Monday 4 March 2019

Christian Lindemans the Dutch Double Agent 1912-1946

In the book  "Arnhem" by Major General R E Urquhart at the end analysis, Major General Urquhart mentions Christian Lindemans a Dutch double agent and his alledged involvement with Operation Market Garden and the location of Panzer regiments at Arnhem.


The below is redacted from the book Arnhem
He took on the double duties after one of his younger brothers had been caught by the Gestapo in underground work. In exchange for assurances about his brothers fate, Lindemans proceeded to give away his colleagues to the Germans.
I have since talked to German officers who were at Arnhem, and who were taken completely by surprise when we landed. A retired Dutch Army Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Boeree, has gone to some trouble since the war to produce detailed evidence which to my mind establishes beyond doubt that Lindemans had no influence on the fate of my division.

The below is redacted from Wikipedia 
Sometime in February 1944, his younger brother Henk was arrested in Rotterdam by the Sicherheitspolizei and held captive at The Hague, awaiting execution for helping English people to escape from the Netherlands. Followed on 24 February by the arrest of his wife who was then 3 months pregnant, expecting her second child, a French cabaret singer who worked for the French Resistance named Gilberte Letuppe, the arrest was made by two members of the Gestapo assisted by four German soldiers heavily armed. They searched her bag and her room and found three ID cards, some Kommandantur signatures, pass and some German employment permits, all stolen the previous day, in addition to the items discovered, three revolvers and a box of ammunition, all to be hand over to a French resistance movement in Bordeaux (Lindemans was there at the time of his wife's arrest). 
Letuppe was taken prisoner and interrogated for eleven hours that day, she was beaten with such force in the face, she fell from her chair but she refused to speak. She was therefore taken to Fresnes Prison, south of Paris where she was jailed, manacled hand and foot with no food and water on a bed for four days. She was questioned violently a couple of times (twenty-four), beaten in the face on every occasion. Because of her silence, she spent the next six months in Solitary confinement.
By March 1944, he was able to initiate contact with Abwehr operatives in Brussels. Due to his inability to pay 10,000 Florins asked by the first intermediary agent in exchange for their freedom, Lindemans agreed to meet Dr. Gerhard, sometimes called Dr. German (pseudonym for Hermann Giskes) in a villa outside Brussels and agreed to become a double agent on condition that his wife and brother were released. Giskes claimed that he performed his part of the bargain, Henk Lindemans was released in due course and went as a voluntary worker to Germany where he had some acquaintances.
From here on, Lindemans (Abwehr codenamed CC) was instructed to renew contact with resistance agents and transmit back to Major Hermann Giskes information about the resistance movement in the occupied Netherlands, France and Belgium. In return he received large sums of money. During his time as an informant for the German military intelligence service, Lindemans was closely shadowed by an Abwehr agent. Lindemans' early denunciations created a Domino effect resulting in the arrest of 267 Dutch and Belgians resistance fighters. 
Since the war various authors have speculated that Lindemans' information led Field Marshal Model (The Tafelberg Hotel was Model's Tactical HQ in Oosterbeek in the neighbourhood of Arnhem and the Hartenstein Hotel was used as the German Officers' Mess. Model moved to Oosterbeek on 11 September.) to reposition the II SS Panzer Corps (commanded by General Bittrich whose headquarters was in Doetinchem 15 miles east of Arnhem.) under the cover of darkness to positions overlooking likely Airborne targets, mainly bridgeheads, near Arnhem and for the troops. They were camping in the nearby forests waiting for the Allied airdrop to begin.
According to Lindemans, the Allies wanted to attack Eindhoven. More specifically, Lindemans' information stated that the Allied attack would be north of Eindhoven and would consist of Airborne troops eventually backstopped by Allied armor.
Lindemans' information (report dated 22 August) was incomplete but enough to let the German High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) to pinpoint some of the enemy targets, likely bridges at Grave, Nijmegen and Arnhem, the last-mentioned was brought forward in Lindeman's report. Early September, Model who had the task to defend a line running from the North Sea to the Swiss border (500 miles), had ordered the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen and the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg to the neighbourhood of Arnhem for refitting and upgrading under the direction of Bittrich who would set up his command post in the area in preparation for the upcoming Allied invasion of Germany in reaction to the V-2 campaign.
Lindemans' second report (dated 15 September) was made into two summaries (general information and prospective aerial landings), enabled the Germans to counter-attack and send further reinforcements made of auxiliary units in the Arnem and Nijmegen area.
On 26 October 1944, Lindemans was denounced as a German spy by a fellow Abwehr agent named Cornelis Johannes Antonius Verloop nicknamed Satan Face (Abwehr codenamed Nelis), Verloop who at that time was in Allied hands, claimed that Lindemans had betrayed Operation Market Garden to intelligence officer Kiesewetter on Friday, 15 September at the Abwehr station in Driebergen.



LINKS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiaan_Lindemans
"Arnhem" Pen Sword Military Classics

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