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The Spanish Riding School
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The
True Miracle |
The
Rescue of the Breeding Herd Now, we come to the biggest deviations from reality portrayed by the Disney movie The Miracle of the White Stallions! In response to Podhajsky’s plea for help, the movie portrays Patton as rescuing the breeding herd after the performance and as defying orders not to cross the Czechoslovakian border. The movie also portrays Col. Reed’s task force being surprised at the border by an SS unit’s attack. The facts are very different! Hostau had been taken by elements of Colonel Charles H. Reed's task force 9 days before the performance took place and Patton knew it! Patton also knew that the horses from Hostau were under Reed's control. The short version is that an April 26th agreement between German officers and Col. Reed was the basis for the rescue. The details of the capture of the herd follow. Much of this article is based on Col. Reed’s own statement which appears in Handler's "The Spanish Riding School". We have to take his statement, rather than the movie, as the authentic account! Col. Reed also made it clear that he had been consulted by the Disney people before the movie was made and that he told them their version was wrong. He states that they thought their version was better show business. 1 Additional background from Isenbart & Bührer’s "The Imperial Horse" will round out the story. Between 1941 and September 1943, the Wehrmacht moved the Lipizzaner breeding herd from Piber to a stud at Hostau, Czechoslovakia. (Hostau is the German name for Hostouň which is the name you will find on contemporary maps of the Czech Republic in the Pilsen province.) The stud at Hostau was under the command of Lt. Col. Hubert Rudofsky who in turn reported to Dr. Gustav Rau, a veterinarian who was in charge of all German studs. 2 In early April 1945, Rudofsky asked Berlin headquarters for permission to move the horses to safety in Germany. His request was turned down. In mid-April 1945, Rudofsky was visited by a high ranking German officer who told him that the war was about to end and that there was a way to get the horses to safety. 3 This officer was apparently part of the group captured by Col. Reed’s forces in Bavaria. Reed states that elements of Task Force Reed obtained information about a German intelligence unit which was bivouacked close to the German-Czechoslovak border. On April 26, after a prearranged mock battle, the German intelligence unit surrendered and its commander invited Col. Reed to breakfast. They discussed the horses and agreed that they should not fall into Communist hands and that the 400 American, British, French and Polish prisoners of war should be rescued by Americans. Reed sent a radio message to 3rd Army Headquarters requesting permission for the operation. Patton’s prompt reply was “Get them. Make it fast! You will have a new mission.” 4 A German bicyclist was sent to Hostau to arrange for an officer to come to arrange terms with Reed. That evening, Capt. Lessing, the staff veterinarian at Hostau, rode to Reed’s headquarters on one Lipizzaner stallion and lead another stallion. Lessing arranged the terms of the surrender of Hostau and informed Reed about an SS unit which stood between Reed and Hostau. Reed states that he planned an attack of overwhelming force to overrun the SS positions. Capt. Thomas M. Stewart, one of Reed’s officer’s rode back to Hostau with Lessing. He completed arrangements and returned to Reed’s headquarters during the night of April 27. Early the following morning, April 28, Reed sent a small task force under the command of Major Robert P. Andrews to overwhelm the SS unit and take Hostau. The garrison at Hostau surrendered peaceably with an atmosphere that Reed described as a fiesta. Patton was informed of the rescue on April 29 or April 30, at least a week before the performance. 4 Task Force Reed consisted of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Group (2nd and 42nd Squadrons) with additional units including an artillery battalion, an engineer battalion, and an anti-aircraft unit. Patton had ordered Task Force Reed to advance to Pilsen, more than 30 miles farther into Czechoslovakia. They would remain in Czechoslovakia for at least 3 weeks. On April 29, the bulk of Major Andrews command rejoined Reed’s 2nd Cavalry Group and left Capt. Stewart in command of at Hostau with only a single troop of armored cavalry and a platoon of tanks. Reed states that Capt. Stewart organized a defense force that included captured German soldiers, Cossacks who had take refuge at Hostau, and released prisoners of war! By May 7th, the date of the performance and the complete surrender of Germany, Task Force Reed was deployed on a line from Pilsen through Zinkovy to Nepomuk as part of a maneuver to prevent the Russians from advancing into American-held territory. That was Reed's main mission in Czechoslovakia. Reed's headquarters were in a castle in Zinkovy which is about 10 miles southeast of Pilsen. Once again, the movie people could not tell events as they really occurred because of the trap they had set for themselves. It wouldn't do for German officers to recruit Reed to liberate Hostau or warn him of the SS unit or for Americans to use captured German soldiers to defend Hostau. It is more romantic for Podhajsky and Patton to be rebels and for Reed to be surprised by the SS unit at the border. Next time: The Evacuation of the Breeding Herd. Footnotes: Bibliography
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