Josef Gangl

Josef "Sepp" Gangl (September 12, 1910 – May 5, 1945) was a German Major of the Wehrmacht who became a member of the Austrian Resistance very late in the Second World War.

Josef Gangl was born on September 12, 1910, in Obertraubling, Kingdom of Bavaria, the son of an official of the Royal Bavarian State Railways and a former shop assistant.

When he was a toddler, the family moved to Peißenberg in Upper Bavaria, where Josef's younger siblings were born.

On November 1, 1928, Gangl joined the Reichswehr, which was then limited to 100,000 men, in order to begin a career as a professional soldier in Artillery Regiment 7 in Nuremberg.

He stayed there until September 1929, in order to serve in Artillery Regiment 5 in Ulm.

He became part of the newly established 25th Artillery Regiment in Ludwigsburg in 1935, and married the Ludwigsburg saleswoman Walburga Renz.

Together they had two children, one of whom was a daughter named Sieglind (born 1936).

Gangl was promoted to Oberfeldwebel in November 1938.

From October 1939, he was to study at an officer school of the Wehrmacht.

However, his regiment was stationed in the Saar-Palatinate on the border with France, preparing for war.

There, on September 7, 1939, eleven French divisions, 25 km wide, crossed the border and advanced about 8 km into German territory (they withdrew within two weeks, on orders from Gamelin).

This was Gangl's first combat during the Second World War.

He spent six months in hospitals in the following months of the "Phoney War", returning to his regiment on May 14, 1940, to take part in the Western campaign, in which he commanded a reconnaissance unit of the 25th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht.

After the Armistice of Compiègne, Gangl served as an instructor in the artillery replacement department 25.

After a short home leave in August 1940, he was an instructor at a base in Taus in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

He began a one-month training at the artillery school in Jüterbog on November 25, 1940.

On June 22, 1941, Gangl took part in the motorized artillery regiment 25 as part of Army Group South in Ukraine on the Eastern Front, where he commanded a battery with 105mm howitzers in the battle for Kyiv.

Gangl was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class on August 20, 1941.

He was promoted to first lieutenant in January 1942, and he received the Iron Cross 1st Class on February 12, 1942.

Gangl became the commander of a Nebelwerfer Unit in the 25th Artillery Regiment on April 24, 1942.

He held this position on the Eastern Front, until he was assigned as commander of the Nebelwerfer replacement and training department 7 in Höchstädt an der Donau in January 1944.

He went to the army school for battalion and division leaders in Antwerp for a month in February 1944.

On March 4, 1944, Gangl was sent to the new Werfer-Regiment 83 in Celle, which belonged to Werfer-Brigade 7.

With this he marched to France in May 1944.

After the Allied invasion of Normandy, he marched with the Werfer-Brigade to Caen on June 7, 1944, where it was placed under the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend" ("Hitler Youth") and played an important role in the defense of the city.

The Werfer-Brigade 7 escaped from the Falaise Pocket with heavy losses in August.

In November it was reorganized in Prüm in the Eifel as Volks-Werfer-Brigade 7 with new equipment.

He was killed in action on May 5, 1945, at Itter Castle, Tyrol.

Sepp Gangl participated with the brigade in the Ardennes offensive (Battle of the Bulge), in the subsequent general retreat and in February 1945 in the unsuccessful defense of Saarbrücken.

He was awarded the German Cross in Gold on March 8, 1945.

However, parts of the Giehl combat group in Niederaudorf were attacked by the 12th US Armored Division on May 3, 1945, and suffered heavy casualties.

Shortly afterwards he was promoted to major and received command of the 2nd division of Werfer-Regiment 83.

Werfer-Brigade 7 had meanwhile lost half of its men and no longer had any nebelwerfer equipment.

Their commander, General Kurt Paape, ordered the commanders of his battalions near Peißenberg to fight their way to Tyrol with them and take part in the defense of the Alpine fortress.

Gangl met with Lieutenant General Georg Ritter von Hengl in mid-April, who assigned him and the remnants of his association to the Giehl combat group under Lieutenant Colonel Johann Giehl in Wörgl.

A few days after his arrival in Wörgl, Gangl contacted the local group of Austrian resistance under Alois Mayr.

He provided the resistance fighters with information and weapons.

It was decided that the execution of Johann Giehl's order to defend Wörgl against the Americans to the end (to break bridges and block paths) should be prevented, and also to liberate the prominent French prisoners from the nearby Itter Castle.

He took part in the defense of Castle Itter against troops of the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Götz von Berlichingen" with soldiers of the Wehrmacht, the US Army and French prisoners, and lost his life in the process when he took a bullet for former French prime minister Paul Reynaud.

He is remembered as a hero of the Austrian Resistance against the Nazi regime.