page_title: Transport of concentration camp inmates to Tyrol
section_title: The Wehrmacht versus a US Army Battle Group
hierarchical_section_title: Transport of concentration camp inmates to Tyrol / The Wehrmacht versus a US Army Battle Group
caption_attribution_description: English: A group of hostages at the Pragser Wildsee Hotel following their rescue by US Forces. Showing left to right: Colonel McGrath; General Privalov; Canon Neuhausler (Chancellor of Munich); Colonel Von Bunin (ex-German Staff); Captain S Payne Best (captured in Holland); General Alexander Paphoos (Greek); Major Stanek (Czech) and Captain Liedig (German Navy)
context_page_description: In the final weeks of the Second World War in Europe, 139 high-profile prisoners of the Nazi regime and two Italian orderlies were sent from various concentration camps to the Dachau Concentration Camp in Bavaria.
  This movement was personally ordered by Adolf Hitler and actioned by Gestapo chief SS Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller. This group of Prominenten comprised men, women and children from seventeen nations. Almost a third were relatives of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and other leaders of the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler in July 1944. They had been imprisoned under the Sippenhaft law which punished relatives of those accused of crimes against the state. The remainder included renegade Soviet generals, former collaborators from a number of Axis countries, a couple of Mussolini's Police Chiefs, some senior Nazi politicians and German Army officers who had simply fallen out with Hitler. In addition, there were a number of saboteurs, spies, traitors, resistance fighters, church leaders and four survivors of the Great Escape. It also included many wives and children of key prisoners.
context_section_description: The Prominenten were now technically free but they were still in great danger from German deserters, fanatical Nazis carrying on the fight, and marauding bands of Italian partisans with scores to settle.
  The Wehrmacht escorted the Prominenten to their original destination. The Luftwaffe generals and their staffs had left, and now the Pragser Wildsee Hotel was available. Some of the hostages had disappeared but the majority elected to stay at the hotel under the protection of the Wehrmacht.
  Great Escaper Wing Commander Harry Day and the Italian resistance leader who had arranged the hostage accommodation at Niederdorf, left the hotel on 1 May to make their way to the US front line in order to persuade US forces to mount a second and final rescue mission.
  Day and his companion finally crossed the US Fifth Army’s lines on 3 May. In the meantime, all German forces in Italy had surrendered with effect from 2 May. However, spasmodic and occasionally fierce fighting continued to take place. Day’s first contact was with elements of the US 88th Division but they were in no position to mount a rescue bid as they were at least 125 miles from the Pragser Wildsee. On the other hand the 85th Division’s 339th Infantry Regiment had reached their latest objective at San Candido half an hour after midnight on 4 May.  Just 21 km from Pragser Wildsee they received immediate orders to send a "strong combat patrol" to rescue the hostages.
  G Company of the 339th were nominated for the task and arrived during the early hours of 4 May in a convoy of trucks, jeeps, and armoured carriers.
  There was a tense silence as the Wehrmacht machine gunners and the American infantrymen saw each other in the gloom of the dawn, but when the Wehrmacht sentries realised that the soldiers were American, they laid down their weapons and surrendered. The Prominenten were now officially liberated.
caption: Hostages at the Pragser Wildsee Hotel following their rescue by US Forces.
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