In the spring of 1945, as the war in Europe was drawing to a close, an unusual mission later known as Operation Cowboy unfolded near the Bavarian-Czechoslovak border. With the approval of General George Patton, U.S. troops joined forces with Wehrmacht officers to remove rare Lipizzan horses from the Hostau stud farm in the Sudetenland.
The horses were tied to the tradition of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, which had been led since 1939 by Austrian officer and Olympic dressage medalist Alois Podhajsky. Back in 1942, the most valuable breeding mares had been sent to Hostau, where the Nazis were gathering pedigree animals from across occupied Europe.
By late April 1945, units of Patton’s Third Army had reached the Czechoslovak border but were constrained by the Yalta agreements. On April 26, soldiers from the 2nd Cavalry Group captured Luftwaffe intelligence officer Walter Holters, who carried documents about Hostau. He told Colonel Charles Hancock Reed that the site held about 250 Lipizzans, watched over by prisoners of war and a small SS guard detachment.
According to the account cited in the article, Patton’s order was: “Get them. And hurry.”
The mission unfolded amid political uncertainty. Soviet tanks appeared near Hostau, and later Czech communist militia blocked the convoy, insisting the horses should not leave the country. Even so, the Americans brought the convoy safely to Mansbach in Germany, covering about 200 kilometers without losses.
On May 25, 244 Lipizzans were loaded onto 60 trucks and transported to St. Martin in Austria. Only two mares were injured on the way and had to be put down. Patton later ordered the horses returned to Austria, despite early talk of sending them to the United States. In the end, 215 horses made it back to Vienna, though the story was not fully resolved until a decade later, when the Austrian capital was no longer in the Soviet occupation zone.