THE TRAITOR OF ARNHEM
Spycatcher By Lt. Col. Oreste Pinto, Published by Panther Books (1952)
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The climax of his confession of what, of course, the betrayal of Arnhem. When he was attached to the Canadian First Army and given the job of alerting the Resistance Movement in the Eindhoven area so that they could aid the forthcoming airborne landings, he realized at once that this was a golden opportunity for bigger and better treachery. He completed his Eindhoven mission – not without difficulty, for the local Resistance leader was suspicious of him and had him arrested. In fact, with supreme irony, as it turned out, the Canadians had to send an intelligence officer to “ bailout “ Lindemans and vouch for his integrity before the Eindhoven Resistance men would listen to his proposals. Even this setback did not deter him from his traitorous course. He met Colonel Kiesewetter of the defense at Driebergen on September 15, two days before the landings were to take place, and told him all the secret facts with which he had been entrusted. It is true that Lindemans did not mention the word “ Amhem." A certain section of the Dutch Press subsequently tried to make much of this and claimed that the lindemans could not have betrayed Arnhem because he did not know the exact area of the landings.
This argument is puerile nonsense. Lindemans may not have mentioned the actual name of Arnhem, but he did tell Colonel Kiesewetter that the landings were to take place north of Eindhoven. He said as much in his signed confession. Now every large-scale parachute landing, as any amateur tactician should know, is made with the object of seizing some vital area and holding it for a limited length of time. Paratroops of the elite of the Army, are too valuable to be scattered aimlessly over the countryside in penny packets. One glance at the map would suffice to tell the German military experts what points these airborne troops would be concentrated on the “ north of Eindhoven." There was no valuable objective in the open fields. No. The obvious targets were the bridges at Grave, Nijmegen and Arnhem. If these could be seized and held long enough for the main body to link up with the paratroops, then a dangerous bridgehead aimed at the heart of Germany would be developed.
So Lindemans's infamy can never be whitewashed. When he told Colonel Kiesewetter of the top-secret plan to land airborne forces “ north of Eindhoven" in two days' time, he betrayed the Battle of Arnhem.
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