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A German general with 20,000 armed men chose to surrender only to Americans, and the reason was more than fear. In September 1944, his retreating column was being hunted through central France by the Resistance, while American reconnaissance and air power slowly closed the trap.
At the center of the story is Lieutenant Sam McGill, a 24-year-old from Ohio, who crossed a river with a white flag, a Belgian interpreter, and no authority to accept a surrender. What followed was a tense wartime negotiation involving a bridge meeting, fighter-bomber pressure, and a demand that the Germans be visibly beaten before they would lay down their arms.
This military history documentary-style narration follows the surrender of Boto Henning Ster’s force, the role of the French Resistance, and the American logistics machine that could absorb thousands of prisoners. It is a gripping World War 2 story about command, honor, propaganda, and the brutal realities of occupation and retreat.
For listeners searching for WW2 stories, military history narration, World War 2 documentaries, and forgotten wartime surrender stories, this episode combines battlefield tension, historical storytelling, and calm long-form history listening. It also fits searches for history storytelling, war documentaries, and narrated WW2 content for background listening.
At the center of the story is Lieutenant Sam McGill, a 24-year-old from Ohio, who crossed a river with a white flag, a Belgian interpreter, and no authority to accept a surrender. What followed was a tense wartime negotiation involving a bridge meeting, fighter-bomber pressure, and a demand that the Germans be visibly beaten before they would lay down their arms.
This military history documentary-style narration follows the surrender of Boto Henning Ster’s force, the role of the French Resistance, and the American logistics machine that could absorb thousands of prisoners. It is a gripping World War 2 story about command, honor, propaganda, and the brutal realities of occupation and retreat.
For listeners searching for WW2 stories, military history narration, World War 2 documentaries, and forgotten wartime surrender stories, this episode combines battlefield tension, historical storytelling, and calm long-form history listening. It also fits searches for history storytelling, war documentaries, and narrated WW2 content for background listening.
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LearningTranscript
00:00September 8, 1944
00:03A stone bridge on the southern edge of Ysoudan, a market town in the flat middle of France,
00:08a hundred miles behind the nearest American soldier.
00:12A jeep rolls up to the near end of that bridge and stops.
00:16There are three men in it.
00:18A 24-year-old lieutenant from Ashtabula, Ohio, named Sam McGill.
00:23A Belgian volunteer named Felix Vanderval, who is there to translate.
00:27And a driver named Ralph Anderson, who keeps the engine running,
00:31because there is no version of this morning where the engine should be off.
00:36McGill is holding a white flag.
00:38It is not a regulation flag.
00:40Nothing about this morning is regulation.
00:43On the far side of the bridge stand German soldiers.
00:46Not a patrol.
00:48Not an outpost.
00:49Thousands of them.
00:51Spread back through the town and out along the roads beyond it,
00:54with machine guns set up at the corners and artillery parked under the plane trees.
00:59Somewhere in that mass is the man McGill has driven a hundred miles to speak to.
01:04And every second he stands on this bridge is a second in which one nervous rifleman ends the whole story.
01:13A German officer comes forward, then another, then, finally, a major general in a clean uniform.
01:20Boto Henning Elster, commander of 20,000 armed Germans.
01:26McGill says what he rehearsed in the jeep.
01:28That the cause is hopeless.
01:30That the roads east are closed.
01:32That Elster could surrender with honor and save the lives of his men.
01:36And Elster asks the only question that matters.
01:41What force, exactly, stands behind this American lieutenant?
01:45McGill tells him the truth.
01:47An intelligence and reconnaissance platoon.
01:5024 men, one radio, four jeeps.
01:55Elster stares at him.
01:57Then he says one word.
01:59And that word opens this entire story.
02:03Surrender 20,000 men to a platoon?
02:07Fantastisch!
02:08Hold that picture, because everything in it is upside down.
02:13These are not beaten men with empty hands.
02:15When they finally lay their equipment down,
02:18the Americans will count 24,000 rifles,
02:22557 machine guns,
02:2443 artillery pieces,
02:27armored cars,
02:28400 trucks.
02:29They outnumber the Americans standing in front of them
02:33by roughly 800 to 1.
02:36They could erase McGill,
02:38Vandewall,
02:38Anderson,
02:39and the jeep
02:40in about 15 seconds
02:42and never break stride.
02:44They don't want to.
02:45They want to surrender.
02:47And they have exactly one condition,
02:50and they will not move from it
02:52by a single inch.
02:54Two Americans.
02:56Only two Americans.
02:58Not to the French army being rebuilt all around them.
03:02Not to the resistance brigades
03:04that have been killing them for three weeks
03:06in every ditch between the Atlantic and the Loire.
03:09Keep that in your head for the next hour,
03:12because the answer is not the simple one
03:14you are already reaching for.
03:16Why does an armed force
03:18of 20,000 men
03:19still carrying its guns,
03:21still able to fight,
03:22walk 75 miles
03:24in the wrong direction
03:25to hand those guns
03:27to the one army in France
03:29that could not possibly
03:30have taken them by force?
03:32If this is the kind of story you came for,
03:34hit the like button and subscribe.
03:36It helps this channel keep digging into
03:38what the American soldier
03:39actually did in France in 1944.
03:43Now let's back up.
03:44Because to understand
03:45what is standing on that bridge,
03:47you have to understand
03:48where it came from
03:49and how it walked into a trap
03:51it could not walk out of.
03:53Go back three weeks.
03:54On August 15, 1944,
03:57Allied forces landed
03:58on the French Riviera.
04:00In Normandy,
04:01the German front had already come apart.
04:03What that meant for the Germans
04:04holding the southwest of France,
04:06the Biscay Coast,
04:07the Bordeaux country,
04:09the Pyrenees border,
04:10was simple and terrible.
04:12The door behind them was closing.
04:14On August 19,
04:16the order came to pull out.
04:17Everything east.
04:19Everything now.
04:20Call what came out of the southwest
04:22an army
04:22and you will misunderstand it completely.
04:25Elster's command was a scrapyard
04:27of the German war effort
04:28in that corner of France.
04:30Infantry from two reserve divisions.
04:32Security battalions
04:33that had spent two years
04:35hunting partisans.
04:36Sailors with no ships.
04:38Customs officials.
04:39Anti-aircraft gunners
04:41from the Luftwaffe.
04:42Military hospitals
04:43with their doctors
04:44and their wounded.
04:46Close to 2,000 women
04:47in German service.
04:49Clerks, nurses,
04:50signals auxiliaries.
04:52And their transport
04:53tells you everything.
04:54A few hundred trucks
04:56with almost no fuel.
04:58A thousand horse-drawn wagons.
05:00Bicycles.
05:01And, mostly, boots.
05:04In the fifth year
05:05of a mechanized war,
05:06a German corps
05:07was about to cross France
05:09at the speed of a horse.
05:11Remember that speed.
05:12It decides everything
05:14that follows.
05:15A force that moves
05:16at four miles an hour
05:18cannot outrun anything.
05:19It cannot break contact.
05:21It cannot choose
05:23where it fights.
05:24All it can do
05:25is keep walking
05:26and absorb
05:27whatever the country
05:28does to it.
05:28And they were not
05:30walking through
05:30empty country.
05:31Every mile of road
05:33ahead of them
05:33belonged to somebody else now.
05:35And the people it belonged to
05:36had a list.
05:37And on that list
05:38were the names of villages
05:40these same units
05:41had burned.
05:43Before we follow
05:44that column
05:44out of its barracks,
05:45fix one more thing
05:47in your mind.
05:47Because it is the hinge
05:49of everything that follows.
05:51Elster was offered
05:52a way out
05:53long before he ever
05:54heard of Sam McGill.
05:56At the end of August,
05:57with his men
05:58dying on the roads
05:59and no realistic chance
06:00of reaching Germany,
06:02the French resistance
06:03sent him a formal demand
06:04to surrender.
06:05He refused it.
06:07He kept marching.
06:09He spent another two weeks
06:11losing men
06:11he did not have to lose.
06:13Ask why
06:14and the reason he gave
06:16had almost nothing
06:16to do with the French army
06:18and everything to do
06:19with a former school teacher
06:21in the hills
06:22of the Limousin
06:23and with what had happened
06:24inside a village
06:25church
06:25on the 10th of June.
06:27August 23rd, 1944.
06:30Mont-de-Marsan
06:31in the pine country
06:32of southwestern France,
06:34150 miles below Bordeaux.
06:37The Germans are burning paper.
06:39Files,
06:41card indexes,
06:42lists of names,
06:43the accumulated bookkeeping
06:45of four years of occupation,
06:47going up in oil drums
06:48in a courtyard
06:49while the trucks are loaded.
06:51This has been Elster's district.
06:53His command has been responsible
06:55for order in the southwest,
06:57and the way order was kept
06:58in the southwest in 1944
07:00was with reprisal.
07:03Hostages taken,
07:04villages fined,
07:06and worse.
07:07The men now forming up
07:09in the road,
07:09the security battalions
07:11with their anti-partisan experience,
07:13are the men who did that work.
07:15Now they are leaving,
07:17and they have to leave on foot,
07:19through the country
07:20where they did it.
07:21The column moved north
07:23through Liborne
07:24on the 20th and 21st,
07:26into Angoulême by the 25th.
07:28On a map,
07:29it looks like a retreat.
07:31On the ground,
07:32it was something stranger.
07:3420,000 people
07:35strung out over miles of road,
07:37wagons and bicycles
07:39and requisitioned civilian cars,
07:41ambulances full of men
07:42who should not have been moved.
07:44A column so long
07:46that its head and its tail
07:48were in different weather.
07:49And the country began to eat it.
07:52Not in battles,
07:53there were no battles
07:54to speak of
07:55in those first two weeks.
07:56There were culverts
07:58blown out at three in the morning,
07:59telephone wire cut
08:00twenty times in a day,
08:02a sniper on a ridge
08:04who fired once
08:05and was gone
08:06before the machine guns
08:07could answer.
08:08Bridges dropped into rivers
08:10ahead of them,
08:10so the column had to turn,
08:12and turning cost a day.
08:14And a day cost more men.
08:16Think about what that actually means
08:18for the individual soldier.
08:20If your wagon breaks an axle,
08:22you are alone.
08:24If you fall out to rest your feet,
08:26you are alone.
08:27If you go into a farmyard
08:29looking for water,
08:30you may not come back.
08:31And your column
08:32will not stop for you,
08:34because it cannot stop.
08:36By the 7th of September,
08:38Elster's force had lost
08:39roughly 6,000 men
08:41killed,
08:42wounded,
08:43captured,
08:43or simply gone.
08:45Almost none of that
08:46came from a stand-up fight
08:47with a regular army.
08:49And every German in that column
08:51knew the name of the country
08:53they were walking through.
08:54Here is the fact
08:56that explains the fear,
08:57and I want you to hold on to it,
08:59because it comes back
09:00at the end of this story.
09:01On June 9, 1944,
09:04in the Limousin,
09:05Makissa captured
09:06a German officer
09:07named Helmut Kempfe,
09:09a battalion commander
09:10of the SS division
09:11Das Reich.
09:12The resistance leader
09:14in those hills
09:14was a former schoolteacher
09:16named Georges Genguin.
09:18Kempfe was executed
09:19the following day.
09:20And the day after that,
09:21June 10,
09:22Das Reich burned the village
09:24of Ohaduo-Soglan
09:25and killed 642 people in it,
09:29most of them women and children.
09:31Shot and burned in a church.
09:34Genguin's men were still
09:35in those hills in August.
09:37They were among the units
09:38now harassing Elster's column.
09:41So, consider the arithmetic
09:43from inside a German wagon.
09:45A war had been running
09:47in this countryside for months,
09:48in which prisoners
09:49were a theoretical concept.
09:52The Germans had shot
09:53captured resistance fighters
09:54as bandits,
09:56on the grounds that
09:56men without uniforms
09:58were not soldiers.
09:59The resistance had answered
10:01in kind.
10:02Both sides understood
10:03the rules perfectly.
10:04Which meant that,
10:06for a German soldier
10:07in September of 1944,
10:09raising your hands
10:10to an armed Frenchman
10:11in a leather jacket
10:12was not a surrender.
10:14It was a coin toss.
10:17On August 29th,
10:18the resistance sent Elster
10:20a demand to surrender.
10:21He ignored it.
10:23In his own words,
10:24he was not going to capitulate
10:26to red terrorists.
10:28And you can hear two things
10:30in that phrase at once.
10:31There is the ideology,
10:33and there is something colder
10:35and more practical underneath it.
10:37Captured by the FFI,
10:39his 20,000 people
10:40were not prisoners of war.
10:42They were whatever
10:43the man holding the rifle
10:44decided they were
10:46that afternoon.
10:47That is the first layer
10:49of the answer
10:50to our question.
10:50And it is the one
10:52most people stop at.
10:53Fear of the Maquis.
10:55It is true.
10:57It is also nowhere near sufficient,
10:59because fear explains
11:01why Elster would not surrender
11:03to the French.
11:04It does not explain
11:05why he was willing
11:06to walk his entire command
11:0875 miles toward
11:10the Americans instead.
11:12Fear tells you
11:13what a man runs from.
11:14It doesn't tell you
11:16what he runs to.
11:18So where were the Americans?
11:20Almost nowhere near him.
11:22In late August
11:23and early September,
11:25Patton's 3rd Army
11:26was running east
11:27across France
11:28at a speed that broke
11:29its own supply lines,
11:30and its entire southern flank
11:32was the Loire River.
11:34There were no troops
11:36to spare for that flank.
11:38The American solution
11:39was to give the job
11:40to the air.
11:42General Otto Whelan's
11:4319th Tactical Air Command
11:44flew the river
11:45so that Patton
11:46did not have to garrison it.
11:48Patton liked to say
11:49his flank was held
11:50by an air force,
11:51and he was not joking.
11:53The only ground force
11:54on the Loire
11:55was the 83rd Infantry Division
11:57under Major General
11:58Robert Macon,
11:59and Macon had been handed
12:01a line of roughly
12:02190 miles
12:04from the Atlantic
12:05to east of Orléans.
12:07That is one division
12:08covering the distance
12:09from Washington
12:10to New York.
12:11In places,
12:13his front was a jeep patrol
12:14and a radio.
12:15So picture the map
12:17in early September.
12:1820,000 armed Germans
12:20moving northeast
12:21on the far bank.
12:23A single,
12:24stretched-out American division
12:25on the near bank
12:26that could not have stopped them.
12:28And between the two,
12:29nothing but sky.
12:31The column turned east,
12:33away from Poitiers,
12:35toward Chateau-Houx,
12:36looking for a place
12:37to cross the Loire
12:38where no one was waiting.
12:39They began marching at night
12:41and hiding in the woods
12:42by day,
12:43which cut their speed
12:44roughly in half.
12:46Horses were dying
12:47in the traces.
12:48The wounded in the ambulances
12:50had been in those ambulances
12:51for two weeks.
12:53Elster ignored
12:54the resistance ultimatum
12:55on August 29th.
12:57Nine days later,
12:58he was begging
12:59for that same conversation
13:00with an American
13:01on a bridge.
13:03What changed his mind
13:05was not the French army
13:06and not the Maquis.
13:07It was one radio message
13:09sent by an American
13:10in a ditch
13:11who had no business
13:12being that far south.
13:13And what that message did
13:15to ten miles
13:16of Elster's column
13:18on the road east
13:19of Chateauroux.
13:20September 1, 1944.
13:23The north bank
13:24of the Loire at Mer,
13:25a river town
13:26between Blois and Orléans.
13:28The 83rd Infantry Division
13:30has been probing
13:31across that river
13:32for days
13:33and getting the same answer
13:35every time.
13:36Machine gun fire
13:37from the far bank.
13:38Nobody on the American side
13:40knows what is behind it.
13:42Rumors have been coming
13:43up the road
13:43for two weeks
13:44about a huge German force
13:46somewhere in the southwest.
13:48And rumors
13:48are not intelligence.
13:51Finding out
13:52is the job
13:52of the Intelligence
13:53and Reconnaissance Platoon
13:55of the 329th Infantry Regiment.
13:58Twenty-four Americans,
14:00a handful of Jeeps,
14:01and a collection
14:02of European volunteers
14:04picked up along the way,
14:05who between them
14:06spoke a dozen languages.
14:08The locals in Normandy
14:10had called it
14:11Platoon International.
14:13It was commanded
14:14by Sam McGill,
14:1524 years old,
14:17and if you want
14:17to understand
14:18the next two weeks,
14:19understand what his job
14:21actually was.
14:22not to hold ground,
14:24not to win a firefight,
14:26to go and look
14:26and come back
14:28and say what he saw.
14:30On that first day
14:31of September,
14:32McGill crossed the Loire
14:33in a rowboat,
14:34not with a battalion
14:36behind him,
14:36in a boat,
14:38at Mare,
14:39with villagers
14:39on the far side
14:40hauling his jeep
14:41across the water
14:42so he would have
14:43something to drive
14:44when he got there.
14:45Ahead of him
14:46were a hundred miles
14:47of country
14:48that belonged
14:49to the German army,
14:49and behind him
14:51was a river
14:52he would have to cross
14:53again in the dark
14:54if anything went wrong.
14:56The first thing
14:57he found on the South Bank
14:58was the French.
14:59Free French fighters
15:01who had been living
15:01in that country
15:02for months
15:03and who could tell him,
15:04road by road,
15:05where the Germans were
15:06and which way
15:07they were moving.
15:09And they told him
15:10something else,
15:11something that made
15:11no sense
15:12to an American lieutenant
15:13in September of 1944.
15:16There was talk
15:17in the column.
15:18The Germans were finished,
15:19and knew it.
15:20They were ready
15:21to give up.
15:22But not to the French.
15:24To Americans
15:25or nobody.
15:26McGill wrote it down
15:27and kept going south.
15:29He had a column to find.
15:31What he found
15:32over the next several days
15:33was the tale
15:35of the German war
15:36in France
15:37strung out
15:37across the middle
15:38of the country.
15:40His patrol worked
15:41through the gaps
15:41at night,
15:42went to ground
15:43when engines
15:44came up the road,
15:45and at one point
15:46slid along the flank guard
15:47of the 11th Panzer Division.
15:49which would have put
15:50an end to the story
15:51on the spot
15:52if it had bothered
15:53to look sideways.
15:55And then,
15:56somewhere east of Chateauroux,
15:58they came over a rise
15:59and saw it.
16:00The column itself.
16:02Not a report of it.
16:04The thing itself.
16:06Filling a national highway
16:08for ten miles.
16:10Trucks.
16:11Guns.
16:11Wagons.
16:12Horses.
16:13Men on bicycles.
16:14Ambulances.
16:15All of it moving
16:16slowly northeast
16:17in the open.
16:19There is a moment
16:20in this story
16:21that I want you
16:22to slow down for.
16:23Because everything
16:24that happens afterward
16:25comes out of it.
16:27McGill's radio operator,
16:29a soldier named Alvy,
16:30set up the set
16:31in a ditch
16:32in the middle
16:33of German-held France
16:34and sent a message north.
16:36Coordinates.
16:37Direction of march.
16:39Length of column.
16:40That is all.
16:42One man.
16:43One radio.
16:44A hundred miles
16:45behind the lines.
16:46Reading out numbers.
16:48What came back
16:49was the 9th Air Force.
16:52Fighter bombers worked
16:53that ten-mile stretch
16:54of road
16:55until roughly two-thirds
16:56of what was on it
16:57had stopped being
16:58a military formation.
17:00Across the attacks
17:01in the Chateauroux area,
17:03the Germans counted
17:04about 400 men killed.
17:06300 horses
17:08dead in their traces.
17:0970 vehicles burned out.
17:12Now put yourself
17:14inside that column.
17:15Because this
17:16is where the story turns.
17:18You have been walking
17:19for two weeks.
17:21You have lost men
17:22every night
17:23to people you never see.
17:25And now the sky
17:27has found you.
17:28In daylight.
17:29On a main road.
17:31And there is nothing
17:32in your entire command
17:33that can reach up
17:34and stop it.
17:36Your anti-aircraft gun
17:37have been towed
17:38by horses
17:39since Bordeaux.
17:41Your fighters
17:42do not exist.
17:43Your own high command
17:45has no idea
17:46where you are
17:47and could not help you
17:48if it did.
17:49After Chateauroux,
17:51Elster's column
17:51stopped moving
17:52in daylight.
17:5320,000 people
17:54now marched
17:55only at night
17:56and hid in woods
17:57and barns by day.
17:58Which meant their speed
17:59was cut roughly in half.
18:01Which meant everything
18:02took twice as long.
18:04Which meant twice
18:05as many nights
18:05in country full of men
18:07who wanted them dead.
18:08They had been bled
18:09slowly by the resistance
18:11for three weeks.
18:12It had cost them
18:13thousands of men
18:14and it had not broken them.
18:16The Americans
18:16did more damage
18:17in an afternoon
18:18from a hundred miles away
18:20on the word
18:21of one lieutenant
18:21in a ditch.
18:23I want you to hold
18:24those two facts
18:24side by side
18:25because the difference
18:27between them
18:27is not just a difference
18:28in firepower.
18:29It is a difference
18:30in kind.
18:31The Maquis
18:32were a knife
18:33in the dark.
18:34The Americans
18:35were something else.
18:36An organization
18:37that could be summoned
18:38by radio
18:38that arrived on a schedule
18:40and that would do
18:41exactly what it was
18:42asked to do.
18:43No more
18:43and no less.
18:46Elster had been
18:46refusing to surrender
18:47for three weeks.
18:48Within days
18:49of that airstrike
18:50he sent word out
18:51through the French
18:52that he was ready
18:52to talk.
18:53But only to Americans.
18:55That condition
18:56never moved.
18:57Not once.
18:58From the first message
18:59to the last signature.
19:01So the French
19:02passed it along.
19:03And it came
19:03to the one
19:04American officer
19:05close enough
19:06to act on it.
19:07A 24-year-old
19:08with 24 men
19:09who had no authority
19:11whatsoever
19:11to accept the surrender
19:13of a German army
19:14and who decided
19:15to drive to Ysoudan
19:16with a white flag anyway.
19:18What he heard
19:19when he got there
19:20was not a request
19:21for safe conduct.
19:22It was not about
19:23prisoners
19:24or rations
19:25or protection
19:26from the resistance.
19:27Not yet.
19:28It was a demand
19:30for a show of force.
19:32Elster wanted
19:33to be beaten
19:33in public
19:34in front of his own officers
19:35by something big enough
19:37to make the surrender
19:38legal in German eyes.
19:40And the 83rd Infantry Division
19:42holding 190 miles
19:44of river
19:44with a jeep patrol here
19:46and a company there
19:47did not have one
19:48to give him.
19:49The meeting on the bridge
19:50at Ysoudan
19:51is worth going back to now
19:52because you know
19:54things about that column
19:55that Sam McGill
19:56did not know
19:57when he was standing there.
19:59He did not know
20:00about Ordu
20:01or about the ledger
20:03of reprisal killings
20:04running through those hills.
20:06He did not know
20:07that 6,000 of Elster's people
20:09were already gone.
20:11He knew what he had seen
20:13from a ditch
20:13east of Chateau-Houx
20:15and he knew
20:16what the French
20:16had told him
20:17that the Germans
20:18would surrender
20:19but only to Americans.
20:21So he crossed the bridge
20:23with a white flag
20:24and a Belgian interpreter
20:25told a German major general
20:27that his cause
20:28was hopeless
20:29and heard the general
20:30laugh at the size
20:32of his platoon.
20:33And then the laughing stopped
20:35and Elster
20:36started negotiating.
20:38That is the part
20:40that matters.
20:41What he asked for
20:42was not what you would expect
20:44he did not ask for food
20:46though his men were starving.
20:48He did not ask
20:49for medical help
20:50though his ambulances
20:51had been rolling
20:52for two weeks.
20:53He asked for two battalions
20:55of American infantry
20:56to be brought down
20:57and placed in front of him
20:58in the open
20:59where his officers
21:00could see them.
21:01He wanted to be
21:02visibly beaten.
21:03He wanted a military event
21:05with a real enemy force present
21:07so that what happened next
21:08could be written up
21:09as a capitulation
21:10to the United States Army
21:12and not as a private arrangement
21:13between a general
21:14and a lieutenant.
21:16Understand what sat
21:17underneath that request.
21:19In the German army
21:20of 1944
21:21a commander
21:22who surrendered
21:22an intact force
21:24without orders
21:24was not simply
21:25finished professionally.
21:27He was a criminal
21:28and his family
21:29was exposed
21:30to the consequences
21:31of his crime.
21:33Elster was asking
21:33for evidence.
21:34He wanted a fact
21:35he could point to.
21:37We were confronted
21:38by the American army
21:39in strength
21:40and there was nothing
21:41to be done.
21:41That is the difference
21:43between an honorable surrender
21:44and a desertion.
21:45And in his world
21:47the gap between
21:48those two things
21:48was measured in lives
21:50including the lives
21:51of people at home.
21:54McGill drove back north
21:55with a German staff officer
21:57in the jeep beside him.
21:58Think about that picture
21:59for a second
22:00because it tells you
22:01exactly how strange
22:02this whole affair
22:03had become.
22:04An American reconnaissance lieutenant
22:06is driving
22:07a German colonel
22:09through country
22:10controlled by the resistance
22:11and the most dangerous
22:13thing on that road
22:14for both of them
22:15is the French.
22:17If the wrong roadblock
22:18stops that jeep
22:19there is no negotiation
22:21and no story.
22:23McGill got him through.
22:25At the American headquarters
22:26the demand landed
22:28on Major General
22:29Robert Macon.
22:30Here is the problem
22:31in plain terms.
22:33Macon commanded
22:34the only division
22:35on the Loire.
22:36His line ran
22:37roughly 190 miles.
22:40He was not holding it
22:41in the sense
22:42that word usually means.
22:43He was covering it
22:45thinly
22:45because behind that river
22:47was the open southern flank
22:49of Patton's 3rd Army
22:50and the 3rd Army
22:51was 200 miles further east
22:53and running out of gasoline.
22:56Pulling two battalions
22:58out of that line
22:58meant opening a hole
23:00in the flank
23:01of an army group
23:01to stage a demonstration
23:03for an enemy general.
23:04And that is assuming
23:06the demonstration went well.
23:08If Elster was buying time
23:09or if a single German battery
23:11decided to open fire
23:13Macon would have put
23:14two American battalions
23:16a hundred miles beyond
23:17any possible support
23:18with 20,000 armed men
23:20around them.
23:21He was not going to do it.
23:24But he did not simply say no.
23:27And that distinction
23:28is the whole story.
23:30Macon and his staff
23:31went looking for something else
23:33to send.
23:34Not a refusal.
23:35A substitute.
23:36Something that would give Elster
23:38what he actually needed.
23:39Which was proof
23:40delivered in front of witnesses
23:42that the American army
23:43could destroy him
23:44whenever it chose.
23:46What they came up with
23:48was the sky.
23:49The proposal was simple
23:51and it was
23:52for McGill personally
23:53close to suicidal.
23:55American fighter bombers
23:57would come over Ysoudan
23:58at a set hour.
23:59On the crossroads below
24:01in full view
24:02of the German command
24:02two panels would be laid out
24:04and only one of them
24:06would be showing
24:06when the aircraft arrived.
24:08White meant the Germans
24:10were willing to negotiate
24:11and the aircraft would fly on.
24:13Red meant they were not
24:15and the aircraft would bomb
24:16and strafe the column
24:18where it stood.
24:20Elster would choose the panel
24:21in front of his officers
24:22with the aircraft overhead
24:24as the witness.
24:26Now look at where
24:27that put McGill.
24:28He had to go back
24:29across the bridge
24:30into the middle
24:31of a German army
24:32and stand there
24:33while an airstrike
24:34was scheduled
24:35over his own head.
24:36His life depended
24:37on a piece of colored cloth
24:39on the judgment
24:40of pilots he had never met
24:42and on the self-control
24:44of 20,000 men
24:45who had just spent a week
24:46being hunted from the air
24:48and who now had
24:49standing in front of them
24:51in the open
24:52one American
24:53they could reach.
24:55He went back.
24:56The aircraft were due
24:58at 2 o'clock in the afternoon
24:59on the 8th of September.
25:01At 2 o'clock
25:02the sky over Ysoudan
25:03was empty.
25:04You have to sit
25:05in that silence for a moment
25:07because it was not
25:07a quiet silence.
25:09It was hundreds
25:10of German soldiers
25:11looking up
25:12and then looking
25:13at the American
25:14and then looking
25:15at their officers.
25:17Every minute that passed
25:18made McGill
25:19a smaller man.
25:20He had promised
25:21the appearance
25:22of the United States Army
25:23and what he had delivered
25:24so far
25:25was an empty afternoon
25:26and a jeep.
25:2810 minutes
25:30then 20
25:32then half an hour
25:34nothing in the sky
25:35over central France
25:36but clouds.
25:38No record says
25:40why they were late.
25:41What the record does say
25:43is that when they finally came
25:45there were 16 of them.
25:46They came in low
25:47and Elster was given
25:49his choice
25:49between two pieces
25:50of cloth
25:51while they circled.
25:53Everything
25:53the 20,000
25:55the general
25:56the lieutenant
25:57standing in the road
25:58with no weapon
25:59in his hand
25:59came down
26:00to which one
26:01he picked.
26:022.47 in the afternoon
26:0447 minutes late.
26:06They came in
26:07from the north
26:0816 thunderbolts
26:09low over the rooftops
26:10of Ysoudan
26:11engines filling
26:12the whole sky
26:13the way a single
26:14engine fighter does
26:14when it is 100 feet
26:15over your head.
26:17Below them
26:18on the crossroads
26:19the panels were ready.
26:21German officers
26:22stood in the road
26:23and watched.
26:24Nobody moved
26:25for their guns
26:25because there was
26:26no point in moving
26:27for their guns.
26:29McGill turned to Elster
26:30and put the question
26:31in the plainest words
26:32available to him.
26:33Which will it be
26:34white or red panel?
26:37And Elster said
26:38make it white.
26:40The white panel
26:41went out on the crossroads.
26:43The thunderbolts
26:44came around once more
26:45looked at it
26:45waggled their wings
26:47and flew away north.
26:49Not a bomb dropped.
26:51Not a round
26:51fired into a column
26:53that had been sitting there
26:53stationary
26:54in the open
26:55for the best part
26:56of an hour.
26:57Now I want to take
26:59that moment apart
26:59because most people
27:00hear it as a bluff
27:01that worked
27:02and it was not
27:03a bluff.
27:04It was a demonstration
27:05and what it demonstrated
27:07was not firepower.
27:09Elster already knew
27:11about American firepower.
27:12He had 400 dead men
27:14and 300 dead horses
27:16on the road
27:16east of Chateau-Rue
27:17to teach him
27:18about American firepower.
27:20What he did not know
27:21until 2.47 that afternoon
27:23was whether the American army
27:25could stop.
27:26Look at what he had just watched.
27:28An American lieutenant
27:30a hundred miles
27:31from his own headquarters
27:32had made a promise
27:34about the behavior
27:35of aircraft
27:35belonging to an entirely
27:37different service
27:38flown by men
27:39he had never met
27:40and the promise
27:41had been kept
27:42including the part
27:44that required violence
27:45not to happen.
27:4616 fighter bombers
27:48arrived over a stationary
27:50enemy column
27:50and turned away
27:52because a piece
27:53of white cloth
27:54said turn away.
27:56That is a system.
27:58Word goes up
27:59decision comes down
28:00and the killing
28:01starts or stops
28:02on command.
28:03And a system
28:04that can switch itself
28:05off on schedule
28:06is a system
28:07whose promises
28:08are worth something.
28:09Compare that
28:10with what the French
28:11could offer him.
28:12Not because the resistance
28:14lacked courage
28:15they had been beating
28:16this column
28:16for three weeks
28:17because no man
28:19in the resistance
28:20could bind
28:20all the others.
28:22Nobody could guarantee
28:24what a group
28:24of armed fighters
28:25at a crossroads
28:26at midnight
28:27would do
28:28with 20,000
28:29disarmed Germans.
28:31And the Maquis
28:32had every human reason
28:33in the world
28:34to do the obvious thing.
28:37So this is the second layer
28:39of the answer
28:39to our question
28:40and it is bigger
28:41than fear.
28:43Elster was not merely
28:44running from men
28:45who would kill his people.
28:46He was going toward
28:47the only body in France
28:49that could make a promise
28:50and then make it stick
28:52from the top
28:53to the bottom
28:54of its own chain.
28:56Here is the proof
28:57that he was calculating
28:58and not converted.
29:00On the night
29:01of September 9th,
29:02the day after
29:03the aircraft
29:03came over Ysoudan
29:04in the middle
29:05of the negotiations,
29:07the column made
29:07one more run
29:08at the Loire.
29:09They tried to force
29:10a crossing at Desiz,
29:12far upriver
29:13to the east,
29:14away from the Americans.
29:15If they got over,
29:16they could keep going
29:17toward Germany
29:18and the whole conversation
29:19was over.
29:20The crossing failed.
29:22Four hours of fighting
29:23in the dark
29:24against French forces
29:26who were not going
29:26to let it happen.
29:28And in the morning,
29:29Elster's people
29:30were still on the wrong bank
29:31with fewer men
29:33than they had started
29:33the night with.
29:35That was the last door.
29:37After Desiz,
29:38every route east
29:39was shut.
29:41The sky belonged
29:42to the Americans
29:42and the country
29:43belonged to people
29:45who wanted him dead.
29:47What remained
29:48was the arrangement
29:49he had been building
29:50since the bridge.
29:51And the arrangement
29:53now got complicated
29:54because both sides
29:55wanted very specific
29:57things out of it.
29:58Macon put the formal
30:00exchanges in the hands
30:01of a lieutenant colonel
30:02named Jules French.
30:03Then the American army
30:05did something
30:06that tells you
30:06a great deal
30:07about how it thought.
30:09It sent in an officer
30:10named Kalish,
30:11whose job was
30:13press and film,
30:14not an infantry commander.
30:16A man who understood
30:17that this surrender
30:18was going to be
30:19a public event
30:20and that how it looked
30:21was part of what it was.
30:23And in the middle
30:24of the negotiations,
30:26Kalish and Elster
30:27discovered something
30:28ordinary and human.
30:30Kalish's mother
30:31had come from Wuttenberg,
30:32the same corner of Germany
30:34the general came from.
30:35That is the kind of detail
30:37that gets left out
30:38of official reports
30:39and decides things anyway.
30:41The temperature
30:42in the room changed.
30:44What Elster asked for,
30:45once the shape
30:46of the surrender
30:46was agreed,
30:47was theater
30:48in the exact sense
30:49of the word.
30:50A public ceremony.
30:52An honor platoon
30:53of American soldiers
30:54drawn up.
30:55And when the moment
30:56came to hand over
30:57a symbol of capitulation,
30:59he did not want it
31:00to be a sword.
31:01He asked to surrender
31:03a pistol.
31:04A Luger,
31:05a working sidearm,
31:06the thing an officer
31:07actually carried,
31:09rather than a piece
31:10of ceremonial dress.
31:12Then came the question
31:13of where.
31:14Kalish drove the country
31:16between Orléans and Broie,
31:18looking at squares
31:19and bridges,
31:20and his first choice
31:21was Orléans itself,
31:23in front of the statue
31:23of Joan of Arc.
31:25You can see the picture
31:26he had in his head,
31:27and you can see
31:28why every newsreel editor
31:30in New York
31:31would have loved it.
31:32The French warned him off.
31:34Orléans was full
31:36of armed resistance fighters.
31:38Marching 20,000 Germans
31:40into that square
31:41was not a ceremony.
31:42It was an incident
31:43waiting to happen.
31:45Which brings us
31:46to the part of the agreement
31:47that nobody at the time
31:49wanted to say out loud.
31:50The clause that would
31:52burn American flags
31:53in French towns
31:54within a week.
31:56To get from Isoudan
31:57to the surrender,
31:59Elster's men had to walk
32:0075 miles
32:01through country
32:02that hated them.
32:04And the Americans,
32:05asked how they intended
32:06to protect 20,000
32:08enemy soldiers
32:09on that road,
32:10gave an answer
32:11that had no precedent
32:12in the war.
32:13The answer was,
32:14they keep their rifles.
32:17That is the clause.
32:19Elster's 20,000 Germans
32:20would march 75 miles north
32:23to the Loire,
32:24still carrying
32:25their personal weapons,
32:26still in formation,
32:27still under their own officers,
32:29and they would not
32:30hand anything over
32:31until they reached
32:32the American side.
32:34For that entire march,
32:36an American division
32:37would be escorting
32:38an armed enemy force
32:39across liberated
32:40French soil.
32:42Say it out loud
32:43and it sounds indefensible.
32:45Look at the map
32:46and it becomes
32:47the only workable option
32:48in the file.
32:50Elster's argument
32:51was blunt.
32:52Disarm my men here,
32:54in the middle of the country,
32:55and you are not
32:56taking prisoners,
32:57you are delivering them.
32:59Every column of unarmed Germans
33:01on those roads
33:02would be a gift
33:03to the people
33:04in the hedges.
33:04And neither he
33:06nor the Americans
33:07could put enough escorts
33:08on 75 miles of road
33:10to prevent
33:11what would follow.
33:12And the American staff,
33:14working the problem,
33:15arrived at the same place
33:16from the opposite direction.
33:18The 83rd
33:19could not disarm
33:2020,000 men
33:21in hostile country
33:22and then feed,
33:24guard,
33:24and move them
33:25from there.
33:26It did not have the troops.
33:28What it could do
33:29was let them walk
33:30to the river
33:31under their own discipline
33:32as a formed body
33:34and take their weapons
33:35at the far end
33:36where American military police,
33:38trucks,
33:39and ration dumps
33:40actually existed.
33:41So the promise
33:43McGill had made
33:44on the bridge
33:44that these men
33:45would be treated
33:46as prisoners of war
33:47was underwritten
33:49by a temporary,
33:50deeply uncomfortable fact.
33:52For four more days,
33:54they would stay
33:55an army.
33:56On September 10th,
33:58at Ysoudan,
33:59the preliminary agreement
34:00was signed.
34:01Look at the names
34:02on that document
34:03because they explain
34:05the argument
34:05that came afterwards.
34:07Elster signed.
34:08On the Allied side,
34:10the surrender
34:11went to the Americans.
34:13Colonel Raymond Schommel,
34:14whose brigade
34:15Charles Martel
34:16had been fighting
34:17this column for weeks,
34:19countersigned it.
34:20A British officer
34:20of the Jedberg teams,
34:22Major Arthur Clutton,
34:24signed, too,
34:24for the men
34:25who had done
34:26most of the bleeding.
34:27And in the small print,
34:29Clutton had inserted
34:30a condition
34:30he considered
34:31basic justice,
34:33that German weapons
34:34be handed
34:35to the resistance fighters
34:36who had earned them.
34:38Hold on to that clause.
34:40It never happened.
34:42And the reason
34:43it never happened
34:43is one of the ugliest
34:45little facts
34:46in this story.
34:47The march began
34:49on the 12th.
34:50Three columns
34:51on three separate routes
34:52converging on the Loire
34:54at Orléans,
34:55at Beaugency,
34:56and at Mer.
34:57Picture what moved
34:59up those roads.
35:00Men in Wehrmacht uniform
35:02with rifles slung,
35:04wagons,
35:05exhausted horses,
35:06ambulances,
35:07nurses,
35:08and clerks,
35:09the bicycles,
35:10the whole limping inventory
35:12of the German Southwest.
35:14And threaded through it,
35:16at intervals,
35:17jeeps with white stars,
35:19carrying a number
35:20of Americans so small
35:21it barely registers
35:22as an escort at all.
35:24On the verges,
35:25in the villages,
35:26along every kilometer
35:27of that route,
35:28stood Frenchmen
35:29with weapons
35:30and with scores
35:31to settle.
35:33Nothing happened.
35:35That is the extraordinary part.
35:37Four days,
35:38three columns,
35:3975 miles of road
35:41through the most heavily armed
35:42civilian population
35:43in Europe,
35:44and 20,000 enemy soldiers
35:47arrived at the river,
35:48essentially intact.
35:50Now stand where the French stood
35:52and look at that same column,
35:54because their anger
35:55is not hard to understand
35:57and it is not petty.
35:59Chomel's brigade alone
36:00had lost 74 men killed
36:03and 786 wounded
36:05fighting this force.
36:07Whole villages
36:08had been burned
36:09in reprisals
36:09during those years.
36:11And now the men
36:12who had done it
36:13were walking north,
36:14under American protection,
36:16armed,
36:17unmolested,
36:18on their way
36:18to hot food.
36:20Local people
36:21burned American flags.
36:22They wrote furious letters
36:24to their newspapers.
36:25Pearl Witherington,
36:26the British agent
36:27who had armed
36:28and run thousands
36:29of fighters
36:29in that region,
36:30said flatly
36:31that the American general
36:32had no idea
36:33the German capitulation
36:35was owed
36:35almost entirely
36:36to the resistance
36:37and watched Germans
36:39being handed oranges,
36:40chocolate,
36:41and American cigarettes
36:42in a country
36:43where French children
36:44had none.
36:45And Clutton's clause
36:47about the weapons?
36:47It was quietly killed.
36:49Not by the Americans,
36:51by Charles de Gaulle,
36:52who was not about
36:53to allow 24,000 rifles
36:55to be distributed
36:56to armed groups
36:57in central France,
36:58many of them
36:59communist-led
37:00at the exact moment
37:02he was trying
37:02to build a state.
37:04Which brings us
37:05to the third layer
37:06of our answer.
37:07And this is the one
37:08that actually explains
37:09the title of this story.
37:11Fear told Elster
37:12who not to surrender to.
37:15The Thunderbolts told him
37:16the Americans
37:17could be trusted
37:18to do what they said.
37:19But the reason
37:20it had to be Americans
37:21and not the French army,
37:23not the British,
37:24not anybody else
37:24on that ground,
37:25was capacity.
37:2720,000 prisoners
37:28is not a victory.
37:29It is a logistics problem
37:31of monstrous size.
37:33Those people had to be fed
37:34that night
37:35and every night.
37:36Counted.
37:37Sorted by rank
37:38and service.
37:39Given medical care.
37:41Guarded.
37:42Moved hundreds of miles.
37:44Registered by name
37:45so the International Red Cross
37:46could notify families
37:48in Germany.
37:49Housed for what turned out
37:50to be years
37:51and eventually sent home.
37:53In September of 1944,
37:56in France,
37:57exactly one organization
37:58could absorb
37:5920,000 human beings
38:01on four days notice
38:02without breaking.
38:03Not because Americans
38:04were kinder.
38:05Because they had the trucks,
38:07the rations,
38:08the paperwork,
38:09and the shipping.
38:10Elster did not surrender
38:11to American soldiers.
38:13He surrendered
38:14to the American supply system.
38:16And he knew it.
38:17Which is why,
38:19when the columns
38:19reached the Loire,
38:20the ceremony
38:21that had been
38:21so carefully arranged
38:23had one guestless problem
38:24that would poison
38:25the whole affair.
38:26And the men
38:27who had bled this column
38:28white for three weeks
38:30were not on it.
38:32September 16, 1944.
38:35The bridge at Beaugency
38:36on the Loire,
38:3720 miles downstream
38:38from Orléans.
38:40It is a warm afternoon.
38:41On the south bank,
38:43German columns
38:44are closing up
38:44into the town.
38:46On the north bank
38:47stands the United States Army,
38:49and between them
38:50is a stone bridge
38:51over a wide,
38:52low,
38:53late-summer river.
38:54The line Elster's people
38:56have been trying to reach
38:57for three and a half weeks,
38:59from a different direction,
39:00for entirely different reasons.
39:03At three o'clock,
39:04they began to come across.
39:06If you want one image
39:08to keep from this whole story,
39:09make it this one.
39:11A German army
39:12walks onto a bridge
39:13armed
39:14and walks off it
39:15unarmed.
39:17The rifles come off shoulders
39:19and go into stacks.
39:21Machine guns,
39:22mortars,
39:23the 43 artillery pieces,
39:25the armored cars,
39:27the trucks
39:27with no fuel in them.
39:30Horses led away
39:31by American soldiers
39:32who had no idea
39:33what they were supposed
39:34to do with 2,000 horses.
39:36Men who had been marching
39:37since the 23rd of August
39:39sat down on French grass
39:40and stopped being soldiers.
39:43The formal act
39:44took place
39:45with generals present
39:46and cameras running.
39:47Major General Robert Macon
39:49for the 83rd Infantry Division,
39:52Brigadier General Otto Weyland,
39:54commanding the Tactical Air Command,
39:56whose aircraft
39:57had been the real fence
39:58along that river all summer.
40:00Which means,
40:01the two forms of American power
40:03that had cornered this column,
40:04the Infantry Division
40:06and the Air,
40:07were both standing there
40:08in person.
40:10Elster handed over his pistol.
40:12The Luger,
40:13as he had asked,
40:14not a ceremonial sword.
40:16And the whole thing
40:17was photographed and filmed
40:19to a degree
40:19that astonished
40:20everyone present.
40:22One account called it
40:23the best-covered surrender
40:25of that war
40:26or any other.
40:27The American army
40:28had brought its press officers,
40:30its still photographers,
40:31and its newsreel cameramen,
40:33and had chosen the location
40:35partly for how it would look
40:36in a cinema in Ohio.
40:38Which is how a 24-year-old lieutenant
40:40ended up in the frame.
40:42McGill was invited late,
40:44almost as an afterthought,
40:45and there was a certain amount
40:46of grumbling
40:47among the colonels and generals
40:48about a mere lieutenant
40:50standing in that group at all.
40:52He had crossed the Loire
40:53in a rowboat,
40:54driven 100 miles
40:55into German-held France,
40:57called down the airstrike,
40:58walked onto a bridge
41:00under a white flag
41:01and negotiated the terms
41:02on which 20,000 men
41:04laid down their arms.
41:06On the day itself,
41:07his presence
41:08was a scheduling problem.
41:10Now the numbers,
41:11because the numbers
41:13are the argument.
41:15754 officers,
41:1718,850 enlisted men,
41:21two women,
41:2324,000 rifles,
41:26557 machine guns,
41:2843 guns,
41:30400 trucks,
41:321,000 wagons,
41:342,000 horses.
41:36That was the largest
41:37mass surrender
41:38of German troops
41:39in the West
41:39up to that point
41:40in the war.
41:41It happened
41:42without an American assault,
41:43without an artillery preparation,
41:45and without a single
41:46American infantryman
41:48killed in taking it.
41:50And one more item
41:51went across that bridge
41:53that almost never
41:54gets mentioned.
41:55Elster also handed over
41:578 million francs
41:59of German military funds,
42:00turned over
42:01to the French prefect
42:02toward the damage
42:04his own forces
42:05had done
42:05in the country
42:06he was leaving.
42:07Now look at
42:08who was not
42:09on that bridge.
42:11There was no representative
42:13of the French resistance
42:14at the ceremony.
42:16The brigades
42:17that had blown
42:17the culverts,
42:18cut the wires,
42:20killed the stragglers,
42:21stopped the crossing
42:22at Deceis
42:23and turned a retreat
42:24into a death march,
42:26were not invited
42:27to watch it end.
42:28The Americans
42:29had run the negotiation,
42:31the Americans
42:32had accepted the surrender,
42:33and the Americans
42:34took the photographs.
42:37The next day
42:38there was a second ceremony
42:39in the town hall
42:40of the village of Arce,
42:42arranged at the insistence
42:44of Colonel Bertrand
42:45of the French forces
42:46of the interior.
42:47The intention was plain.
42:48France, too,
42:50would have a signed
42:51German capitulation
42:52in its hands.
42:54Elster refused
42:55to sign it.
42:56He had surrendered
42:57to the United States Army.
42:58He would not put his name
43:00to a second document
43:01for anyone else,
43:02and having already
43:03given up his pistol,
43:04his men,
43:05and his weapons,
43:06he had nothing left
43:07that the French
43:08could take away from him.
43:10That refusal
43:11is the clearest statement
43:12of the whole affair,
43:13and it gives us
43:14our answer.
43:1520,000 armed Germans
43:17chose the Americans
43:18because the Americans
43:19were the only party
43:21in France
43:21who could offer them
43:22all three things
43:23at once.
43:24Protection from the people
43:26they had wronged,
43:27a guarantee
43:27that would be honored
43:28by the whole chain
43:29of command,
43:30proved in public
43:31by 16 fighter bombers
43:33that arrived on time
43:34and dropped nothing.
43:36And an organization
43:37large enough
43:38to absorb
43:3820,000 human beings,
43:40feed them,
43:41count them,
43:42and account for them
43:43by name.
43:44Not mercy.
43:46Machinery.
43:47And a promise
43:48the machinery could keep.
43:49There is a footnote
43:50to the day
43:51that says something
43:52about the war.
43:53The surrender
43:54at Beaugency
43:55was completed
43:56on the 17th of September,
43:581944,
43:59the same morning
44:00that the largest
44:01airborne operation
44:03in history
44:03began dropping
44:05on Holland.
44:06The biggest
44:07German capitulation
44:08in the West
44:09was knocked off
44:10the front pages
44:11within hours.
44:13But there was one place
44:14where it was read
44:15with complete attention.
44:17In Germany,
44:18the report
44:19of what Elster
44:20had done
44:20landed on desks
44:21that did not care
44:22about protection,
44:23logistics,
44:24or the lives
44:25of 20,000 men.
44:27And the people
44:28at those desks
44:29had the power
44:30to reach across
44:30the Atlantic
44:31into an American
44:32prison camp
44:33and finish the story
44:35on their own terms.
44:36The paper came down
44:37in Berlin
44:38on the 7th of March,
44:391945.
44:41A German court
44:42sentenced
44:43Botho Henning Elster
44:44to death
44:45in absentia
44:46for surrendering
44:47his command
44:48without authorization.
44:49It was the verdict
44:50he had been trying
44:51to avoid
44:52since the first
44:53conversation
44:53on the bridge.
44:54The reason
44:55he had wanted
44:56two battalions
44:57of American infantry
44:58drawn up in the open
44:59where his officers
45:00could see them.
45:01And it could not
45:02touch him.
45:03He was in
45:04American custody.
45:06The Reich
45:06could write his name
45:07on a death warrant
45:08and the warrant
45:09was worth nothing
45:10because the man
45:11it named
45:12was inside a system
45:13that counted him,
45:14registered him,
45:15and was obliged
45:16to produce him alive
45:18at the end of the war.
45:20That is the last piece
45:21of the answer
45:22to the question
45:22we started with.
45:24Every other choice
45:25available to Elster
45:26in September of 1944
45:27ended with his people
45:29at the mercy of somebody.
45:31The American choice
45:32ended with them
45:33inside a set of rules.
45:35His men went
45:36into American prison camps.
45:38The great majority
45:39of them came home.
45:41The nurses,
45:42the clerks,
45:43the customs officials,
45:44the sailors
45:45with no ships,
45:46the boys on bicycles.
45:48They got to be
45:49old men and women
45:50in Germany
45:50and the reason
45:51is a lieutenant
45:52in a rowboat,
45:53an air command
45:54that kept its word,
45:55and a supply system
45:57big enough
45:57to take 20,000 people
45:59off a road.
46:01Elster himself
46:02was released,
46:03went home,
46:04and lived quietly
46:05with the sentence
46:06still formally
46:07hanging over him.
46:08He died of a heart attack
46:09in 1952,
46:11at 58.
46:12In Germany,
46:14the judgment against him
46:15was not set aside
46:16until 1998,
46:18more than half a century
46:20after Beaujancy.
46:22The bitterness in France
46:23did not fade quickly either.
46:26Raymond Chommel's brigade,
46:27Charles Martel,
46:28had lost 74 men killed
46:30and 786 wounded,
46:33bringing that column
46:35to a halt
46:35and got no place
46:37at the ceremony.
46:38Major Clutton,
46:39who had tried
46:40to get German rifles
46:41into resistance hands,
46:42was ordered to Paris
46:43on the 25th of September
46:45and his mission was over.
46:47The French had done
46:48a great deal
46:49of the fighting
46:49and the photographs
46:50went to somebody else.
46:52That grievance was real
46:53and it was earned.
46:55Now go back
46:56to the bridge
46:57at Ysoudin
46:57and to the Americans
46:58standing on it
46:59with a handkerchief
47:00on a stick.
47:01Sam McGill
47:02was given the Croix de Guerre
47:04by France
47:04and the Legion of Merit
47:06by his own army.
47:07He went home
47:08after the war,
47:09then put the uniform
47:10back on in 1950
47:12and served another 19 years
47:14as an intelligence officer,
47:16retiring as a lieutenant colonel
47:18in 1969.
47:20Later,
47:20he advised film companies
47:22making pictures
47:23about the war
47:23he had been in.
47:24And this is the part
47:26that still stops me.
47:27He spent the rest
47:29of his life in Germany.
47:30Sam McGill died in Munich
47:32on the 30th of October, 2013
47:35at the age of 94,
47:37an old man in the country
47:39whose army
47:39he had once talked
47:40out of a fight,
47:41living among the grandchildren
47:43of the men
47:44he sent into captivity
47:45instead of into the ground.
47:47He never commanded
47:48more than 24 men
47:50in that war.
47:51What he understood
47:52at 24 years old
47:54standing in front
47:55of a general
47:55with an army behind him
47:57was something
47:58about his own country
47:59that the general
48:00worked out
48:00about 10 seconds later.
48:02The United States Army
48:04could kill that column
48:05any afternoon it liked.
48:07It could also be trusted
48:09not to.
48:10Both halves were necessary
48:12and only one army
48:13in France
48:14that September
48:15could offer both.
48:16That is why
48:1820,000 armed Germans
48:20walked 75 miles
48:22in the wrong direction.
48:23Not because the Americans
48:25frightened them most.
48:27Because the Americans
48:28were the only ones
48:29whose word would still
48:30be good
48:31in the morning.
49:00Thank you for watching
49:00all the way to the end
49:01and they belong
49:02in the record
49:02as much as any generals does.