The disturbing tale of Mr Fritz – the haunted ventriloquist dummy of Stalag IIB
Halloween and Remembrance Day are a mere eleven days apart so it seems only fitting that I post this story regarding two of the most terrifying things a person should never have to encounter during their life – war and ventriloquist dolls.
The private collection of alternative entertainer Michael Diamond is home to some of the rarest sideshow exhibits and apparatus in the UK. Oddities such an elephant headed boy from Brading Waxwork Museum, real execution swords and axes, Houdini's handcuffs and shrunken heads are all on display in his 'Freak Room'. But tucked away in the corner, shrouded in a blanket is a display cabinet with a firmly locked door. The 'Freak Room' is now the final resting place of Mr Fritz, a haunted ventriloquist doll, who has struggled to find a home since 1945.
Not much remains of Mr Fritz. A solitary head, mounted on a piece of wooden pace stick, his face peeling and warped. As dead as he looks, some would argue that he is very much alive. Unlike most of the exhibits in Michael's collection which were acquired through considerable financial investment, Mr Fritz was given to him for free. Michael admits though that this was not initially unusual,
“Most people find dolls, especially ventriloquist dolls far too creepy. The unlucky ones end up being thrown out or locked in attics for years while others get given to collectors like myself”.
A well know WWII Militaria dealer in Liverpool approached Michael at a festival they were both working at over the summer. He had seen Michael’s travelling exhibition of oddities and thought that Mr Fritz would fit in perfectly. Mr Fritz was discovered in an Antiques Mall in Myrtle Beach, USA and once the dealer heard of the connection with a German POW camp he felt compelled to buy him and bring him to the UK. It was then that things started to happen.
The dealer, who wishes to remain anonymous, first started to notice something strange when he put Mr Fritz on display in his showroom. He would lock up for the night and come back in the morning to discover that Mr Fritz's display case door was wide open, even after it had been firmly shut. Every night it would be shut, yet every morning it would be open again. Things then started to take a more uncanny turn. Mr Fritz would sometimes have his eyes open, when they were normally closed. His mouth would also change position. The dealer tried to think of obvious explanations such as humidity, a breeze or even going as far to think that a mouse may have made a nest in his head. On closer inspection, he discovered it was neither of these things. Day after day the door continued to open so he finally taped it shut. The following day he returned to find the tape peeled back and the door open once more. He finally removed Mr Fritz from the showroom and placed him in the garden shed where he stayed for another six months. His children then reported hearing laughter from the shed as they played in the garden and nobody would dare go near it.
Mr Fritz had to go.
As soon as Michael adopted the lonesome remains of Mr Fritz, he placed him in the 'Freak Room' and immediately things started to happen. The door started to open. At first it was once or twice a week but soon the door opened every night without fail. He even discovered one morning that the display case was not only open but had moved six inches across the table. Curiosity finally got the better of Michael and he set up a GoPro camera to monitor Mr Fritz. As you might imagine, a doll that was made to entertain people was not camera shy and the following footage was shot over two nights in September 2019.
But what is the story behind Mr Fritz?
A small hand written note that accompanied the eerie doll explained that he was originally a ventriloquist doll who was used to entertain Allied POWs during WWII in Stalag IIB between 1943 – 1945.
Stalag II-B was a German POW camp situated 2.4 kilometres west of the village of Hammerstein in Poland. In 1933 it was established as one of the first Nazi concentration camps and was used to house German communists. In late September 1939 the camp was changed to a POW camp to house Polish soldiers and in August 1943 the first American prisoners arrived, having been taken prisoner in the Tunisian campaign. Over 600 US POWs were held in Stalag IIB and life was harsh, consisting of long days of hard labour on neighbouring farms with meagre rations.
Prisoners tried to overcome these hardships by educating themselves and staging entertainments such as musicals and comedy. Among the prisoners with enough energy to entertain was Private 'Billy' Booth who had been a children's entertainer and puppeteer before the war started. He had made Mr Fritz with German newspapers soaked in potato starch and painted him with a smuggled pot of pink gloss that a Polish farmer had given him which had been used to paint his daughter's cot.
For almost 18 months Billy Booth and Mr Fritz entertained the prisoners of Stalag IIB with 'in' jokes and songs. He was so good that even some of the German guards found him funny. But unfortunately on 14th January 1945, 2 weeks before the camp was liberated, Billy and nine other US POWs were taken into a field, made to dig a large pit and shot for not working hard enough.
When the camp was finally liberated on 28th January 1945, Mr Fritz was taken back to the US by a fellow prisoner and given to Billy Booth's family as a reminder of their son's fortitude and his ability to raise morale in the harshest conditions.
Lest we forget.
How Mr Fritz ended up in a US antiques mall is not know, did Billy Booth's family give him away or was he thrown out for being too 'lively'? These things we will never know. All we do know is that what remains of Billy Booth's creation is safely tucked away in Michael Diamond's 'Freak Room' where he shall remain for the unforeseeable future. And if Billy wants to open Mr Fritz's cabinet every now and again to reminisce days gone by, then Michael doesn't have a problem with that.
