Fry - From Dachau to D-Day

From Dachau to D-Day

The German who Fought for Britain in WWII

Helen Fry

First published by The History Press 2009

Copyright Helen Fry 2009

This edition published in 2020 by Lume Books

30 Great Guildford Street,

Borough, SE1 0HS

The right of Helen Fry to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

To the Memory of

Willy Field

Dedicated to David and Anthony Field,

their children and grandchildren

I was part of the 8 th Kings Royal Irish Hussars, the famous Desert Rats,

and nothing could take away the feeling of exhilaration at being part of

such a regiment. Willy Field

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

For all the risks, I never once regretted being part of the biggest invasion force ever to land in the Normandy beaches in June 1944 even though it brought personal losses . Willy Field

The white-haired gentleman who sat next to me over a decade ago in a smart living room in a leafy suburb of North-West London was not born Willy Field but Willy Hirschfeld. His place of birth was not England but Germany. As a Holocaust survivor he had an extraordinary tale much of what he began to tell me over the next few months he had never told even his family. Perhaps to protect himself from the memories, he had decided for decades not to speak about his past. I discovered that deep down he is incredibly proud of having served Britain. Willy had a happy childhood in Bonn in the early years of the twentieth century until his dreams were shattered by Hitlers ascent to power in 1933. As Jews he and his family lived the next few years in constant fear for their lives. The shadow of the swastika and the ideology that it stood for was a daily reality. It was an eon away as he began to recount his story to me.

Across the dining room table all his papers, documentation and photos are spread out in front of us. He is one of my men as I call them the 10,000 German and Austrian refugees from Nazism who fought for Britain in the Second World War. I am struck by his humility and modest claims not to have done very much in the war.

I am no war hero, he tells me. But when I discuss his wartime contribution and experiences, I discover that behind this kind soft man hides decades of suffering and loss under the Nazis. He also conceals six years of selfless sacrifice, two of which were spent fighting on the frontline in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany after D-Day. He is a man with nine lives, having survived extraordinary circumstances against the odds. Willy was incarcerated in Dachau concentration camp for four months in 1938-9, came to England, was interned a year later and survived the torpedoing of the troopship Dunera which carried him to Australia in 1940. Later he was the sole survivor of his crew when his tank was hit by German forces on the road between Eindhoven and Nijmegen in Holland in September 1944. Working through the war diaries and official regimental history of the 8 th Kings Royal Irish Hussars with whom he served as a tank driver, I became aware of just how dangerous it was for Willy and his comrades fighting on the frontline. The 8 th Hussars played a leading role with other tank regiments and infantry regiments in spearheading the advance through Normandy into Holland and Germany. It was a surprise for me to learn that when Willy and his regiment finally entered Germany, the country was not in complete disarray. German defeat seemed assured, but the last die-hard Nazis defended their country to the bitter end. Thus Willy and his comrades experienced some of the toughest frontline fighting in Germany. After the war he discovered that all his family perished in the Holocaust, except sister Thea who was in England.

It would be perfectly understandable if Willy harboured resentment, vengeance or bitterness towards the perpetrators. He did not and in that sense he was an extraordinary human being who reflected on his experiences and chosen a path of forgiveness. In spite of personal suffering he bore no grudges against Germany. He was philosophical about the need to forgive, but never to forget the past. After the war, he became a British citizen and lived a life of total loyalty to this country. He was proud to be British. Perhaps nothing epitomised that more than being a loyal Arsenal supporter for over 70 years. The following pages chart his exceptional life story which can be summed up in his words:

I volunteered for the British Forces because I wanted to give something back to Britain for saving my life. Without it I would have perished in the Holocaust alongside my parents and other family members. I could have stayed in Australia or the Pioneer Corps where in either case life would have been easy, but I didnt. I wanted to fight the Germans. It was my duty.

Chapter 1

In the Shadow of the Swastika

Willy Hirschfeld was born in Bonn on 17 August 1920, one of twins, to Arthur and Regina Hirschfeld. His twin sister was named Dorothea. They had an older sister, Betty, and an older brother Manfred. Their parents Arthur and Regina married in 1909 in the local synagogue in Graudenz, West Prussia (now Poland). Arthur was born in Graudenz in 1879, Regina born in 1880 in the small village of Lessen, near Graudenz. Reginas family were Orthodox Jews, but after her marriage, she and Arthur kept a more relaxed Jewish household. Their first child Betty was born in 1910, and then Manfred in 1917. By 1912-3, Arthur Hirschfeld moved his family to Bonn, realizing that things could get difficult for them as Jews if Graudenz became part of Poland, which it did in due course. He also managed to persuade his sister, known to Willy as Tante Hanna, to settle in Bonn along with some of Reginas family: her mother Flora Moses, and Henrietta and Marcus Moses. Life was good for the Hirschfelds in the early years in Bonn. Willy has only happy memories of early childhood before the Nazis shattered his youthful dreams and forced him to grow up faster than normal. His maternal grandmother, aunt and uncle lived in Bonn on Reuter Strasse. He recalled, As a family we always looked after each other. We visited my grandmother, aunt and uncle every week to play cards. We had a good, happy family life.

The Jews of Bonn were well-integrated into the life of the city; a university town on the river Rhine, which at that time had a population of just under 100,000. Around 1,100 of them were Jews. There were Jewish professors at the university. Bonn was famous as the birthplace of composer Ludwig von Beethoven. Willy commented:

Bonn is a beautiful place surrounded by lovely countryside, a friendly but sleepy city. During my childhood there were lots of Jewish stores around the city. The story goes that before Hitler came to power in Germany, he wanted to visit Bonn and stay in the famous Konigs Hof on the Rhine. It was the best hotel in the area. The owner knew that Hitler was anti-Semitic and refused him a room, saying that he had a lot of Jewish guests. Apparently, Hitler moved on to the next town on the Rhine called Bad Godesberg and stayed in the Hotel Dreesen. It was always felt that he never liked Bonn. I was pleased that on 29 November 1949, Bonn and not Berlin became the Bundes-haupstadt (capital) of West Germany. If it had been Berlin, it would have too many connections and memories for me of the Nazis.

Willys father Arthur started out in 1913 as manager of a department store called Leonard Titz, the biggest store in Bonn. The following year, war broke out on 4 August 1914 and he was called-up to fight in the Germany army against British Forces. He served in an infantry regiment, seeing active service at the Battle of Verdun. He, like many of his generation, spoke very little about his experience of war. One postcard survives from this period, written by Arthur to his daughter Betty during the First World War. It is dated 19 May 1917, just over three years before Willy and Dorothea were born. The postcard is a picture of Arthur with his regiment. Translated from German, it reads:Tomorrow off to Jlich. Packet from mother received. I hope that you are behaving yourself and good at school. I hope that you and dear mother are healthy and keep well. Kiss from father.