WWI SPECIAL: The story of a daring escape by German POWs in Llandudno

Red Goblin · Jul 30, 2014

Just thought I'd share this tale from the North Wales Pioneer today:
WWI SPECIAL: The story of a daring escape by German POWs in Llandudno

WWI SPECIAL: The story of a daring escape by German POWs in Llandudno

Published date: 30 July 2014 |
Published by: Stephanie Price
Read more articles by Stephanie Price Email reporter

DURING the First World War, Dyffryn Aled in Llansannan, a private mental hospital built in the late 1800’s on the west bank of the River Aled, was converted into a prison.

Complete with iron bars on the window and located in an isolated, wooded area, this building was ideal as a holding place for German soldiers and officers captured during the war.

Three of those officers managed to escape the stone fortress on April 13, 1915.

The officers escaped by removing the iron bars, although there is no information on how they achieved this, and made their way to the Great Orme in Llandudno.

A rendevouz wih a German submarine had been arranged and the three men hid in the bushes on the steep cliffs in the hope of joining the U-boat.

However, as the sun dissappeared for the night the officers found it increasingly difficult to see the path to get down to the shore.

Just before dawn the submarine slipped away and the officers were left to wait for better luck the next night.

This time the prisoners managed to climb down the dangerous cliffs and reach the water to wait for their rescue.

The U-boat made an appearance but was unable to make contact with the shore, leaving the officers stranded once again.

After some time with nothing to eat the soldiers decided to split up and make their way to Llandudno.

Luck was still against them however, as one officer was given away by his accent and was arrested and taken to the police station.

The remaining two were spotted at the entrance to Llandudno pier by a taxi driver, who asked if they would like a lift.

When they agreed he swifty transported then to the army headquarters where they were placed under arrest.
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I'm intrigued how they made 1st contact in those pre-pocket-radio days - help from local sympathisers/agents ?

Cheers,
Steve

PS: To save you the bother of looking it up - Llansannan

horsapassenger · Jul 30, 2014

Steve

It looks as though you might find more information about this escape and the sentences received at the subsequent Court Martial in the file FO 383/65 at the National Archives

John

Red Goblin · Jul 30, 2014

Righty ho & thanks John,

That (Germany: Prisoners, including Extracts from letters of German prisoners in UK... The National Archives) certainly looks useful - possibly already having fed into some of the accounts turned up by "Dyffryn Aled" 1915 Llandudno - Google Search ...

Steve

Bernard85 · Jul 31, 2014

good day red goblin.sm.yesterday,01:36pm.re:ww1 special,the story of a daring escape by german pows,in Llandudno.a very interesting post,they were well organized.and they certainly had a local helping them.and how did they organize the radio contact with a u,boat.again i say.a local.(a sleeper as they called spies in waiting)i cannot say much for our navy,to let a u,boat come and go in the manner it did.great post,all prisoners of war try to escape.britich,or german.thank you for posting.regards bernard85

Red Goblin · Aug 2, 2014

Thanks Bernard but it seems the truth was far more mundane - all basically organised by post under the noses of our censors. Here's a show & tell of what I've pieced together ...

The most definitive version of this story seems to be in Ivor Wynne Jones' book 'Llandudno : queen of the Welsh resorts' - currently in its 2008 3rd edition. This is echoed by:
* An IWM copy of Jones' research (U-boat rendezvous Llandudno (79 / 1917))
* The local war museum (U-boat off Llandudno | the home front museum)
* Geoff Steen's 2012 booklet 'Facts, legends & myths about Llandudno' (790KB PDF here)

Then I found 4 contemporary newspaper articles - noting that the escape took place in August and not April as misreported by Ms Price above:
* Fri 27 Aug - Llangollen Advertiser p7

GERMAN OFFICERS RECAPTURED.
CAUGHT IN LLANDUDNO.
A SMART BARBER'S BOY.
Considerable 'cuteness was displayed by those who were mainly instrumental for the arrest at Llandudno of three German officers who-escaped from Dyffryn Aled Camp, at Llansannan, Denbighshire, on Saturday, and who were taken back to the camp this week. They refused to say anything of their adventures.

The capture of Captain Herman Hollens was the result of the smartness of a Llandudno barber's boy, who informed Police-constable Williams that a man, who spoke with a strong German ascent, had been in for a shave.
Police-constable Williams informed a correspondent that at about a a quarter to nine o'clock he noticted an exceptionally tall man, wearing a mackintosh, coming up Mostyn-street. The man was looking round," said the officer, "as though strange to the place, and I at once suspected that he was one of the missing officers, whose discription he answered. I kept him under observation. He went into the Cocoa House, where he was for five minutes, and after that he spent five minutes in the Tudno Vaults, next door. When he came out I challenged him. I asked him, ' What nationality are you ?' He replied at once that he was one of the German officers who had escaped, and he said, ' I want to be arrested. I am a lieutenant in tne German Navy, and the commander of a submarine.' I told him, ' You are just the man I am looking for.' At that he laughed. I asked him where were the other two officers, and he said, ' You keep your secrets and I will keep mine.' He was then locked up for the night. In his posession I found the sum of £28 8s. 3d. in British money. His name, as he signed it, was Lieutenant-Commander Hermann Tholens.

'CUTE CABBIES.
About half an hour later two men answering their description were near the Silver booking office at the other end of Mostyn-street, and in broken English asked a driver named Burgess, whose car was opposite the office, if they could hire the car. He suspected them, and asked them to go into the booking office. One of them was tall, wore glasses, and was dressed in a raincoat, a fawn hat, and blue puttees. The other man was shorter and less conspicuously attired. Neither could say much in English, but, in answer to a question to were they wished to go to, they said they wished to get to " the other side." The fugitves evidently became alarmed, and suddenly walked off up the treet.
They were next noticed by a cabman named Alfred Davies, in Prince Edward-square, close to the pier.
It was raining very heavily. He observed two men standing motionless in the square near the ornamental lamp, and drove up to them, asking if they wanted a cab. He could not understand what they said in reply, but after some conversation he gathered that they wanted to see " the Colonel."
" Then," said Davies, " I popped them into tbe cab and drove them to the headquarters of the London Welsh Battalion, close by. Afterwards I took them to the Imperial Hotel, where they went before the brigade major, Major Flower, and afterwards to the Royal Hotel, where they stayed the night, with guards all round the place. When I first saw them they looked positively starved, and I thought they were trying to give themselves up."
These officers, Captain H. J. von Henning and Lieutenant Hans W. von Heldorf, were in custody about half-past nine o'clock, three quarters of an hour after the arrest of Commander Tholens.
It is understood that in conversation with the military officers at Llandudno, who saw that they were given food and drink, of which they were in great need, the officers stated that they had been wandering about the upland country since their escape, hiding by day and trying to get to the coast by night. They were understood to say the poiice that it was a very easy matter to get out of Dyffryn Aled ; they could do it at any time. They did not consider that they had committed any offence against the civil law, as they had a right under international law to escape if they could.
Three officers were conveyed back to Dyffryn Aled under an armed guard in the motor ambulance van of the London Welsh Battalion.
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* Sat 28 Aug - London Standard p4 (no image to quote so I tidied up their OCR)

London Standard (Newspaper) - August 28, 1915, London, Middlesex
THE STANDARD, SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 1915.

ESCAPE TO MUSIC.
THREE GERMAN OFFICERS COURT-MARTIALLED.
“HANDCUFF” PROTEST.
A court-martial was held at Chester Castle yesterday on the three German officers, Captain-Lieutenant Tholens and Captain-Lieutenant Henning, both of the German navy, and Lieutenant von Helldorf, of the German Guard, who escaped from their quarters at Dyffryn Aled detention camp, North Wales, on August 14. They were recaptured three days later at Llandudno while waiting to catch the mail train to London. Tholens, who speaks English fluently, was first detected by a tobacconist, who gave information to the police. Shortly afterwards the other two officers engaged a landau on the promenade, but the driver, being suspicious, drove them to the guard room, where they were arrested.
It appears that they escaped from prison by filing some bars while a gramophone was kept playing in an adjoining room to drown the sound, Captain-Lieutenant Tholens pleaded guilty, and, replying to the president of the court, said he was bound as an officer to complain that when they were recaptured they were handcuffed, and on going back to prison they were kept waiting 15 minutes in full view of their fellow-officers and soldiers of the Guard. He regarded this as an indignity to an officer who had been made a prisoner when fighting in the war.
Henning also pleaded guilty, and, as in the previous case, he was formally found guilty. The evidence of the officers in charge of Dyffryn Aled Camp was interpreted to the prisoner. In his statement to the court he said that he surrendered to an officer at Llandudno, thinking that by so doing he would receive better treatment. He complained, however, that he was handcuffed when being conveyed back to the camp from Llandudno. This treatment, argued the prisoner, was quite unnecessary, as he had surrendered voluntarily, and there were a non-commissioned officer and three men with fixed bayonets in charge of him. In Germany only the lowest criminal would be transported like that.
The third officer. Lieutenant Hans Wemer von Helldorf, was next brought before the court, and charged with escaping from Dyffryn Aled Camp. He also pleaded guilty, and, when asked if he had anything to say, replied that it was the duty of a German officer to escape and return home if he had the chance. He came to the conclusion when at Llandudno that there was nothing else but to surrender, as it was impossible to escape from England. He repeated the protest of his comrades against the indignity of being handcuffed, as only the lowest criminals in Germany were put in handcuffs.
This concluded the public proceedings. The sentences will be promulgated in due course.
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* Thu 2 Sep - Flintshire Observer p3

Why German Officers Surrendered.
"IMPOSSIBLE TO ESCAPE FROM ENGLAND."
The three German officers who escaped from Dyffryn Aled Detention Camp, Llansannan, Denbighshire, and who were recaptured at Llandudno, were tried by court-martial at Chester Castle on Friday.
The officers are Lieutenant Horman Tholens, Lieutenant Hans Werner von Heldorf, and Captain-Lieutenant Heinrich Julius George von Henning.
The case of Tholens, who is of the German Navy, was taken first. He can speak English fluently, and it was due to the detective abilities of a Llandudno tobacconist that Tholens was recaptured, and the other two officers arrested.
Tholens, who is thirty-three years of age, went into a tobacconist's shop in Llandudno on August 17th, three days after his escape from the prison encampment, and asked for some cigarettes. His pronunciation caused the tobacconist to suspect that he was one of the escaped officers, and he sent a person who was in the shop to tell a policeman.
A constable, who happened to be in the vicinity of the shop, asked Tholens his nationality and he at once admitted he was a German officer. He was taken to the police office, and in one of his pockets was found a list of addresses of people in London, as well as £23 in gold and notes.
Subsequently the other two officers stopped a landau on the promenade, and the driver suspecting he had got the other escaped officers in his conveyance, drove to a military guardroom, and handed them over to the military authorities.
The men escaped from tne camp by an ingenious plan. The window by which they left the building is situated at one end, and is heavily barred. It is stated that, under cover of the music of a big gramophone, kept continuously in motion by their fellow-prisoners in a room behind, the three officers filed through two of the bars, and breaking these apart forced an aperture large enough to assist them in escaping by the window. Afterwards the severed bars were put in position.

PRISONER'S COMPLAINT.
Tholens, in reply to the president of the court (Brigadier-General R. Style, of the 119th Infantry Brigade), pleaded guilty to the charge of escaping from Dyffryn Aled.
Asked by the president whether he understood that, when he pleaded guilty, the court could find him guilty without calling any evidence, Tholens replied that he did.
Asked if he had anything to say, when the evidence had been read over to him, prisoner said :—-
"I wish to make this complaint, as I am bound, as an officer, to make this complaint. At LIandudno, on the 17th August, after our recapture, we got orders to be sent back to Dyffryn Aled. The officer of the escort came up to me and told me he was to handcuff us. He said he regretted it very much, as it was not habitual to handcuff officers. He said he was bound to do his orders, which were very exacting. I asked him if there was not a misunderstanding, and he said ' No.' I offered to give my parole not to escape, but he said it was against his orders.
" We were then handcuffed, and when we got to the prison we were kept waiting before the chief entrance to the house about fifteen minutes, so that we could be seen by our fellow-officers, and also by all the soldiers of the guard.
" The colonel came up, and the only question he asked was, 'Are these officers handcuffed ?' I regard this as a degrading indignity against an officer who has been made a prisoner in fighting in the war."
The court was then cleared for a few minutes, and afterwards the charge against Captain Henning, also of the German Navy, was proceeded with.
Prisoner pleaded guilty, and was, as in the previous case, formally found guilty. The evidence of officers in charge of Dyffryn camp was interpreted to the prisoner.
Accused, in his statement to the court, said that he surrendered to an officer at Llandudno, thinking that by so doing he would receive better treatment. He complained, however, that he was handcuffed when being conveyed back to the camp from Llandudno. It was Lieutenant-Colonel Cattell, who went to Llandudno from the camp, who ordered him to be handcuffed.
This treatment, argued prisoner, was quite unnecessary, as he had

SURRENDERED VOLUNTARILY,
and there being a non-commissioned officer and three men with fixed bayonets in charge and three men with fixed bayonets in charge of him, that was enough precaution against escape.
This treatment touched his sentiments of honour, as in Germany only the lowest criminal would be transported like that, and not an officer of the army or navy.
He was quite convinced that, according to the rules of the English Army, this handcuffing was not correct.
The third officer, Lieutenant Hans Werner von Helldorf (29), of the Imperial German Guards, was next charged, and he also pleaded guilty. He was in grey military uniform, and had a monocle. The other two prisoners, as captains in the German Navy, wore blue naval uniforms, with gold facings.
Asked through the interpreter whether he had anything to say, Helldorf said it was the duty of a German officer to escape or return home if he got the chance. There was an opportunity to escape, and it was his duty to escape. At Llandudno he came to the conclusion that there was nothing else but to surrender, as it was impossible to escape from England.
It would have been impossible to escape, said Helldorf, as there was an officer and three men carrying arms in the motor-car.
Arriving at the prison they were kept handcuffed in the presence of soldiers and ordinary workmen. Several English officers at Llandudno expressed their dissatisfaction at seeing the German officers handcuffed, and he entered his protest now against it, as only the lowest criminals in Germany were put in handcuffs. He wished to make a complaint in regard to his treatment.
This concluded the proceedings. The sentences will be promulgated in due course.
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* Fri 3 Sep - Abergavenny Chronicle p6

GERMANS WHO TRIED TO ESCAPE.
The three German officers who escaped from an internment camp in Denbighshire on August 14, and were recaptured at Llandudno four davs later, have been tried before a Military Court at Chester Castle. They were Capt.-Lieut. Herman Tholens, Lieut. Hans Werner von Helldorf, and Capt.-Lieut. Henrich Julius George von Henning.
The men escaped by filing the bars of the windows of their rooms, while a gramophone was kept playing in an adjoining room by other prisoners to drown the sound. All three officers pleaded guilty.
Captain Tholens, who was first tried, made a statement that they were handcuffed on being taken back to camp, and that they were kept waiting at the entrance for fifteen minutes in view of their fellow-officers and soldiers of the guard. That, he said, he regarded as a degrading indignity to an officer.
Captain Henning was next tried, and stated that he surrendered to an officer at Llandudno, thinking that by so doing he would receive better treatment. He complained. however, that he was handcuffed when being conveyed back to the camp from Llandudno. This treatment, said prisoner, touched his sentiments of honour more, as in Germany only the lowest criminals would be transported like that.
Lieut. von Helldorf, when asked if he had anvthing to say, replied that it was the duty of a German officer to escape and return home if he had the chance. He came to the conclusion at Llandudno that there was nothing else but to surrender, as it was impossible to escape from England.
Lieut. Helldorff, who belongs to the Imperial Guards of the German army, added that they were instructed if they could return to their home that they must do so. Hence it was his duty to attempt to escape. Several English officers in Llandudno, he added, expressed their dissatisfaction at seeing German officers in fetters.
The Court's decision will be promulgated in due course.
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Finally, effectively answering my contact query, are the 4th & 5th posts in this 2007 thread (uboat.net - Passengers in a U-27 class boat):

the escape was not controlled from germany.
The way of the informations was almost a one way.
The prisoners create the plan and try to send messages to germany.
But the english censor can "black" parts of the writing, so is the message uncomplete.
Answers from germany take many time, and the censor is watching.
Prisoners send a time for the "taxi", and the german admirality send ok.
Two submarines are a security. First priority is U-38 (valentiner), sunk the boat take U-27 the mission.
Both boats meet at 13.Aug.1915 in Liverpool-Bay.
U-38 take the mission and U-27 (wegener) continued this patrol. Six days later sunk U-27 from Q-Ship BARALONG.
...
In fact there was a limited two way communication possible. One of the prisoners was a wireless officer and he had rigged an antenne that allowed them to listen to the German naval radio (Naunen), so there was a possibility of getting signals to them.
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Steve

Bernard85 · Aug 3, 2014

good day red goblin,sm yesterday,10:42pm.re:daring escape.#5.thank you for your informative reply.regards bernard85

Red Goblin · Apr 20, 2015

The Daily Post's take on the story posted yesterday ...

The Colditz of North Wales... how Denbighshire stately home became a POW camp for 100 German soldiers - Daily Post

The Colditz of North Wales... how Denbighshire stately home became a POW camp for 100 German soldiers

10:49, 19 April 2015

By James McCarthy

When World War I broke out, 25 bedroom Dyffryn Aled near Llansannan was rented by the army. Now it's been replaced by a bungalow

UGC
Dyffryn Aled. View of the grounds of the officers' camp

With 25 bedrooms and located in remote moorland Dyffryn Aled was a fabulous house for aristocratic Lady Dundonald and her family.
But when World War One broke out it was rented by the Army – who promptly turned it into the Colditz of North Wales.
Almost 100 German naval officers were held there as it was used as a prisoner of war (POW) camp.
And like Colditz – the site of a famous castle used as a camp to house Allied servicemen during both World War One and Two – it became famous for escapes.
“As far as I know there were two escapes,” historian Berwyn Evans said.

UGC
An officer's bedroom at Dyffryn Aled
On April 4, 1915, two men got out.
They were loose for seven days before being captured close to Llanbedr, in Merionnydd, Gwynedd on April 11.
Both were convicted of trying to escape and sentenced to 28 days in Chester Jail.
The prisoners fled while pretending to garden. All the time they were digging an eight-yard long tunnel. They passed under a wall and almost reached open countryside but their ruse was discovered by their captors.
“We could have had ‘Escape from Dyffryn Aled’ instead of Alcatraz,” Berwyn said.
The Germans spoke little English and no Welsh and as a result struggled not to be noticed.
“That is the problem in rural areas,” Berwyn said.
“If you want not to be noticed you have to be in a city.

Sub was on the wrong side of the cliffs
“They were caught and walked back to the police station and to Chester Military Court and came back to Dyffryn Aled.”
Lieutenant Commander Hermann Tholens and Captains Heinrich von Henning and Hans von Heldorf fled in August 1915.
They walked 20 miles to Llandudno where they ordered breakfast in a café before heading onto the Great Orme.
The plan was to meet a U-Boat off the coast.
“They had three nights to make contact,” Berwyn said. “The first night they could not find their way down to the beach.
“The second night they went back to the beach. The signal was to be a flashlamp shone in a circle.”
But the sub was on the wrong side of the cliffs.
“So they went back up to the Great Orme,” Berwyn said. “The third night a hell of a storm brewed up and they were snookered again.”
They were caught, sentenced to three months in Chelmsford Prison, and returned to the camp.

"There was a duty upon them to escape"
“But they were not really in a hurry to escape because they were having a grand old time,” Berwyn said.

“But there was a duty upon them to escape.”
The sailors did not have a tough time in the camp where the worst complaint was that the roof sometimes leaked.
“It had 25 bedrooms and so on. They had cooked breakfasts and cooked evening meals and cigars and cigarettes and wine,” Berwyn said.
“The locals were complaining because they were supposed to be POWs and they were having a far better time of it than anyone.
“They played cricket in the meadows below the park.”
One inmate was Lieutenant Wolf von Tirpitz who was the son of Grand Admiral Tirpitz, Secretary of State for the German Navy and the man who had masterminded the growth of the Kaiser’s Dreadnought fleet.
Tirpitz was a friend of Winston Churchill – then First Lord of the Admiralty.

“Churchill sent a telegram to the admiral apologising for capturing his son because they were quite friendly,” Berwyn said.
“How’s that for a war?”

The admiral told the Daily Mail: “I know Mr and Mrs Churchill quite well.
“I played tennis with Mrs Churchill at the Queen’s Club last summer and lunched with them both.”

After the war
The huge property was built in 1777 by Joseph Turner while the wings and interior were by John Woolfe.
Documents from the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales say: “The house was sold shortly before the First World War broke out to Countess Dundonald of Gwrych Castle.
“During the First World War the house was commissioned and used to imprison captured German army officers.”
When the war ended in 1918 Dyffryn Aled became run down. It was returned to private ownership in 1919.
In the 1960s it was knocked down and in its place stands a bungalow.
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Steve

Red Goblin · Aug 12, 2015

A related story posted yesterday ...

Llandudno family seek descendants of German POW who handed over medal 100 years ago - Daily Post
(NB: linked article additionally has a non-shareable 2'44" video clip attached ...)

Llandudno family seek descendants of German POW who handed over medal 100 years ago

19:00, 11 August 2015

By Jez Hemming

Sarah Lesiter-Burgess and mum Laura Lesiter want to return Lt-Cmdr Hermann Tholens' Iron Cross to his family

The incredible story of how a Conwy family ended up with a German POW’s Iron Cross has been revealed, as they seek to return the medal to the officer’s family.
Sarah Lesiter-Burgess, 42 and from Glan Conwy, and her mother Laura Lesiter, 73, would like to return the Iron Cross of former German POW Lieutenant-Commander Hermann Tholens.
Tholens, who was on the run from a Denbighshire POW camp, handed the medal - the Eiserne Kreuz 2 Klasse - to Sarah’s one-year-old grandmother Beti Davies on Llandudno’s Mostyn Street almost exactly 100 years ago.
For Sarah, who only heard the incredible story recently, it is time to give back this piece of family history to its owners, and she hopes to track Tholens’ descendants down.

“We have got history behind it but it’s another family’s history,” said Sarah.
“We would like to know if there’s any more of this story that his family know.”

WATCH: Penmaenmawr 'quarry boys' who fought in Gallipoli campaign honoured by First Minister
Sarah’s mother Laura also wants to know if Tholens’ family is aware of their forefather’s wartime story.
“It would be nice to know whether his family know about him giving the medal to my grandmother,” said Sarah.
Korvettenkapitan Tholens, second in command on the cruiser Mainz, was picked up by a British destroyer in the Battle of Heligoland off the coast of Schleswig Holstein in 1914.
He was sent to Dyffryn Aled POW camp near Llansannan in Denbighshire, after a short stay at Chatham’s naval hospital.
With fellow captive Capt Heinrich von Hennig, he hatched a plan to escape and rendezvous with the U-38 submarine off the Great Orme.
On August 13, 1915, they walked out of the front gate of Dyffryn Aled in civilian clothes and made their way to Llandudno.
Their escape, with cellmate Capt Wolff-Dietrich Baron von Helldorf, seemed to be going to plan, and they even stood on the promenade to watch a parade of soldiers at one point.
After somehow failing to spot U-38 in the small hours of August 14, the dejected trio split up and attempted to get a train to London.
Meanwhile, Sarah’s great-grandmother Laura Jane Jones was unaware that reports she was hearing of three escapees in her job as a telephone operator would strike so close to home.
On August 16, she was walking along Mostyn Street with her daughter Beti when they were stopped by a “handsome man”, who complimented Laura on her beautiful baby before reaching down into the pram and bidding them good day.
It was only later that Laura realised the man had left a precious medal with her daughter and the family pieced together who he was.
Later that day, Tholens handed himself in to local bobby Morris Williams, and the other two handed themselves in later that evening.
“It wasn’t until later that they realised the Iron Cross was in my grandmother’s hand,” said Sarah.
“My mum told me the story 18 months ago and so I started talking about it with her.
“I said to my mum we shouldn’t really have it.
“We want to return it to their family and return it to their country.”
Tholens was repatriated to Germany in 1919 and later joined the Nazi Party, working as an Obergeneralarbeitsfuhrer for the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD), militarising the workforce and indoctrinating it with Nazi ideology. He died in 1967.
The Daily Post has approached the German Embassy to try to find Tholens’ descendants.
Click to expand...

Steve

Red Goblin · Aug 17, 2015

... and German World War I POW who gave Iron Cross to Llandudno baby became senior Nazi - Daily Post

German World War I POW who gave Iron Cross to Llandudno baby became senior Nazi

15:08, 16 August 2015

By Jez Hemming

Lieutenant-Commander Hermann Tholens became an enthusiastic support of Hitler and a defender of the Third Reich

Home Front Museum

Lt-Cmdr Hermann Tholens, pictured in his later years as a member of the Nazi Party

An on the run World War One German POW who gave his Iron Cross to a Llandudno baby before handing himself in to the British authorities became a top official in the Third Reich.
Last week the Daily Post reported how Lieutenant-Commander Hermann Tholens handed over his war medal to Beti Davies, then just one-year-old and her mother Laura Jane Davies in Mostyn Street Llandudno in 1915.
Mr Tholens then handed himself in to police in the town, after fleeing a Llansannan prisoner of war camp.

Beti Davies, left, with her mother Laura Jane Jones around the time they met Hermann Tholens

He, along with Captain Heinrich von Hennig and Captain Wolff-Dietrich Baron von Helldorf had planned to rendezvous with a German U-boat (U-38) off the Great Orme. But the plan ended in failure and he was returned to the camp was eventually repatriated in May 1918.

Llandudno family seek descendants of German POW
Last week’s story prompted Denbighshire historian Berwyn Evans and Daily Post reader Bill Chapman to get in touch about Mr Tholens’ exploits in later life as a Nazi official in the lead up to World War II.
He featured in the book “Soldiers As Citizens: Former Wehrmacht Officers in the Federal Republic of Germany”, which was written by Jay Lockenour.
Mr Lockenour wrote that: “Hermann Tholens believed that Hitler had ‘saved’ Europe by staving off communism in several countries.”

LOOK: North Wales Royal Nazi photographs go on public display
The author went on to claim that the former POW believed even after the war that the dictator’s brutal regime had “positive effects on Germany”.
Mr Lockenour added: “Tholens mentioned the common assertion that Hitler had solved the unemployment crisis arising from the Great Depression.

Jez Hemming

Laura Lesiter (right) and Sarah Lesiter-Burgess look at Lt-Cmdr Tholens' Iron Cross

“Among career soldiers, of course, the revival of military power that took place under ‘National Socialism’ was extremely popular.”
Mr Evans sent in more evidence of the German’s escape from Dyffryn Alyn prison camp at Llansannan and his inglorious return after surrendering.

The Colditz of North Wales...
Camp documents detailed Mr Tholens’s “hatred” of the British and how simple it was to escape from detention at Llansannan.
Mr Evans also said that when Mr Tholens was first captured he was imprisoned with the son of German Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, who helped create the modern German navy.
Mr Tholens joined the Nazi Party in 1931 and a year later worked in “job planning” for the party.
In 1935 his rise continued as he became head of office work planning and work education in the national leadership of the Labour Service.
He rose to Reich Labour Service director in 1937 and rose to Chief of Air Defence (West) during WW2.
Born in Leer, Hannover in 1882, he lived to the age of 85, passing away in Lübeck, Schleswig Holstein in 1967.
Click to expand...

Steve

Lindele · Aug 17, 2015

Steve,
I guess Herman Tholens place of birth was Leer in Ostfriesland near Emden in Niedersachsen some 225km away from Hannover, the capital of Niedersachsen. If he passed away in Luebeck in 1967, the best way to double check on that may be the Town Luebeck and e.g. the archives. Do you want me to check that? The name Tholens is pretty popular in Ostfriesland and thereabouts. A few hundred are listed in the local telephone directory.

Stefan.

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WWI SPECIAL: The story of a daring escape by German POWs in Llandudno

Red Goblin Senior Member

horsapassenger Senior Member

Red Goblin Senior Member

Bernard85 WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

Red Goblin Senior Member

Bernard85 WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

Red Goblin Senior Member

Red Goblin Senior Member

Red Goblin Senior Member

Lindele formerly HA96

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WWI SPECIAL: The story of a daring escape by German POWs in Llandudno

Red Goblin Senior Member

horsapassenger Senior Member

Red Goblin Senior Member

Bernard85 WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

Red Goblin Senior Member

Bernard85 WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

Red Goblin Senior Member

Red Goblin Senior Member

Red Goblin Senior Member

Lindele formerly HA96

Share This Page

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