Briton missing behind the Iron Curtain?

Discussion in 'Postwar' started by alieneyes, Aug 29, 2011.

  1. At Home Dad (Returning)

    At Home Dad (Returning) Well-Known Member

    I have found a Leslie Golding born wandsworth, c1910
    and died aged 0... That's the old school way of getting
    ID/Passport for the spies, isn't it, with dead babies birth certs.

    I fear I'm pushing it off track now and moving into Le Carré!!
     
  2. alieneyes

    alieneyes Senior Member

     
  3. alieneyes

    alieneyes Senior Member

    Well, just to throw a spanner in the works, I came across this firm of solicitors:

    Seax - Catalogue: D/DS 266 GREGSON AND GOLDING, SOLICITORS, OF SOUTHEND

    Whichever Golding that was, he seems to have become a partner in 1938, so perhaps that's Leslie the solicitor? A KD Golding was also prominent in Southend yacht racing circles in the late 1930s. Golding's not that common a surname: the newest Kelly's Directory I could find online was 1914 - at that time there were apparently no Goldings in Southend and only about 45 in the whole of Essex, but it's by no means complete.

    OTOH what would the odds be on there being two Leslie Goldings in the same town?

    Thanks, Vitesse. Now it starts to get interesting. Using FreeBMD I was able to find quite a few "Leslie Golding"s born all over the UK from 1912 until about 1925. Not knowing the age of the Captain in the Parachute Regiment I went as far as I thought the age parameters would allow.

    In re-reading Ellis Dean's letter to me he states (from then Lt. Golding's Report of Ringway Parachute Course No 72, from 12.7.43 to 23.7.43) "105579 Lt. Golding. A very good type of officer who jumped well."

    He goes on to say:

    Prior to volunteering for the Parachute Regiment, he (Golding) had been serving in the 2/4th Battalion, The South Lancashire Regiment. He was not a northerner so how he came to be in the South Lancs Regt, I don't know. But from his low personal number, I think he must have been serving in the Territorials before the outbreak of war, or commissioned soon after that
    It also seems that Captain Golding was the Intelligence Officer for the 13th and in that capacity jumped on D Day.

    IF this is the same Golding he would have been quite the catch for the Soviets. I would venture to say that he would have known better than to be playing "sneaky pete" in the Soviet Zone of Occupation, post war.
     
  4. alieneyes

    alieneyes Senior Member

    I have found a Leslie Golding born wandsworth, c1910
    and died aged 0... That's the old school way of getting
    ID/Passport for the spies, isn't it, with dead babies birth certs.

    I fear I'm pushing it off track now and moving into Le Carré!!

    I would agree with you, AHD, if the circumstances were reversed. There would be no advantage for the opposition to have a fake British agent in one of their own prisons.
     
  5. At Home Dad (Returning)

    At Home Dad (Returning) Well-Known Member

    Any other initial for Lt Golding?

    I have a Leslie V Golding married a KUNZ
    in 1948 in Rochford (Southend) alternative
    name give KRIEGER

    He was previously married in 1942 in Thurrock
    spouse name MARSH. Did his wife die or divorce.
    Did he then rescue this German girl post war...
     
    alieneyes likes this.
  6. alieneyes

    alieneyes Senior Member

    Any other initial for Lt Golding?

    I have a John Lesli born in West Ham a couple
    of years prior to Ww1, married 1940.

    Ooops and a Leslie V Golding married a KUNZ
    in 1948 in Rochford (Southend) alternative
    name give KRIEGER

    Sadly not. I just came across his name in the CIC history book and went from there.

    But it does seem you have solved the mystery, AHD, as "Marianne Kuenz" is given as the name of his girlfriend. In reading many RAF post war search reports I have noticed that we suffered from a terrible inability to properly spell German place and surnames. As we don't use the umlaut in English I can very easily see the authors of the book adding an "e" to her surname.

    Now, of course, the curious would be interested in knowing how Leslie and Marianne got out of eastern Germany and how they spent the rest of their lives.

    Many thanks for your help.
     
  7. Vitesse

    Vitesse Senior Member

    Curiouser and curiouser ...

    The only Golding I can find in Law Society exam results in The Times in the 1930s is an RA Golding who passed his finals in 1933. None at all in the 1920s.
     
  8. At Home Dad (Returning)

    At Home Dad (Returning) Well-Known Member

    If you want the certificate to order -



    Date of Registration: Jul-Aug-Sep 1948 Registration district: Rochford Inferred County: Essex Volume Number: 4a Page Number: 1881
     
  9. At Home Dad (Returning)

    At Home Dad (Returning) Well-Known Member

    if you do order the certificate, it might state his
    occupation and also her birthplace to confirm?

    I reckon there must be family still living in the area,
    perhaps with details of the story. Fascinating, if it's
    all the correct Leslie and Kunz

    Only too glad to help. Everyone loves a love story!
     
  10. alieneyes

    alieneyes Senior Member

    Received the marriage certificate from GRO. One mystery gets solved and another one opens.

    It appears that on 21 August, 1948, Leslie Victor Golding, age 26, formerly married to Lydia Alice Mary Golding née Marsh married Marianne Christa Kunz, née Krieger, age 22, formerly married to Fritz Kunz, at the Register's Officer in Rochford, Essex. Both had divorced their previous partners. Residence at the time of marriage is given at an address in Rochford.

    Golding is listed as a "moulder in a foundary." Nothing is listed for the bride. Golding's deceased father, George Thomas Golding is listed as a former journeyman and gas fitter. Marianne's father is given as Richard Walter Krieger, an accountant in a finance bureau. No foreign address is given for either father or daughter.

    The marriage was witnessed by an "N. Golding" and a "G. Golding". (Brothers?)

    So, it would appear that this is not the Leslie Golding who was a pre and post-war solicitor for Scotland Yard who served as the Intelligence Officer for 13th Battalion (Luard's Own) during the war.

    What is intriguing is how and where the couple met and the circumstances behind Leslie's incarceration at the hands of the Soviets and, of course, how he got Marianne out of Eastern Germany to the UK.
     
  11. At Home Dad (Returning)

    At Home Dad (Returning) Well-Known Member

    Personally, I would suggest those names of the
    eleven Golding's in Southend from linkedin I spoke
    of earlier. I bet one of them might give a result.

    a polite message asking if they had a grandad Les
    and granny Marianne (or Christa) in their life could
    throw up some answers. I've had stranger things
    happen in my research!

    As an aside, and to up the intrigue, perhaps Leslie
    was having a little joke with his occupation. Moulder
    in a foundry...

    I wonder if he worked on the shaping of iron curtains
     
  12. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    But it does seem you have solved the mystery, AHD, as "Marianne Kuenz" is given as the name of his girlfriend. In reading many RAF post war search reports I have noticed that we suffered from a terrible inability to properly spell German place and surnames. As we don't use the umlaut in English I can very easily see the authors of the book adding an "e" to her surname.

    .

    Just a note on the spelling of German words with umlauts, it is the correct procedure to add an "e" after the letter if the umlaut is not available. The Germans do it themselves.

    Names like Göring or Goering, Dönitz or Doenitz not to mention Heß or Hess. It's the same with the "ü".

    So techinically in German it can be either Kuenz or Künz. Although it would be common for an anglised German name to drop both the umlaut and "e".

    Anyway an interesting mystery to be solved here.

    Lee
     
  13. alieneyes

    alieneyes Senior Member

    Fair cop, Lee. I was trying to avoid getting into a long diatribe about the atrocious spelling of most European places by post-war RAF MREU/MRES teams. Some of the French and Belgian places in the files are as equally impossible to make out as the German ones.
     
  14. alieneyes

    alieneyes Senior Member

    a polite message asking if they had a grandad Les and granny Marianne (or Christa) in their life could
    throw up some answers. I've had stranger things
    happen in my research!

    So have I, AHD. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Let's see what the Goldings of Southend can add.
     
  15. Jedburgh22

    Jedburgh22 Very Senior Member

    There were insinuations that a couple of SOE Agents who had been POWs in Poland were grabbed in Odessa on the way back to UK.
     
  16. BB1980

    BB1980 Junior Member

    Any other initial for Lt Golding?

    I have a Leslie V Golding married a KUNZ
    in 1948 in Rochford (Southend) alternative
    name give KRIEGER

    He was previously married in 1942 in Thurrock
    spouse name MARSH. Did his wife die or divorce.
    Did he then rescue this German girl post war...
    I'm fascinated to find information about Leslie Golding on here - he's a bit of a legend in our family... but not a good one I'm afraid. My mother's father was Eric Marsh... his sister was Alice Marsh and she was Leslie Golding's first wife. They met in Southend where she was a trainee nurse and he was a patient during WW2. He was eleven years younger than my Great Aunt - I believe she was 31 when they married whilst he was just 20. He went off to Germany with the war and when he returned he came back ridden with VD (something she surmised thanks to her nursing skills and training). It transpired that he had fraternized with quite a few women whilst in Germany and had even had one or two children by one woman. Alice quickly divorced Leslie (which destroyed her and caused enormous family upset) and, the last we heard he was back in Southend (where he was from) and had not married any of the German women he had 'befriended' during the war. I'd be interested to hear if anyone knows anymore about this chap or could possibly give us his side of the story??
     
  17. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    This is a murky area. In her book Gulag, Anne Applebaum speaks of a number of British and American servicemen held by the Soviets, but the specifics are very uncertain.
     
  18. alieneyes

    alieneyes Senior Member

    I'd be interested to hear if anyone knows anymore about this chap or could possibly give us his side of the story??

    Hi BB,

    Many thanks for the addition to the Golding saga. It may also account for why I never heard back from ANY of the Goldings of Southend after following AHD's recommendation in Post #31.

    I will have to try a little harder.

    Thanks again.

    Regards,

    Dave
     
  19. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    I am pretty sure it is not the same fellow. I wrote Major Ellis "Dixie" Dean, the author of the piece of Luard's Own, and he advised me that Captain Leslie Golding, a solicitor before the war, went to work at New Scotland Yard post war .

    Just had an email in admin account from a relative of this Capt Golding with similar info.
     
    ash0212 likes this.
  20. alieneyes

    alieneyes Senior Member

    Thanks for that, Owen.

    When I was researching this I became rather intrigued at the story of "this" Leslie Golding.

    Did your correspondent advise you whether he is still with us or if he spent his entire post-war career with New Scotland Yard? As I mentioned in an earlier post, Captain Golding stopped attending reunions of Luard's Own in the mid '50s so while he is definitely not the man this thread is about it would be interesting to learn what happened to him.

    Regards,

    Dave
     

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