Waldemar Franz von Kroeber

Alias Woldemar

Born 14.04.1887     Place St Petersburg, North-Western Russia    Ethnic/cultural origin German/Russian     Religion Lutheran

Cousin Tapken, Paul

Residence before arrival at Australia served for 2 years in the Medical Corps, St Petersburg, was seaman for about 10 years

Arrived at Australia

            from Russia  on 14.04.1909     per Juno   disembarked at Bunbury, WA

Residence before enlistment Bunbury, WA

Occupation 1911 labourer, lumper, 1915 sailor

Service

service number 3504   enlisted 24.07.1915   POE Bunbury, WA

unit 16th Battalion   rank Private

place Western Front, 1916-1918      casualties WIA 1916

final fate RTA 28.02.1919       discharged 3.06.1919

Naturalisation 1911

Residence after the war Fremantle, WA

Died

Materials digitised naturalisation (NAA)

digitised service records (NAA)

approval for overpayment of sustenance (NAA)

digitised ASIO file (NAA)

From Russian Anzacs in Australian History:

It is not always easy to determine the level of this Russianisation, as I found when first looking at the file of Waldemar Franz von Kroeber, a Lutheran, with German parents, who had served two years in the AIF on the Western front, and was wounded at Mouquet Farm. At first sight, he seemed to be definitely a Baltic German and I would have said he was one if I hadn’t found a letter written in Russian his sister Liza sent him from Leningrad in the 1930s. The letter was addressed to her ‘little brother Volodia’, which sounded so characteristically Russian. The letter emotionally describes all the misfortunes that befell their large family following the revolution. Her unsophisticated words made me realise how Russianised this family actually was — that, really, they were Russian and not German, no matter how Germanic his name appeared to be.

    As for Liza’s letter, the Australian security service confiscated it when her brother Waldemar came to their attention owing to his affiliation with the Communist Party of Australia. The ways of the security service were harsh; yet I am grateful to the official who decided to keep this pile of pages covered in Russian script (which they never even translated into English), instead of throwing them away — many officials never preserved this kind of material at al.

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