DANCE-MASTER TO THE WEHRMACHT!

8/13/2019 DANCE-MASTER TO THE WEHRMACHT!

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Dance-Master to the Wehrmacht!

How Walter Praetorious, a son of the Scottish Clan

MacThomas, became an officer of the German

Abwehr (Secret Service) during the 2nd

World

War, sent spies to England, and taught the

German Army how to dance

Robert GriffingWar Dance

Clan MacThomas Crest Badge


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Dance-Master to the Wehrmacht!

National Archives

Oberleutnant Walter Praetorious of the German Abwehr (Secret Service) during WW2, born 1911

I met Walter Praetorious (above) in the pages of a popular book of non-fiction. It was about a hardened

young English criminal, con-man and chancer called Eddie Chapman who became a double agent during the

Second World War. Praetorious, a Lieutenant in the Abwehr (German Secret Service), was just one of the

minor characters in the book. He was part of a German espionage group working in France and later Oslo

under a spymastercalled Stephan von Grning (photo next page). It was Praetorious, an ardent Nazi at the

time, who had actually found and recruited the disaffected ex-convict Chapman as a German agent.

Chapman had been serving a three year sentence in a Jersey gaol when the German Army (Wehrmacht)

occupied the Channel Islands. He was discovered there by Praetorious in March 1942 and brought to Parisfor interrogation and training. Over the next three years the group twice parachuted Chapman into southern

England to spy for the Reich. On both occasions he contacted MI5 on landingnot for patriotic reasons but

purely to save his own skin from the hangmans noose.

But as I learnt more of the young Praetorious background and of his bizarre behaviour as the apparently

dedicated Nazi in this group of spies, he became by far the most interesting character in the book. In contrast

there was the traditionalist von Grning, a liberal-minded aristocrat and veteran of the Great War, and his

star agent, the thoroughly disreputable Chapman. We found a letter that Praetorious had written long after

the war in which he vividly describes his own background. His parents were both from merchant families of

German stock based in Riga, one of the old Hanseatic Ports on the Baltic which was then under Russian

control. His mother, Hanna Thoms, had strong Scottish ties and a passport to match. Her grandfather, HenryThoms, a flax merchant in Dundee and a member of Clan MacThomas, had immigrated to Riga in about

1835 where he married a German girl. Their elder son, Hannas father, was sent back to school in Dundee,

so that the young Walter Praetorious was well aware of his Scottish blood despite a youth disrupted by war.


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Courtesy of Ingeborg von Grning

Stephan von Grning, the aristocratic German

spymaster who worked with Praetorious in France

and Oslo. He had been a cavalry officer in WW1.

In 1898 the Praetorious family had moved from Riga to Warsaw where Walter was born in 1911. When war

arrived in 1914, Walters father went into the Russian Army, and Hanna took the children to stay with her

sister-in-law at Saratov on the Volga in Russia, 1300 miles away to the east - safe enough while war raged

between the Baltic and the Black Sea. But in 1917 Bolshevik revolutionaries seized their Saratov property.

Hanna could not return to Warsaw, which was then in German (enemy) hands, so went to Riga where she

still had friends. She and the children returned to Warsaw in 1918 when it became Polish, and her husband

rejoined the family there (see family pedigree on last page). Finally they decided effectively to change sides

and return to their German roots. So they settled in Berlin where, in 1930, the 19 year old Walter Praetorious

went to the university. Three years later, having obtained a good degree, he went as an exchange student to

Southampton University in southern England. There he was known as Rusty because of the reddish tinge

to his hairpossibly a hint to his ancestry. He was fiercely proud of his Scottish blood and used to remind

anyone who would listen that he was a scion of the Chiefly line of Clan MacThomas. He was a popular

student in England and remembered as having a kind, gentle type of personality. There he excelled at

rowing, playing the flute, and dancing. During the vacshe studied English and Scottish folk dancing with

enormous enthusiasm, travelling round the country by bicycle photographing the dances; after that he

pronounced Morris dancing as the foundation of world culture!

His intention had been to remain in England as a teacher, but in 1936 he returned to a Germany where the

Nazis had seized power three years before. He was greeted by his mother, Hanna Thoms, who is describedin British police files as a rabid Nazi, presumably reflecting the mood of the times. Her sonsobsession

with folk dancing was soon replaced by a passion for fascism; he embraced the new creed with characteristicfervour, rising swiftly through the ranks of the Hitler Youth. This and his subsequent behaviour suggest that

he was deeply impressionable and given to excessive and irrational enthusiasms.


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PEDIGREE of the THOMS family of Dundee & Riga, and the

PRAETORIOUS family of Riga, Warsaw, Berlin & Goslar

George Thoms of Dundee, Scotlandof the Clan MacThomas

_________|____________

| | 1838 1854

Patrick Thoms Henry Thoms 1798-1846 = Emilie Nlting = Eduard Hollander 1820-97.Provost of Dundee Dundee flaxmerchant | born 1815 Last Mayor of Riga before it

Emigrated to Riga (Hanseatic port) | German became a Russian town

then a German town. All spoke |

German, knew English, some |

French & Russian |

|

___________________________________|___Thoms____________________

| | | |

Eliza Henry Thoms 1841-1904 = Hanna Berg George Jessie

Sent to school in Dundee | died aged 32

Returned to Riga 1856 |Merchant. Later Brazilian Consul |

| ___Praetorious______

| c.1898 | |

Hanna M Thoms = Richard Praetorious sister = wealthy husband

Married in Riga. Died 1947 | Spoke German but Riga was living at Saratov

British passport 1898 | then under Russian control. on the Volga river

1898 they moved to Warsaw (Russian). | 1898 Merchant in Warsaw. in Russia

WW1 German in our hearts but living in Russia| 1914-18 in Russian Army fighting

1914-17 Family went to Richards sister | against Germany/Austria.

living at Saratov, Russia, until property seized | 1918 Rejoined family at Warsaw.

by Bolsheviks. Could not return to Warsaw |which was in German hands so went to Riga and |

later returned to Warsaw until it became Polish |

in 1918, when the whole family moved to Berlin. |

WW2: Hanna described as a rabid Nazi in|

British police files |

|

____________________________________|________Praetorious________________________

| | | 1942 |

Emily 1899-1965 Hans Richard 1905-40 = ? Walter (aka Rusty), born 1911 = Friederika. Ilse

Married in Berlin | Berlin University; 1933 Southampton Univ. 1902-04

WW2 German soldier | Played flute, rowed, passion for English and

KIA in Poland1940 | Scottish country dancing, and his Scottish blood.

| Returned to Germany 1936 aged 25. Hitler Youth.

Gerhard WW2: Oberleutnant in Abwehr. | Alias: Thomas.

Living in W Berlin 1988 1942 He recruited the double agent Eddie Chapman.

Settled in Goslar after the war as a teacher.Alive 1988.

|

4 children (including Richard and Cornelia, both married)

SOURCES: Walter Praetorious letter of 1988 addressed to Griselda Turnbull: the original manuscript held

by Brian Turnbull, is on the web athttp://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.thoms/145/mb.ashx.

This is the main source for the material in BLACKon this page. The source for the text in RED above, and

in BLACKon previous pages is Ben Macintyres book Agent Zigzag (Bloomsbury 2007).

PRAETORIOUS is the Latin version of the German name Schultze meaning local official. A name

change which was fashionable in the 16th& 17thcenturies especially it seems among scholars and musicians.
http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.thoms/145/mb.ashxhttp://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.thoms/145/mb.ashxhttp://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.thoms/145/mb.ashx

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DANCE-MASTER TO THE WEHRMACHT!