A famous tramp in Wolverhampton has died. Fred, aka Josef Stawinoga, lived in a tent in the middle of a dual carriage way. He arrived in the UK in 1947, and in 1954 decided to live in a tent. His lifestyle led him to become a local celebrity and some religious groups treated him as a holy man because of his “truly enlightened life”. Now there is discussion about the nature of his past:

One rumour among the Polish community is that rather than being a victim of the Nazis he was actually a former SS soldier.

Mr Leonowicz told how people had claimed Fred had almost bragged about his time in Hitler’s notorious SS.

Mr Leonowicz said: “Apparently, he did serve in the German army, he was in the SS.” He said that people claimed “he was not one of the nicest chaps in the SS”.

It is claimed Fred rose to the rank of staff sergeant despite being a Pole and ended up in a displaced persons camp in Wolverhampton after the war.

However Mr Leonowicz also told of how people knew of Fred as one of 100,000 Poles in Italy who fought alongside the British Army and he was part of the Second Polish Corps.

If this is true it is in complete contrast to the SS story as the Second Corps were determined to disprove Russian propaganda about Poles as Nazi collaborators.

BBC video report here, and his Facebook community and Jammie Dodger eating tendencies are discussed here here.