Christiaan Lindemans

The NARA retains some files on Lindemans and the documents are located among the Office of the Secretary of Defense (RG 330) records. The Lindemans files are still security classified as late as 2015.

Allied aircraft reconnaissance, used on 11 and 16 September but not on the 15th due to bad weather, noted nothing critical being detected.

In 1997, Lindemans' suicide note surfaced and had provided satisfactory evidence that Lindemans took his own life.

On Tuesday, 17 June 1986, Dutch pathologist Martin Voortman positively identified a skeleton exhumed as that of Christiaan Lindemans, according to Voortman, the skeleton had an irregularly healed break in its left ankle, consistent with Lindemans' medical records. The body was recovered at dawn the same day from Rotterdam Crooswijk cemetery from a coffin sandwiched between those of Lindemans' parents.

During the 1980s, Verloop was interviewed by French historian, Michel Rousseau about two SOE networks in the north of France, the Garrow-Pat O'Leary network and the Farmer network. The article was printed in the French quarterly publication Revue d'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale et des conflits contemporains in 1984. He was also interviewed by American journalist, Brendan M. Murphy, for his projected book on British spy turned traitor Harold Cole, published in 1987.

A close-up of a Beware, the Walls Have Ears poster can be seen in Richard Attenborough's 1977 film adaptation of Operation Market Garden, A Bridge Too Far.

The last-mentioned was brought forward in Lindeman's report. In early September, Field Marshall Model who had the task of defending 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 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.

In the summer of 1946, a Dutch newspaper published an article on a prison break which occurred at Scheveningen Prison. Three men who were being held at the camp for political delinquency escaped, with one of the escapees being Lindemans (a previous escape attempt by Lindemans from the same place having been thwarted), he may have been allowed to escape to South America after a body-swap.

In April 1946, Lindemans' wife visited the Soviet Embassy in Rotterdam, at least on three occasions. The British intelligence service took the matter seriously and intervened with the help of one of their agents inside Scheveningen Prison to get through to Lindemans, in exchange for his wife's safety, he agreed to share information on a Russian organisation that had ties with senior members of France, Germany and the Netherlands Armed forces and civilian administrations. This organisation is said to be all over the Netherlands and actively trying to absorb all Dutchmen who served in the SS during the war, had taken into custody German engineers who had worked on the German atomic project and exfiltrated them to the Soviet Union, the same group had now spread to Persia, possibly threatening British interests. The British intelligence service cross-checked Lindemans' report and found it to be very accurate.

The same mysterious organisation might have been involved in Verloop breaking out of Scheveningen Prison (1946). According to his British personal file, classified 'Red', Verloop was regarded by the British intelligence service as one of the most dangerous German spies to have worked in the Netherlands. He was last seen in 1949, reappearing decades later, although Lindemans was believed to have known where Verloop was hiding. Verloop's name was on the official list of German agents kept by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris in his office in Berlin.

He has been blamed for betraying Operation Market Garden and as a result helped the Germans win the battle of Arnhem in 1944. The loss of this battle prolonged the war for six months and allowed the Red Army to enter Berlin first.

Sometime in February 1944, his younger brother Hendrik ("Henk") was arrested in Rotterdam by the Sicherheitspolizei and held captive at The Hague, to await execution for helping English people escape from the Netherlands. Followed on 24 February by the arrest of his wife, who was then three months pregnant with her second child, a French cabaret singer who worked for the French Resistance named Gilberte Letuppe (she had previously worked as an ambulance driver for the French Red Cross) nicknamed Gilou Lelup at the Hotel Montholon in the 9th arrondissement of Paris.

By March 1944, Christiaan was able to initiate contact with the 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, who had run the successful Operation North Pole and who could speak perfect English without a trace of a German accent.) 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, Christiaan 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, he was closely shadowed by an Abwehr agent. Lindemans' early denunciations created a Domino effect resulting in the arrest of 267 members of the Dutch and Belgian Resistance. In the wake of the D-Day's landings, Lindemans was said to have "visited" the British sector of the Normandy beachhead and succeeded in getting himself recruited by IS 9 (Intelligence School 9 a.k.a. Nine Eyes) Western Europe Area, an Anglo-American secret agency which worked under MI9, by the end of September 1944, he was a member of Prince Bernhard's Staff and was appointed liaison officer (with temporary rank of Captain in the Netherlands Forces of the Interior) between Dutch resistance and a British Intelligence unit commanded by a Canadian officer.

On 3 September 1944, Giskes left Brussels (en route to his next assignment in Bonn, Giskes' FAK 307 was now attached to Army Group B) and instructed Lindemans to stay in Belgium and make contact with Anglo-Canadian intelligence. He was to offer himself as an agent, the mission was to find out what plans Canadian Intelligence had made for the Netherlands and as soon as possible cross the lines with that information, in that case he was to use a secret code to get past German sentries. Lindemans, involved in the liberation of the city of Brussels, alongside three Belgian police officers, attacked German forces who were still holding out in the North railway station district. Lindemans killed two German soldiers and wounded two others.

On 4 September 1944, British intelligence officer, Captain Peter Baker of IS 9 of the D group (Western Europe Area), an expert in sabotage and hand-to-hand combat and assigned to SHAEF G-2 division (intelligence), arrived in Brussels (office at the Hotel Metropole where he set up a W/T station) on his way to newly liberated Antwerp in search of a Dutchman who would be able to go through the lines and contact Allied airmen hiding in the southern part of the Netherlands (Allied pilots were to stay put as the Allied armies were preparing to move toward Eindhoven).

On 26 October 1944, Lindemans was denounced as a German spy by fellow Abwehr agent Cornelis Johannes Antonius Verloop nicknamed Satan Face (Abwehr codenamed "Nelis"), a recipient of the German Cross in Gold. 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. "King Kong" showed no resistance to his arrest by British security officer Alfred Vernon Sainsbury of the Special Forces Detachment on the afternoon of 28 October 1944 at Prince Bernhard's headquarters at Château de La Fougeraie also known as Château Wittouck in Uccle, outside of Brussels.

He returned to Dutch custody (7 December 1944) where he was jailed in Breda Prison up to March 1945 and in Scheveningen until summer 1946, held under sentence of death by the Dutch government, for treachery during the war.

In January 1944, posing as patriots, Verloop and fellow Abwehr agent, Antonie Damen, raised suspicion in the mind of one member of the Belgian resistance movement, Mrs Lambot of 15, rue d'Alliance, Brussels. Lambot lodged that Verloop and Damen, were suspected to be working for the Russian intelligence service. Damen's capture by Allied forces resulted in Verloop's capture as well.

By 1943, his popularity as one of the leaders of the Dutch resistance was its highest. He had begun collecting jewels and other valuables from rich women to provide fighting funds for an underground "escape route" through occupied Belgium and the Netherlands into Spain and Portugal.

By his own account, Lindemans started work as an informant for the British Secret Service in the spring of 1940, relaying shipping movements to London. In August of that year, he found work as lorry driver on the Lille to Paris route, transporting petrol for the Luftwaffe. While living in Lille, and through his girlfriend (who later became his wife), he became involved with the French Resistance sometime in 1940. Around September 1942, he established his own escape line in Abbeville, where he was arrested two months later after being denounced by a woman living in Paris, an acquaintance named Colette. He was imprisoned by the Germans for five months and was the only member of his organisation to be detained.

On duty with the SOE and in company of two British officers, Lindemans paid a visit to French resistance fighter, Charles Buisine on 17 October. Buisine, a veteran of the Battle of France, had been recruited into the SOE in 1940 by Lindemans with the immediate rank of Lieutenant, he was head of an intelligence and escape network codenamed Sector 6-North-F (stretching from the neighbouring of Orchies to Lille) with HQ in Beuvry. Buisine codenamed agent 28/24, who was working under the authority of Belgian Officer Desmet, was unaware of his commanding officer's true identity.

He was the fourth son of Joseph Hendrik Lindemans and Christina Antonia van Uden. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, Lindemans worked alongside his elder brother Jan as a mechanic at his father's garage in Rotterdam. In the summer of 1936, he was injured in a motorcycle accident where he sustained a cracked skull and injuries to his left arm and leg which left him walking with a lumbering, simian-like, gait (described by some as a slight limp and a deformed hand). Tall and heavily built (6 ft 3 and 260 lbs), he was nicknamed "King Kong" (a name given to him by his rowing trainer). He spoke French and German well and some English.

She is registered, at the beginning of August, to be the last woman admitted to Fort de Romainville, a stop before deportation. Her file, numbered 6 862, described her as having been born on 15 September 1922 and being nine months pregnant ("9 Monat schwanger"). But, instead, being among the prisoners aboard the last convoy (I.264, 15 August 1944) of deportees from Paris (quai des bestiaux, gare de Pantin) to Germany and, like some of her fellow inmates who were considered unfit for transportation, she was evacuated from the Fort of Romainville on 17 August to a local Hospice in Saint-Denis where she gave birth on 25 August 1944 to her second child, a daughter named Christianne. Letuppe's release may have been ordered by Abwehr Colonel Oscar Reile. He supposedly left Paris on 18 August. The fort of Romainville was under the control of the German military authorities.

An Armée secrète 's operative named Urbain Renniers recommended Lindemans for the job, before sending him out, Baker made a few enquiries, he then went to the 21st Army Group's headquarters which in turn contacted Prince Bernhard's staff, on SHAEF Special Forces Captain de Graaf's recommendation, Prince Bernhard notify Baker that Lindemans could be trusted. Accordingly, special priority clearance was granted and an IS 9 pass in the name of Christiaan Brand was issued.

Christiaan Antonius Lindemans (24 October 1912 – 18 July 1946) was a Dutch double agent during the Second World War, working under Soviet control. Otherwise known as Freddi Desmet, a Belgian army officer and SOE agent with security clearance at the Dutch Military Intelligence Division of the SOE (MID/SOE). He was known by the soubriquets "King Kong" (for his height and build) or in some circles as "le Tueur" ("The Killer") as he was reportedly ready to shoot at the slightest provocation. There is speculation that Lindemans was a member of Colonel Claude Dansey's Z organisation.

Lindemans first met with German Luftwaffe general Kurt Student in Vught and then escorted to Driebergen by Giskes' right-hand man, Abwehr agent Richard Christmann (1905–1989) who had been detached from FAK 307 to FAT 365 in the upcoming meeting with Lindemans. The latter was driven back to the region of Eindhoven on 16 September by agent Christmann (codenamed Arnaud).