A young rebel in Nazi Germany

By Andy Whysall
Part 1 of Fred Sichert's story

Fred Sichert has lived in Cumbria for 65 years. Like all those who survived the battlefields of World War II, he is grateful for what came afterwards.

Fred's story of survival puts him just that little bit apart from many other veterans you will meet in Cumbria.

He fought on the losing side, and in places many others did not survive.

He also fought as part of a unit that made him different in the eyes of the enemy. Fred was one of Goering's elite paratroopers - a Fallschirmjager.

Communist sympathies

Young Fred Sichert's background appears to have been far from ideal to qualify him as a Fallschirmjager.

Fred's family in happy times. He is behind the camera

Fred came from Nuremberg, in Bavaria, where his father ran a haulage firm. He was one of five children - four boys and a girl.

Two of his brothers joined the Hitler Youth, although other members of his extended family had Communist sympathies and used to attend demonstrations against the Nazis. Young Fred occasionally went with them, but it could be dangerous.

"We used to have to scatter when they came against us. They (the Brownshirts) used to come round in lorries; they had machineguns in the lorries and any window that was open: spray it."

'They were gangsters'

While Nuremberg is famous as being one of the main centres for Nazi rallies of the 1930s, Fred said he resisted pressure to join his brothers in the Hitler Youth. His attitude to that organisation ultimately set him on a path that would see him become a naturalised Briton.

Hitler Youth and Brownshirts Hitler believed Germany's young people were its future Membership of the Hitler Youth was seen as as important as schooling Towards the end of the war many young teenage members were sent to Waffen SS combat units The Brownshirts were founded as Hitler's own private army called the Sturm Abteilung or SA Hitler ordered a purge of the SA leadership - the infamous "Night of the Long Knives" They later fell under the control of Heinrich Himmler, and became second in importance to the SS

"I didn't believe in it," he said. "I thought they were gangsters. They used to walk past our street. There was a small pond where they used to sing Hitler songs. One day they threw me in the brambles, and my mate."

Fred and his friend ran home to gather support. Then they barred the route of the young Nazis: "We had sticks. What a battle there was! At the finish, the cowards, they had them daggers, they pulled them. They might have used them so we stopped."

Another dimension to Fred's rebellion is revealed in the story of his trips to the cinema in the company of a young Jewish girl.

Arrested and jailed

"She had the yellow star on her coat, so my sister gave us her jacket and she says 'leave that here'. When we got home she changed it again."

Nuremberg was bombed; his father's haulage yard was hit. Bombs fell close to their home and his mother had been knocked off her feet, but not injured, by a near miss.

Amid all this, Fred was lifted off the street by the police. He was charged with brawling with the Hitler Youth.

We got taken away to join the bloody Brownshirts. They did not ask you if you wanted to join them. Just up and away. Fred Sichert

"I just looked down, ashamed of being up in court with my old man and old lady there."

17-year-old Fred got four months in Nuremberg prison, where the post-war trials were held.

"My cell was in the cellar. In the morning you had to stand under the window, and the window was right right up. You could not see daylight out of it, but there was a window.

"When he came in you had to say your number and what you were in for. You had to say Heil Hitler at the beginning. I said good morning." He laughs: "I used to get a belt nearly every morning."

Four months over, any hopes of going home were crushed.

"We got taken away to join the bloody Brownshirts. They did not ask you if you wanted to join them. Just up and away."

The vast Nazi rally stadium at Nuremberg

Fred and his companions were taken to a barracks at Bilsen, in northern Germany. "A proper army barracks and what not. You got trained for infantry. I wasn't there long. I volunteered for summat else. For the paratroopers."

That was 1943. As it was Fred was not destined to have a very long military career. He would be thrown into combat in Russia that winter, a time Fred chooses to keep much to himself. Then he would be in the thick of fighting in Normandy after D-Day, where he would become a prisoner, and ultimately ... a Cumbrian.