PEEBLES PROFILES
EPISODE 214
Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen
PRE-WAR YEARS
Born Hermann Thomsen in Flensburg (recently lost by the Danish crown and incorporated into Prussia) on March 10, 1867, he was part of a farming family from Dithmarschen. Hermann’s grandfather Peter Thomsen was married to Martha von der Lieth. Since Martha was the last of her family, the couple received permission to use the combined name “von der Lieth-Thomsen”.
Lieth-Thomsen joined the Prussian Army in the autumn of 1887 as part of the Schleswig-Holstein Pioneer Battalion Number Nine based in Harburg. He was a Fahnenjunker (officer cadet) the following year, then promoted to second lieutenant in September 1889.
In the fall of 1890, Lieth-Thomsen became part of the First Lorraine Pioneer Battalion Number 16 in Metz. Six years later, he joined the Third Engineering Inspection in Straßburg (detached to Fortress Metz), and became a first lieutenant in February 1897. Later that same year, Lieth-Thomsen entered Berlin’s Prussian War Academy.
Months after the dawn of the 20th century, Lieth-Thomsen was back with the Third Engineering Inspection. He became part of the Great General Staff in the spring of 1901… before going back a third time with Third Engineering Inspection two years later. But this third stint lasted only two weeks. On April 18, 1903, Lieth-Thomsen remained in Straßburg to become a company commander with the Second Alsatian (Fortress) Engineer Battalion Number 19. He was promoted to captain in the autumn of 1904 and went back to Berlin’s Great General Staff one year later.
In January 1908, the Great General Staff established a technical staff to monitor foreign and domestic progress in aviation, motorized transport, and telegraphy. Captain Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen was appointed as its head… serving under Erich Ludendorff. In March 1911, Lieth-Thomsen was promoted again to major. He was later transferred to the staff of the Railway Regiment Number Two (based in Hanau) in mid-February 1914.
THE GREAT WAR
Less than six months later, Europe was engulfed in a great war. When Imperial Germany entered the conflict in August 1914, Major Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen was in Posen with the title of Airship Inspection Officer. Soon, he was Chief of Operations with the Mixed Landwehr Brigade von der Goltz. But by September, Lieth-Thomsen was Chief of Operations with Eberhard von Claer’s newly-formed XXIV Reserve Corps, which consisted mainly of wartime volunteers who did not wait to be called up for service.
By April 1915, Lieth-Thomsen was appointed Chief of Field Aviation for the German Army’s Supreme Command. He still held the rank of major, which was far more junior than that of his opposite numbers in the Royal Flying Corps. But just under a year later, Lieth-Thomsen was made a lieutenant colonel.
Nearly eight months after his promotion (November 12, 1916), the German Army Air Services was reorganized into the Luftstreitkräfte (Air Force). Leith-Thomsen named Chief of Staff to the newly appointed Commanding General of the Air Service (abbreviated in German as Kogenluft), Ernst von Hoeppner. Leith-Thomsen would serve in this capacity until after the end of the First World War.
With the spring of 1917 well underway, Lieth-Thomsen was awarded the Pour le Mérite… even though as a senior commander, he was not directly involved in air combat. As a result, his “Blue Max” was resented by some of his junior officers. Hermann’s son, Joachim von der Lieth-Thomsen (also a pilot), was hit by anti-aircraft fire while flying over the Thames Estuary in July 1917. He was captured by the British… and died a few days before the armistice as a POW.
RETIREMENT, RETURN, AND DEATH
Less than three months hostilities ended, Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen was made a full colonel. But the defeated Germans were required to disestablish their Air Services. Lieth-Thomsen served in the Aviation Department of the Prussian War Ministry in the first two months of 1919. He was then assigned to other duties at the War Ministry. With the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on the fifth anniversary of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination (June 28, 1919), Germany was forbidden to possess an air force. Lieth-Thomsen resigned his position at the Prussian War Ministry and retired from military service in August 1919.
During the 1920s, Lieth-Thomsen actively participated in efforts to build a secret air force in the Soviet Union. In 1923, he first made contact with the Soviets. Two years later, Lieth-Thomsen was instrumental in establishing the German Military Mission in the Soviet Union, namely the Lipetsk fighter-pilot school. Soon, eye problems led to his going blind… and in 1928, Lieth-Thomsen moved back to the island of Sylt in his native Schleswig-Holstein.
Despite his ailment, Lieth-Thomsen re-entered military service with the creation of the Luftwaffe in 1935. He was named Head of Military Science at the Reich Air Ministry and granted the rank of major general. Further promotions to lieutenant general and General der Flieger (General of the Aviators) were given before the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939.
Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen died in Sylt on May 5, 1942 at the age of seventy-five. He was buried in the Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery in Berlin.
AWARDS AND DECORATIONS
– Iron Cross of 1914, Second and First Class
– Knight’s Cross of the House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords
– Pour le Mérite (April 8, 1917)
– Cross of Honor
– Wehrmacht Long Service Award, Fourth to First Class
– Combined Pilots-Observation Badge