After the 1938 Anschluss annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, the Reich government officially leased the castle in late 1940 from its owner, Franz Grüner.
Itter Castle was seized from Grüner by SS Lieutenant General Oswald Pohl under the orders of Heinrich Himmler on February 7, 1943, and transformed into a prison by April 25, 1943.
Established to incarcerate prominent French prisoners valuable to the Reich, the facility was placed as a subcamp under the administration of the Dachau concentration camp.

Notable prisoners included: former Prime Ministers Édouard Daladier and Paul Reynaud; Generals Maurice Gamelin and former commander-in-chief Maxime Weygand, who had been prominent during the Phoney War; former tennis champion Jean Borotra, later General Commissioner of Sports in the Vichy regime; right-wing leader François de La Rocque, leader of the right-wing Croix de Feu movement; trade union leader Léon Jouhaux; André François-Poncet, a politician and diplomat; and Michel Clemenceau, politician and son of Georges Clemenceau.
The former republic president Albert Lebrun was held at Itter for three months in 1943, before being sent back to France for health reasons; Marie-Agnès de Gaulle, Resistance member and sister of General Charles de Gaulle, was interned in the castle at the very end of the war, in April 1945.

Besides the French VIP prisoners, the Castle held a number of Eastern European prisoners detached from Dachau, who were used for maintenance and other menial work.
After the 1938 Anschluss annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, the Reich government officially leased the castle in late 1940 from its owner, Franz Grüner. Itter Castle was seized from Grüner by SS Lieutenant General Oswald Pohl under the orders of Heinrich Himmler on February 7, 1943, and transformed into a prison by April 25, 1943. Established to incarcerate prominent French prisoners valuable to the Reich, the facility was placed as a subcamp under the administration of the Dachau concentration camp.
Notable prisoners included: former Prime Ministers Édouard Daladier and Paul Reynaud; Generals Maurice Gamelin and former commander-in-chief Maxime Weygand, who had been prominent during the Phoney War; former tennis champion Jean Borotra, later General Commissioner of Sports in the Vichy regime; right-wing leader François de La Rocque, leader of the right-wing Croix de Feu movement; trade union leader Léon Jouhaux; André François-Poncet, a politician and diplomat; and Michel Clemenceau, politician and son of Georges Clemenceau. The former republic president Albert Lebrun was held at Itter for three months in 1943, before being sent back to France for health reasons; Marie-Agnès de Gaulle, Resistance member and sister of General Charles de Gaulle, was interned in the castle at the very end of the war, in April 1945.
Besides the French VIP prisoners, the Castle held a number of Eastern European prisoners detached from Dachau, who were used for maintenance and other menial work.
Itter Castle