Evening star., 1950-06-08

sky towards England. Christian
Lindemans had by his spying done
his best to bring about the defeat
of the Allies in the Battle OF Arm
hem, which dragged out the war
by eight months. He was being
taken now to a place in England
where specialists would persuade
O full confession out Of him.
There was a country house out
side London, belonging to the
British Intelligence Service, where
skilled psychologists and interro-
gators could operate" upon the
mind Of traitor and extract full,
detailed confessions without any
need for the clumsy torture I'M
plements Of the Gestapo.
Kept There Two Weeks:
Here it was that I sent Linde-
mans. They kept him two weeks.
When he was flown back to me,
this time pinioned with q pair Of
Scotland Yards special. adjust
able ratchet handouts, the great,
obdurate King Kong had made a
full and detailed confession that
covered "a pages Of typed foolscap!
There was not O bruise nor
scar on his body. not needle
mark on his arm. His eyes, al
though more Subdued than they
had been, did not show any un-
due strain from fear Or sleepless-
ness. He had Just been cross
examined by experts-that was
all. But I could not help thinking
what a lesson it would have been
to some of the Nazi torturers,
Drexler and Himmler. who often
kept frail youths and women
strapped for hours to instruments
for inflicting agony. without ex-
tracing more than groans!
I put Lindemans In a cell of
Rreda (Holland) Prison, took the
highly confidential confession to
my Office to study.
The tale Of Lindemans' perfidy
had begun in 1943 when his popu-
larity as a leader of the Dutch
Interior Forces Of Resistance was
at its highest. He had begun col
lecting jewels and valuables from
rich ladies-not all of them young
to provide fighting funds for
the underground escape route"
through Belgium and Holland into
Portugal.
The wives and daughters of rich
Flanders and Netherlands fami-
lies, whose husbands were In many
cases in Nazi concentration camps,
their big houses taken for German
Army billets. were only too glad to
entruSt their Secreted diamonds
and heiflooms to a fine, romantic
warrier like Lindemans, for the
Resistance.
Spent Fortunes.
He spent these fortunes in tav-
ernS and night clubs, adorned his
huge hairy wrists with gold straps,
elaborate wrist watches; gave
priceless diamond and sapphire
pendants to cafe girls for favors,
describing them boastfully as
'loot from the Nazis."
In February of 1914 the Gestapo
had captured Lindemans' young
est brother during a raid upon a
house through which the escape
route" functioned. Also. they cap
tured girl cabaret dancer named
Veronica, who had grown up next
door to Lindemans in Rotterdam,
and undoubtedly had been his
sweetheart since childhood.
Lindemans often had three or
four different girls in one ca
rousal-yet, if he loved anybody
other than his own boastful self,
1t was undoubtedly the girl We
ronica.
Perhaps the worst feeling a
man can endure is to know that
his loved ones are being ques-
toned under NaZi torture.
Lindemans stood it for 10 days.
To his worries-and perhaps the
most important of his worries
was added the fact that other Re-
sistance leaders were growing in
creasingly curious to know what
had happened to the fortunes in
jewelry and money that had been
entrusted to him.
Contacted Spies
So, in March of 1914, he con-
tacted two Dutchmen in Brussels
whom he knew to be in Nazi pay
One was Anthony Damen. The
other man was Cornelis Verloop
He met them in the cafe Of the
Hotel deS Grands Boulevards on
the Place Rogier in Brussels.
AS I read all this in Lindeman's
confession, I realized it checked
absolutely with what Verloop had
himself told me. under question