A German Commander Refused to Hand Over His Weapons — Patton Showed Up Personally

May 1945, Austria. The war was over, but one German commander had not gotten the message. Or he had gotten it and had decided it didn’t apply to him. Colonel Ernst Brower had 50 men, a fortified position, and full weapons. Three times American officers had come to the gate and asked him to surrender his weapons and march his men into the processing system.

Three times he had sent them back. His answer was the same each time. I surrender to a general or I do not surrender. The American commander radioed up the chain. The message reached Patton. Patton read it. He looked at the map. Then he looked at Reed. How far? 22 miles, sir. Patton picked up his helmet. Let’s go. He drove 22 miles.

He got out of the Jeep at the gate of the fortified position. He looked at the guard. Tell Brower I’m here. Five minutes later the gate opened. Brower walked out. He looked at the four stars. And then he said something that Patton had not expected. Before we get into what happened next, if you want more untold stories from World War II, hit that subscribe button.

It was May 10th, 1945, 3 days after Germany’s formal surrender. Across Austria and Bavaria, German units were laying down their weapons. The process was mostly orderly, officers accepting what had been decided, organizing their men, and moving them into the prisoner processing system that would eventually sort out who went where.

Most of them did it without incident. Colonel Ernst Brower was 51 years old and had 50 men and a small fortified farmstead outside the town of Wels in northern Austria. He had been a professional soldier for 24 years, not a political man, not a party member, not someone who had built his career on ideology, a career officer from Stuttgart who had done the work of soldiering for two decades, had served on the Eastern Front and in France, and in the retreat through Germany, and had arrived at the end of the war with 50 men in a position he had

not been ordered to evacuate, and a decision to make about what he believed the right way to end it was. He had made the decision 3 days ago when Germany surrendered. He had gathered his 50 men and told them two things. The first, the war was over. They would surrender to Allied forces within the next several days.

This was not a discussion. It was a statement of what was going to happen. The second, before they surrendered, there was something specific he needed them to do. For 3 days, his 50 men had moved through the countryside around Wells in small groups, through fields and farmland, and along roads that had been fought over in the previous weeks.

They were looking for the graves of American soldiers killed in the recent fighting. When they found one, they recorded it completely. The soldier’s identification, if a tag was present, the precise location by landmark and description, the condition of the site, the date of death if it could be determined.

For graves that had no marker, they built one, wood, simple, marked. They mapped every location and compiled the records into a single document. By the morning of May 10th, they had documented 37 graves, and Brauer had determined the document was complete enough to proceed. The first American officer appeared at the gate that same morning.

He was a captain. He informed Brauer that he was to surrender his weapons and his men immediately. Brauer looked at him. “I will surrender to a general,” he said. “Send me a general.” The captain went back. He came back with a major. Same conversation, same result. The major went back and sent the message up the chain.

It reached Patton’s headquarters at 10:30 on the morning of May 10th along with a note from the battalion commander describing the situation as unusual but not dangerous. Brower’s men were armed but had made no hostile moves. The position was not strategically significant and the request appeared to be a matter of protocol rather than defiance.

Colonel Thomas Read read it and brought it in to Patton with the morning stack. Patton read it. He looked at the map. 22 miles from where he was sitting. “How long has he been waiting?” Patton asked. “Three days, sir.” Patton was quiet for a moment. A German colonel who had been holding his position for 3 days after the surrender.

Turning away a captain, turning away a major, insisting on a fog. General, not threatening, not making demands beyond the one, just waiting. Three days of waiting with 50 men in a farmstead. “Get me a jeep.” Patton said. Read looked at him. “Sir, the processing channels can handle this without “Three days.” Patton said.

“He has been waiting 3 days in a farmstead with 50 men and he’s turned away a captain and a major. Get me a jeep.” They drove 22 miles through Austrian countryside that was green and still and entirely different from what it had been 6 months before. No artillery in the distance, no aircraft, no columns of vehicles on the roads except occasional civilian carts starting to move again.

Just a May morning in Austria with the war gone out of it the way a room is different after someone leaves. When they reached the farmstead, Captain Wilson Davis was at the gate with two soldiers. He looked at Patton’s vehicle with the expression of a man who had not expected this particular development. “He’s still inside.” Patton said.

“Yes, sir. Hasn’t moved. His men have been going out in small groups every day, but they always come back.” “What have they been doing?” Davis hesitated. “We’re not certain, sir. Small groups, armed, moving through the countryside, and coming back. They haven’t engaged anyone. We assumed it was reconnaissance, but they haven’t appeared to be mapping anything tactical.

” Patton got out of the Jeep without waiting for Davis to approach. He walked to the gate himself. He looked at the German guard standing on the other side of it. “Tell Colonel Brauer that General Patton is here.” The guard disappeared. Five minutes passed. Then the gate opened. Brauer walked out. He was 51 years old.

His uniform was correct and pressed despite three days of waiting in a farmstead. He had the specific bearing of a man who has known his entire career how he is supposed to carry himself at a moment like this, and has been carrying himself correctly since he got up that morning. He looked at the four stars on Patton’s helmet.

He came to attention and saluted. Patton returned it. Then Brauer said it. “Before we discuss the surrender,” he said through the interpreter Reed had brought, “I have something to show you.” He turned and gestured toward the farmstead. He led Patton through the gate and to a table set up in the courtyard. On the table was a large handwritten document, pages of it carefully compiled.

“My men have spent the past three days,” Brauer said, “documenting the locations of American soldiers killed in the fighting in this area. We have found 37 graves. This document lists each one, location, identifying information where present, condition [clears throat] of the site.” He looked at Patton.

“Your men died in this country,” Brower said. “Someone should know where they are. I did not want to hand over my weapons before this was done, before there was a record, before someone with the authority to act on it had it in their hands.” The courtyard was very quiet. Patton picked up the document and looked at it. He looked at the pages, the careful handwriting, the grid references, the names where names had been recoverable from identification tags.

He turned through the pages slowly, 37 entries, each one complete. He was quiet for a long time. Then he picked up the document carefully, the way you pick up something that contains information that matters. He held it. He turned to read. “Get me the graves registration unit for this sector,” Patton said quietly.

“Today, this week at the latest. Every location in this document visited and verified.” He turned back to Brower. For a moment he simply looked at him. Then he said, “Your men are ready to be processed?” “Yes,” Brower said. “We have been ready for 3 days.” “Then let’s finish it.” He gestured for Brower to lead the way back to the gate.

The surrender took 40 minutes. Brower gave his men a brief order and they moved into the surrender process with the same organization they had used for 3 days of documentation work. Weapons laid in organized stacks, rifles together, side arms separately, ammo separated and set aside, the way soldiers lay down weapons when they have been properly organized and briefed and know exactly what is expected.

Brower handed his side arm to Patton personally, not to Davis, not to Reed, to Patton. Patton accepted it. He looked at it, a German officer’s service side arm handed over at the end of a war. He had received a great many of these. Then he did something that Davis, standing nearby, wrote about in a letter home that week.

He extended his hand. Brower looked at it. Then he shook it. “It was brief,” Davis wrote, “3 seconds, maybe, but it was a real handshake, not a gesture, not a performance.” Both men looked at each other while they did it. Neither of them said anything afterward. There was nothing to say. The 37 graves documented by Brower’s men were all verified by graves registration within the week.

29 of them were American soldiers who had not yet been formally located. Men whose families had received no word about the status of their remains and would not have received it quickly without the document Brower had compiled. Three of the 29 had been listed as missing in action. Their families received official notification of confirmed death and burial location within the month.

Brower was processed as a prisoner of war and held until 1947. He returned to Stuttgart and worked as a civil engineer for 30 years. He never gave an interview about the war and never spoke publicly about the 3 days at the farmstead or about the handshake at the end of it. His son, in an interview in 1981 with a German journalist writing about the occupation period, said that his father had spoken about the document once in his life.

Not about the surrender, not about the handshake, but specifically about the document. He said once that it was the thing he was most proud of from the entire war, his son said. Not any specific battle, not any command decision or tactical success. That his men spent 3 days finding graves and got them all written down before the war officially ended for them.

Was Patton right to drive 22 miles himself? Was Brower right to wait? Let us know in the comments. And if you want more stories about World War II and the moments at the end of it that nobody planned, make sure to subscribe.

A German Commander Refused to Hand Over His Weapons — Patton Showed Up Personally

May 1945, Austria. The war was over, but one German commander had not gotten the message. Or he had gotten it and had decided it didn’t apply to him. Colonel Ernst Brower had 50 men, a fortified position, and full weapons. Three times American officers had come to the gate and asked him to surrender his weapons and march his men into the processing system.

Three times he had sent them back. His answer was the same each time. I surrender to a general or I do not surrender. The American commander radioed up the chain. The message reached Patton. Patton read it. He looked at the map. Then he looked at Reed. How far? 22 miles, sir. Patton picked up his helmet. Let’s go. He drove 22 miles.

He got out of the Jeep at the gate of the fortified position. He looked at the guard. Tell Brower I’m here. Five minutes later the gate opened. Brower walked out. He looked at the four stars. And then he said something that Patton had not expected. Before we get into what happened next, if you want more untold stories from World War II, hit that subscribe button.

It was May 10th, 1945, 3 days after Germany’s formal surrender. Across Austria and Bavaria, German units were laying down their weapons. The process was mostly orderly, officers accepting what had been decided, organizing their men, and moving them into the prisoner processing system that would eventually sort out who went where.

Most of them did it without incident. Colonel Ernst Brower was 51 years old and had 50 men and a small fortified farmstead outside the town of Wels in northern Austria. He had been a professional soldier for 24 years, not a political man, not a party member, not someone who had built his career on ideology, a career officer from Stuttgart who had done the work of soldiering for two decades, had served on the Eastern Front and in France, and in the retreat through Germany, and had arrived at the end of the war with 50 men in a position he had

not been ordered to evacuate, and a decision to make about what he believed the right way to end it was. He had made the decision 3 days ago when Germany surrendered. He had gathered his 50 men and told them two things. The first, the war was over. They would surrender to Allied forces within the next several days.

This was not a discussion. It was a statement of what was going to happen. The second, before they surrendered, there was something specific he needed them to do. For 3 days, his 50 men had moved through the countryside around Wells in small groups, through fields and farmland, and along roads that had been fought over in the previous weeks.

They were looking for the graves of American soldiers killed in the recent fighting. When they found one, they recorded it completely. The soldier’s identification, if a tag was present, the precise location by landmark and description, the condition of the site, the date of death if it could be determined.

For graves that had no marker, they built one, wood, simple, marked. They mapped every location and compiled the records into a single document. By the morning of May 10th, they had documented 37 graves, and Brauer had determined the document was complete enough to proceed. The first American officer appeared at the gate that same morning.

He was a captain. He informed Brauer that he was to surrender his weapons and his men immediately. Brauer looked at him. “I will surrender to a general,” he said. “Send me a general.” The captain went back. He came back with a major. Same conversation, same result. The major went back and sent the message up the chain.

It reached Patton’s headquarters at 10:30 on the morning of May 10th along with a note from the battalion commander describing the situation as unusual but not dangerous. Brower’s men were armed but had made no hostile moves. The position was not strategically significant and the request appeared to be a matter of protocol rather than defiance.

Colonel Thomas Read read it and brought it in to Patton with the morning stack. Patton read it. He looked at the map. 22 miles from where he was sitting. “How long has he been waiting?” Patton asked. “Three days, sir.” Patton was quiet for a moment. A German colonel who had been holding his position for 3 days after the surrender.

Turning away a captain, turning away a major, insisting on a fog. General, not threatening, not making demands beyond the one, just waiting. Three days of waiting with 50 men in a farmstead. “Get me a jeep.” Patton said. Read looked at him. “Sir, the processing channels can handle this without “Three days.” Patton said.

“He has been waiting 3 days in a farmstead with 50 men and he’s turned away a captain and a major. Get me a jeep.” They drove 22 miles through Austrian countryside that was green and still and entirely different from what it had been 6 months before. No artillery in the distance, no aircraft, no columns of vehicles on the roads except occasional civilian carts starting to move again.

Just a May morning in Austria with the war gone out of it the way a room is different after someone leaves. When they reached the farmstead, Captain Wilson Davis was at the gate with two soldiers. He looked at Patton’s vehicle with the expression of a man who had not expected this particular development. “He’s still inside.” Patton said.

“Yes, sir. Hasn’t moved. His men have been going out in small groups every day, but they always come back.” “What have they been doing?” Davis hesitated. “We’re not certain, sir. Small groups, armed, moving through the countryside, and coming back. They haven’t engaged anyone. We assumed it was reconnaissance, but they haven’t appeared to be mapping anything tactical.

” Patton got out of the Jeep without waiting for Davis to approach. He walked to the gate himself. He looked at the German guard standing on the other side of it. “Tell Colonel Brauer that General Patton is here.” The guard disappeared. Five minutes passed. Then the gate opened. Brauer walked out. He was 51 years old.

His uniform was correct and pressed despite three days of waiting in a farmstead. He had the specific bearing of a man who has known his entire career how he is supposed to carry himself at a moment like this, and has been carrying himself correctly since he got up that morning. He looked at the four stars on Patton’s helmet.

He came to attention and saluted. Patton returned it. Then Brauer said it. “Before we discuss the surrender,” he said through the interpreter Reed had brought, “I have something to show you.” He turned and gestured toward the farmstead. He led Patton through the gate and to a table set up in the courtyard. On the table was a large handwritten document, pages of it carefully compiled.

“My men have spent the past three days,” Brauer said, “documenting the locations of American soldiers killed in the fighting in this area. We have found 37 graves. This document lists each one, location, identifying information where present, condition [clears throat] of the site.” He looked at Patton.

“Your men died in this country,” Brower said. “Someone should know where they are. I did not want to hand over my weapons before this was done, before there was a record, before someone with the authority to act on it had it in their hands.” The courtyard was very quiet. Patton picked up the document and looked at it. He looked at the pages, the careful handwriting, the grid references, the names where names had been recoverable from identification tags.

He turned through the pages slowly, 37 entries, each one complete. He was quiet for a long time. Then he picked up the document carefully, the way you pick up something that contains information that matters. He held it. He turned to read. “Get me the graves registration unit for this sector,” Patton said quietly.

“Today, this week at the latest. Every location in this document visited and verified.” He turned back to Brower. For a moment he simply looked at him. Then he said, “Your men are ready to be processed?” “Yes,” Brower said. “We have been ready for 3 days.” “Then let’s finish it.” He gestured for Brower to lead the way back to the gate.

The surrender took 40 minutes. Brower gave his men a brief order and they moved into the surrender process with the same organization they had used for 3 days of documentation work. Weapons laid in organized stacks, rifles together, side arms separately, ammo separated and set aside, the way soldiers lay down weapons when they have been properly organized and briefed and know exactly what is expected.

Brower handed his side arm to Patton personally, not to Davis, not to Reed, to Patton. Patton accepted it. He looked at it, a German officer’s service side arm handed over at the end of a war. He had received a great many of these. Then he did something that Davis, standing nearby, wrote about in a letter home that week.

He extended his hand. Brower looked at it. Then he shook it. “It was brief,” Davis wrote, “3 seconds, maybe, but it was a real handshake, not a gesture, not a performance.” Both men looked at each other while they did it. Neither of them said anything afterward. There was nothing to say. The 37 graves documented by Brower’s men were all verified by graves registration within the week.

29 of them were American soldiers who had not yet been formally located. Men whose families had received no word about the status of their remains and would not have received it quickly without the document Brower had compiled. Three of the 29 had been listed as missing in action. Their families received official notification of confirmed death and burial location within the month.

Brower was processed as a prisoner of war and held until 1947. He returned to Stuttgart and worked as a civil engineer for 30 years. He never gave an interview about the war and never spoke publicly about the 3 days at the farmstead or about the handshake at the end of it. His son, in an interview in 1981 with a German journalist writing about the occupation period, said that his father had spoken about the document once in his life.

Not about the surrender, not about the handshake, but specifically about the document. He said once that it was the thing he was most proud of from the entire war, his son said. Not any specific battle, not any command decision or tactical success. That his men spent 3 days finding graves and got them all written down before the war officially ended for them.

Was Patton right to drive 22 miles himself? Was Brower right to wait? Let us know in the comments. And if you want more stories about World War II and the moments at the end of it that nobody planned, make sure to subscribe.

A German Commander Refused to Hand Over His Weapons — Patton Showed Up Personally

May 1945, Austria. The war was over, but one German commander had not gotten the message. Or he had gotten it and had decided it didn’t apply to him. Colonel Ernst Brower had 50 men, a fortified position, and full weapons. Three times American officers had come to the gate and asked him to surrender his weapons and march his men into the processing system.

Three times he had sent them back. His answer was the same each time. I surrender to a general or I do not surrender. The American commander radioed up the chain. The message reached Patton. Patton read it. He looked at the map. Then he looked at Reed. How far? 22 miles, sir. Patton picked up his helmet. Let’s go. He drove 22 miles.

He got out of the Jeep at the gate of the fortified position. He looked at the guard. Tell Brower I’m here. Five minutes later the gate opened. Brower walked out. He looked at the four stars. And then he said something that Patton had not expected. Before we get into what happened next, if you want more untold stories from World War II, hit that subscribe button.

It was May 10th, 1945, 3 days after Germany’s formal surrender. Across Austria and Bavaria, German units were laying down their weapons. The process was mostly orderly, officers accepting what had been decided, organizing their men, and moving them into the prisoner processing system that would eventually sort out who went where.

Most of them did it without incident. Colonel Ernst Brower was 51 years old and had 50 men and a small fortified farmstead outside the town of Wels in northern Austria. He had been a professional soldier for 24 years, not a political man, not a party member, not someone who had built his career on ideology, a career officer from Stuttgart who had done the work of soldiering for two decades, had served on the Eastern Front and in France, and in the retreat through Germany, and had arrived at the end of the war with 50 men in a position he had

not been ordered to evacuate, and a decision to make about what he believed the right way to end it was. He had made the decision 3 days ago when Germany surrendered. He had gathered his 50 men and told them two things. The first, the war was over. They would surrender to Allied forces within the next several days.

This was not a discussion. It was a statement of what was going to happen. The second, before they surrendered, there was something specific he needed them to do. For 3 days, his 50 men had moved through the countryside around Wells in small groups, through fields and farmland, and along roads that had been fought over in the previous weeks.

They were looking for the graves of American soldiers killed in the recent fighting. When they found one, they recorded it completely. The soldier’s identification, if a tag was present, the precise location by landmark and description, the condition of the site, the date of death if it could be determined.

For graves that had no marker, they built one, wood, simple, marked. They mapped every location and compiled the records into a single document. By the morning of May 10th, they had documented 37 graves, and Brauer had determined the document was complete enough to proceed. The first American officer appeared at the gate that same morning.

He was a captain. He informed Brauer that he was to surrender his weapons and his men immediately. Brauer looked at him. “I will surrender to a general,” he said. “Send me a general.” The captain went back. He came back with a major. Same conversation, same result. The major went back and sent the message up the chain.

It reached Patton’s headquarters at 10:30 on the morning of May 10th along with a note from the battalion commander describing the situation as unusual but not dangerous. Brower’s men were armed but had made no hostile moves. The position was not strategically significant and the request appeared to be a matter of protocol rather than defiance.

Colonel Thomas Read read it and brought it in to Patton with the morning stack. Patton read it. He looked at the map. 22 miles from where he was sitting. “How long has he been waiting?” Patton asked. “Three days, sir.” Patton was quiet for a moment. A German colonel who had been holding his position for 3 days after the surrender.

Turning away a captain, turning away a major, insisting on a fog. General, not threatening, not making demands beyond the one, just waiting. Three days of waiting with 50 men in a farmstead. “Get me a jeep.” Patton said. Read looked at him. “Sir, the processing channels can handle this without “Three days.” Patton said.

“He has been waiting 3 days in a farmstead with 50 men and he’s turned away a captain and a major. Get me a jeep.” They drove 22 miles through Austrian countryside that was green and still and entirely different from what it had been 6 months before. No artillery in the distance, no aircraft, no columns of vehicles on the roads except occasional civilian carts starting to move again.

Just a May morning in Austria with the war gone out of it the way a room is different after someone leaves. When they reached the farmstead, Captain Wilson Davis was at the gate with two soldiers. He looked at Patton’s vehicle with the expression of a man who had not expected this particular development. “He’s still inside.” Patton said.

“Yes, sir. Hasn’t moved. His men have been going out in small groups every day, but they always come back.” “What have they been doing?” Davis hesitated. “We’re not certain, sir. Small groups, armed, moving through the countryside, and coming back. They haven’t engaged anyone. We assumed it was reconnaissance, but they haven’t appeared to be mapping anything tactical.

” Patton got out of the Jeep without waiting for Davis to approach. He walked to the gate himself. He looked at the German guard standing on the other side of it. “Tell Colonel Brauer that General Patton is here.” The guard disappeared. Five minutes passed. Then the gate opened. Brauer walked out. He was 51 years old.

His uniform was correct and pressed despite three days of waiting in a farmstead. He had the specific bearing of a man who has known his entire career how he is supposed to carry himself at a moment like this, and has been carrying himself correctly since he got up that morning. He looked at the four stars on Patton’s helmet.

He came to attention and saluted. Patton returned it. Then Brauer said it. “Before we discuss the surrender,” he said through the interpreter Reed had brought, “I have something to show you.” He turned and gestured toward the farmstead. He led Patton through the gate and to a table set up in the courtyard. On the table was a large handwritten document, pages of it carefully compiled.

“My men have spent the past three days,” Brauer said, “documenting the locations of American soldiers killed in the fighting in this area. We have found 37 graves. This document lists each one, location, identifying information where present, condition [clears throat] of the site.” He looked at Patton.

“Your men died in this country,” Brower said. “Someone should know where they are. I did not want to hand over my weapons before this was done, before there was a record, before someone with the authority to act on it had it in their hands.” The courtyard was very quiet. Patton picked up the document and looked at it. He looked at the pages, the careful handwriting, the grid references, the names where names had been recoverable from identification tags.

He turned through the pages slowly, 37 entries, each one complete. He was quiet for a long time. Then he picked up the document carefully, the way you pick up something that contains information that matters. He held it. He turned to read. “Get me the graves registration unit for this sector,” Patton said quietly.

“Today, this week at the latest. Every location in this document visited and verified.” He turned back to Brower. For a moment he simply looked at him. Then he said, “Your men are ready to be processed?” “Yes,” Brower said. “We have been ready for 3 days.” “Then let’s finish it.” He gestured for Brower to lead the way back to the gate.

The surrender took 40 minutes. Brower gave his men a brief order and they moved into the surrender process with the same organization they had used for 3 days of documentation work. Weapons laid in organized stacks, rifles together, side arms separately, ammo separated and set aside, the way soldiers lay down weapons when they have been properly organized and briefed and know exactly what is expected.

Brower handed his side arm to Patton personally, not to Davis, not to Reed, to Patton. Patton accepted it. He looked at it, a German officer’s service side arm handed over at the end of a war. He had received a great many of these. Then he did something that Davis, standing nearby, wrote about in a letter home that week.

He extended his hand. Brower looked at it. Then he shook it. “It was brief,” Davis wrote, “3 seconds, maybe, but it was a real handshake, not a gesture, not a performance.” Both men looked at each other while they did it. Neither of them said anything afterward. There was nothing to say. The 37 graves documented by Brower’s men were all verified by graves registration within the week.

29 of them were American soldiers who had not yet been formally located. Men whose families had received no word about the status of their remains and would not have received it quickly without the document Brower had compiled. Three of the 29 had been listed as missing in action. Their families received official notification of confirmed death and burial location within the month.

Brower was processed as a prisoner of war and held until 1947. He returned to Stuttgart and worked as a civil engineer for 30 years. He never gave an interview about the war and never spoke publicly about the 3 days at the farmstead or about the handshake at the end of it. His son, in an interview in 1981 with a German journalist writing about the occupation period, said that his father had spoken about the document once in his life.

Not about the surrender, not about the handshake, but specifically about the document. He said once that it was the thing he was most proud of from the entire war, his son said. Not any specific battle, not any command decision or tactical success. That his men spent 3 days finding graves and got them all written down before the war officially ended for them.

Was Patton right to drive 22 miles himself? Was Brower right to wait? Let us know in the comments. And if you want more stories about World War II and the moments at the end of it that nobody planned, make sure to subscribe.