Dirk Klop

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First Lieutenant Dirk Klop (1939)

Dirk Klop (* 17th July 1906 in Nieuw-Helvoet ; † 9. November 1939 in Dusseldorf ) one was Dutch officer of the secret service GS III with the rank of Eersten Luitenants ( Lieutenant ). He was involved in the so-called Venlo incident .

Life

Klop was born in Nieuw-Helvoet in South Holland in 1906 and lived in Canada for a while . In 1939 he was part of the Dutch General Staff Department in The Hague under the Dutch Major Bert Sas , who was sent to Berlin in March 1939 as a military attaché .

Involved in the Venlo incident

On behalf of the then head of the secret service Johan W. van Oorschot , Klop, who posed as a British officer with the code name Captain Coppins, and his Dutch driver Jan Lemmens accompanied the two British officers Major Richard Henry Stevens and Captain Sigismund Payne Best on November 9, 1939 Dutch-German border to secure their meeting with alleged opponents of the Hitler dictatorship . The two officers were members of the British foreign intelligence service SIS . At the border there was an exchange of fire with a special SS commando , as a result of which Klop was shot in the head. He was the only one who had returned the SS machine pistol fire with his revolver . This event went down in history as the Venlo Incident .

Circumstances of death

Klop was seriously wounded by the Germans and taken to the Protestant hospital there in Düsseldorf . It is unclear whether he succumbed to his injuries on the way or only in hospital. Walter Schellenberg , who was significantly involved in the preparation of the Venlo incident, forged a statement by Klops, which was intended to prove the Netherlands' violation of political neutrality towards Germany and which in May 1940 served as a pretext for the invasion of the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, he was posthumously accused of breaking the order to break off the meeting and of acting lightly. On December 29, 1939, his body was released for embalming on the pretext that it was the communist Thomas Kremp . Presumably the body was supposed to be used in a show trial, but was cremated and buried under the false name in the Düsseldorf cemetery. The urn has not yet been found.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Koblank: The Venlo incident , online edition Mythos Elser 2006
personal data
SURNAME Klop, Dirk
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch intelligence officer
DATE OF BIRTH July 17, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Nieuw-Helvoet
DATE OF DEATH November 9, 1939
Place of death Dusseldorf