Fritz Theilen, born September 27, 1927, was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 member of the anti-Nazi

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 resistance

Resistance movement

A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...

 group the Edelweißpiraten during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Born to working-class parents, he joined the Deutsches Jungvolk

Deutsches Jungvolk

thumb|250px|DJ TroopThe Deutsches Jungvolk was the subdivision of the Hitler Youth for boys aged 10 to 14. It reinforced the National Socialist view of Aryan ideals and transmitted the Nazi idea of the Volksgemeinschaft...

 division of the Hitler Youth

Hitler Youth

The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...

 in 1937, and was excluded for resisting orders in 1940. He started an apprenticeship at the local Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...

 auto plant in 1941. In 1942 he joined the Edelweißpiraten. He was imprisoned at the Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

's Cologne headquarters — the El-De Haus

EL-DE Haus

EL-DE Haus, officially the Nazism Documentation Center, located in Cologne, is the former headquarters of the Gestapo and now a museum documenting the Third Reich....

 — in 1943.