion Bayern (Freedom Action Bavaria, or FAB), Gerngross planned to arrest the Gauleiter and Reich Defence Commissioner, Paul Giesler; to prevent any defence of the city; and to seize the radio stations in order to call for a popular uprising.78 On April 27, the FAB managed to seize one station and call for a revolt, but it failed to materialize.79 The SS came for the putsch leaders, and Gerngross fled into the Alps. The SS murdered some forty members of the organization.

The FAB revolt inspired action elsewhere in Bavaria, with similarly tragic consequences. In Burghausen, factory workers launched a sympathy strike; the SS broke it up and executed three ringleaders.80 In Penzberg, a mining town with a strong anti-Nazi working-class movement, workers launched a revolt with two aims: protecting the city’s mines from destruction and preventing the defence of the town. Gauleiter Paul Giesler ordered the army to crush the revolt; sixteen men and women were executed.81 In several other localities, civilians removed roadblocks and hoisted white flags, often with deadly consequences. It was not, however, all in vain. Civilian members of the FAB managed to defuse demolitions on bridges over the Isar, and a few of them guided the Americans as they moved through the streets of Munich.82 As if the heavens wished to recognize the efforts of the city’s citizens, thick clouds prevented the launch of a tactical bombing raid. When the Third and Forty-Second Divisions pushed into the centre on May 3, white flags hung from the buildings, and cheering crowds filled the streets.

Other units failed to meet such a warm welcome. The Forty-Fifth Division ran right into an SS school and barracks and had to attack with its three regiments abreast. The 180th Infantry Regiment was stopped at a railroad underpass, and the 179th Regiment met the same fate on the Munich–Ingolstadt Autobahn.83 Lacking air support, they called in punishing 240 mm howitzer barrages to blast their way forward. The final battle was an “ugly room-to-room brawl” in the instalment.84 Munich showed that there was nothing inevitable about a German surrender even in the last days of the war—a fact that casts important light on parallel developments playing out in Hamburg (discussed in subsequent chapters).

As awful as the Forty-Fifth Infantry Division’s last fight with the SS in Munich was, the experience did not compare with that which had awaited Forty-Second “Rainbow” Division at Dachau a few days earlier. There, the Americans faced SS moral depravity. As hundreds of SS guards walked into captivity, the Americans entered rooms stacked almost to the ceiling with mangled and broken bodies.85

After Munich, the Seventh US Army moved on toward the Brenner Pass in order to hook up with advance units of the American Fifth Army, which had moved up through Italy. The Allies were on the edge of the Austrian and Italian borders, and they had sliced Germany in two. The destruction of the Wehrmacht on the western front—the encirclement of Army Group B and the shredding of Army Group G—had been chiefly, but not exclusively, an American achievement. Not for the first time in the history of American war, victory had a slight but noticeable French accent.

Notes

1. Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Bewahrt Eure Stadt … Kriegsende und Neuanfang in Augsburg 1945–1950 (Augsburg: Wißner-Verlag, 2005), 12.

2. Josef Mayr, “Tatsachenbericht über die Vorgeschichte und Durchführung der Übergabe der Stadt Augsburg,” June 1, 1955, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 822.

3. In contrast with Düsseldorf, in which eyewitness reports were collected, collated, and officially evaluated within a year of the war’s end, some of the documents from Augsburg date to the 1990s and 2000s. This outcome was, it seems, intentional. The city archives attempted in 1949 to fill in the details behind the city’s liberation by publishing a newspaper call for witnesses (“Zur Übergabe der Stadt Augsburg an die amerikanischen Truppen am 28. April 1945: ein Aufruf des Stadtarchivs an die Augsburger Bevölkerung,” Amtsblatt der Stadt Augsburg, April 14, 1949), but only Georg Achatz replied. The others kept silent (Engelbert Schraudy, “Eine wahre Begebenheit am 28. April 1945,” May 28, 2002, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 818; Prof. Dr. Karl Filser, “Als die Amerikaner kamen: Der 28. April 1945 in Augsburg,” April 28, 1995), and it seems that the archive did not release the Achatz report. The motivation appears to have been Christian humility: a pastor, Dr. Josef Hörmann, had sworn the group to secrecy, saying after Augsburg’s liberation: “We need neither heroes nor saints; we are grateful to God that everything worked out” (Schraudy, “Eine wahre Begebenheit”). There was a certain irony in this, as Hörmann himself sent in a report after a further appeal from the city’s archivist. (Letter from Stadtarchivdirektor to Augsburg’s Oberbürgermeister, April 24, 1950, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 818.) A newspaper article ten years after the event bemoaned the refusal of any witnesses to discuss what happened (“Vor zehn Jahren marschierten US-Truppen in Augsburg ein,” Schwäbische Landeszeitung, April 28, 1955). Rudolf Lang had written a report in May 1945, but it was likely held by the Americans at this point. Some eyewitness reports thus come from the 1970s, and even 1990s and 2000s. This naturally raises the usual concerns about memory and its reliability, but the reports are broadly consistent and can be compared with three others—the two mentioned above and one by an American major—that were published shortly after the war.

4. On Achatz, see the correspondence solicited by the city archivist, in particular the letter to Dr. Deininger, Director of the Archive, May 12, 1965, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 503. The second resistance cell was led by another doctor, Röck (junior), and a businessman from Aachen named Franz Hesse (Hubert Rauch, “Mein Beitrag zur kampflosen Übergabe von Augsburg am 28. 4. 1945,” March 21, 1995, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 818; Anton Kaiser, “Widerstand zur kampflosen Übergabe der Stadt Augsburg,” n.d. [1981 or 1982]). Friedrich Rüggeberg, a soldier and concert singer with contacts in the UK, led the third group (Georg Achatz, “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der Freiheitsbewegung 1945,” April 20, 1949, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 820).

5. Achatz, “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der Freiheitsbewegung 1945,” April 20, 1949. Other figures drawn into the Achatz-Lang group were Bishop Dr. Josef Kumpfmüller and lawyer Dr. Franz Reisert. The last had had some contact with the Kreisau Circle and was eventually arrested because of his links to July 20 conspirators. See Prof. Dr. Karl Filser, “Als die Amerikaner kamen: der 28. April 1945 in Augsburg,” April 28, 1995, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 818; Engelbert Schraudy and Dr. Marianne Schuber, “‘Wie die Einnahme Augsburgs durch die Amerikaner am 28. April 1945—fast—ohne Blutvergießen verlief,”’ April 28, 2008, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Man 228.

6. Hubert Rauch, “Mein Beitrag”; Anton Kaiser, “Widerstand zur kampflosen Übergabe.”

7. “Mit weisser Fahne im Jeep: Hubert Rauch führte Amerikaner in die Stadt,” n.d. [newspaper clipping likely from 1995], Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 818.

8. Filser, “Als die Amerikaner kamen.”

9. Karl-Ulrich Gelberg, “Einleitung,” in Kriegsende und Neuanfang in Augsburg 1945: Erinnerungen und Berichte, ed. Gelberg (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1996), 12.

10. Solia, “Sie logen bis zum bitteren Ende. Der ehemalige Gauleiter verfasste noch am 9. April 1945 Durchhalte-Aufrufe,” Augsburger Rundschau, April 25, 1970, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 819.

11. Filser, “Als die Amerikaner kamen.”

12. Mayr, “Tatsachenbericht.”

13. Achatz, “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der Freiheitsbewegung 1945”; Rudolf Lang, “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der Deutschen Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg,” May 1945.

14. Mayr, “Tatsachenbericht.”

15. Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Bewahrt Eure Stadt, 22. The source for this report is Mayr himself, “Tatsachenbericht.”

16. For a measured discussion of Mayr and Wahl’s role, see Filser, “Als die Amerikaner kamen.”

17. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.”

18. Ibid.

19. Filser, “Als die Amerikaner kamen.”

20. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.”

21. Lang, “Die Übergabe der Stadt Augsburg,” 127.

22. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.”

23. Ibid.

24. Lang, “Die Übergabe der Stadt Augsburg,” 127.

25. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.”

26. Report by Engelbert Schraudy, May 28, 2002, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 818. On Kaiser’s religious commitments: Schraudy and Schuber, “Einnahme Augsburgs,” April 28, 2008, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Man 228. The nature of Kaiser’s wounds was unclear, but they seem to have been serious enough to keep him out of the army but not serious enough to keep him from active disobedience.

27. Rüggeberg, and Karl Eckl, a resister from the postal service. Hubert Rauch, “Mein Beitrag”; Kaiser, “Widerstand zur kampflosen Übergabe.”

28. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.” The suburbs were Aystetten, Gessertshausen, Zusmarshausen, and Langweid.

29. Filser, “Als die Amerikaner kamen.”

30. Rauch, “Mein Beitrag”; Lang, “Die Übergabe der Stadt Augsburg,” 129.

31. Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 713.

32. The churchwarden was Ludwig Emmerling. Filser, “Als die Amerikaner kamen.”

33. Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 713.

34. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.”

35. Lang, “Die Übergabe der Stadt Augsburg,” n16.

36. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.”

37. Lang, “Die Übergabe der Stadt Augsburg,” n16.

38. Rauch, “Mein Beitrag”; Kaiser, “Widerstand zur kampflosen Übergabe.”

39. Ibid.

40. In one account, clerics Josef Hörmann and Alois Vogg agreed with Franz Hesse that they would try to reach American lines without informing Achatz or Lang. Report by Engelbert Schraudy, May 14, 2005, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 818. In Achatz’s own account, he gave the order. Achatz, “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der Freiheitsbewegung 1945.”

41. Achatz, “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der Freiheitsbewegung 1945.”

42. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.”

43. Ibid.

44. Achatz, “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der Freiheitsbewegung 1945.”

45. Quotations in this paragraph from Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.”

46. “Das ist aber letzten Endes eine der Konsequenzen, die sich aus den letzten 12 Jahren für Sie ergeben.”

47. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.”

48. Ibid.

49. The cleric Dr. Josef Hörmann, a colleague of Anton Setzer, and Bishop Josef Kumpfmüller.

50. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.” The men were Karl Eckl, an engineer, and his son of the same name.

51. Kaiser, “Widerstand zur kampflosen Übergabe.” The “major” was in fact a cleric.

52. Lang, “Die Übergabe der Stadt Augsburg,” 132.

53. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.”

54. Lang, “Die Übergabe der Stadt Augsburg,” 132–3.

55. Major John O’Connell, “Franz Hesse und die Einnahme Augsburgs durch das Third Battalion 15th Infantry Regiment,” April 30, 1945, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 818.

56. Ibid.

57. Wirsching’s story from a letter to the mayor, May 17, 1995, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 818.

58. O’Connell, “Franz Hesse und die Einnahme Augsburgs.”

59. Achatz, “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der Freiheitsbewegung 1945.”

60. O’Connell, “Franz Hesse und die Einnahme Augsburgs.”

61. Ibid.

62. The Gögginger Bridge.

63. Report by Wilhelm Martini, May 5, 1970, Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 818; Kaiser, “Widerstand zur kampflosen Übergabe.”

64. Report by Wilhelm Martini, May 5, 1970.

65. Ibid.

66. O’Connell, “Franz Hesse und die Einnahme Augsburgs.”

67. “German Citizen Prevented Fierce Battle,” The SACom Scene, April 29, 1955 [English original of O’Connell’s report], Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Dok. 819.

68. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.”

69. O’Connell, “Franz Hesse und die Einnahme Augsburgs.”

70. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.”

71. Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 713. Lang gives the credit for grabbing the phone to Achatz. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.”

72. Lang, “Freiheitsbewegung in Augsburg.”

73. Rauch, “Mein Beitrag”; Kaiser, “Widerstand zur kampflosen Übergabe.”

74. Friedrich Rüggeberg. Quoted in Lang, “Die Übergabe der Stadt Augsburg,” 135.

75. Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 713.

76. Ibid.

77. Brückner, Kriegsende in Bayern, 190.

78. Heinemann, “Military Resistance Activities,” 910–1.

79. Ibid., 910.

80. Gellately, Backing Hitler, 236.

81. Ibid.

82. Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 713.

83. Ibid., 714.

84. Ibid.

85. Ibid., 713.