Ernst de Jonge

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Ernst de Jonge (1937)

Ernst Willem Jonkheer de Jonge (born May 22, 1914 in Sinabang ; † September 1944 ) was a Dutch agent and resistance fighter against the occupation of the Netherlands by the National Socialist German Reich . In 1936 he took part as a rower in the Olympic Games in Berlin .

biography

Youth and student days

Ernst de Jonge was born in the Dutch East Indies as one of the family's five children. In 1925 the de Jonges returned to the Netherlands after their father had received a director post at the Combined Javanese Timber Companies in Amsterdam . Ernst de Jonge attended the Lyceum in Baarn , from which he was expelled three times, but was allowed to return each time. He was considered wild and unbridled, but also warm-hearted and charming.

From 1932 de Jonge did his military service at the School voor Reserve Officieren Bereden Artillerie (SROBA) in Ede . In doing so, he acquired the reputation of being “the most punished cadet in de geschiedenis van de krijgsmacht te zijn” (“the most punished recruit in the history of the army”). This went so far that his superiors received complaints about why de Jonge had not long since been dismissed from the service. His instructor replied that while de Jonge was a “wild boy”, he would be of great value in the event of a war.

Ernst de Jonge then completed his law degree at the University of Leiden . During this time he was president of the Koninklijke Studenten Roeivereeniging "Njord" (KSRV Njord), from 1937 also president of the Leidse Studenten Vereniging "Minerva" . A new fellow student, Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema , was extremely impressed by preses de Jonge: "[...] ik voelde zijn charisma door de zaal vloeien." ("[...] I felt his charisma flow through the hall.") De Jonge appeared to him like a “Greek god on a pub crawl in Hades”. As a newcomer, Roelfzema was asked to perform a song when de Jonge threw a soup tureen at his head. There was a "bloodbath", reported Roelfzema in later years. But then de Jonge came into his room with a bottle of Armagnac , apologized, and the two men became friends. Later, Roelfzema and de Jonge were to work together in the resistance.

In 1936, Ernst de Jonge and his fellow students Karel Hardeman and Hans van Walsem , who also came from the Dutch East Indies , took part in the rowing competitions at the Olympic Games in Berlin in two with a helmsman . The boat finished last in the preliminaries and missed the final in the hope race . The poor performance was mainly due to the fact that the three athletes were students who did not take rowing seriously as a hobby and who had come in a boat that was old compared to other nations. In 1936 and 1937 he took part in a four-man with a helmsman in the annual university regatta Varsity .

After completing his studies in 1938, de Jonge took a position as a lawyer at the oil company Bataafse Petroleum Maatschappij (BPM), a subsidiary of Shell . From February 1940 he lived and worked in Curaçao , where he felt very comfortable: He had a position of responsibility, got on well with his superiors and enjoyed life in the Caribbean .

In resistance

After the occupation of the Netherlands by the German Wehrmacht on May 15, 1940, Ernst de Jonge offered to Prince Bernhard by letter in London to serve in the military and obtained his pilot's license for this purpose. In August 1941 he traveled to London after his employer had previously given him leave. His brother Marien de Jonge , who was two years older than him, crossed the canal from the Netherlands as an “ England driver ” and also served the Dutch government in exile. Ernst de Jonge was trained by the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in London .

Before starting his mission in the Netherlands, Ernst de Jonge spoke on Radio Oranje so that his family in the Netherlands could hear his voice. On February 24, 1942, his former fellow student Roelfzema dropped him off by boat on the Dutch coast near Katwijk at new moon night to work behind the lines as a spy, together with the radio operator Jan Radema . A little later, de Jonge organized the transport of microfilms with detailed information on the stationing of the Wehrmacht in the Netherlands on board a stolen fishing boat to England. Due to the so-called England game of the German defense , also known as the North Pole Company , the action was discovered. The Germans learned of a spy with an "Indo-European" appearance (de Jonge had black hair and a dark complexion). On May 18, 1942, the Germans arrested those who delivered the microfilm. Defense chief Joseph Schreieder found out the address of the apartment in Rotterdam in which de Jonge lived through the informant Anton van der Waals ; when Schreieder unexpectedly met him there, it was immediately clear to him that this man was the "Indo-European" looking spy. On May 22nd, 1942, his 28th birthday, he was arrested by the Germans in his shelter in Rotterdam .

De Jonge was brought to the Binnenhof in The Hague ; his colleague Leen Pot escaped during a move within the building complex. Pot later took over the leadership of the group formed by de Jonge.

From The Hague, Ernst de Jonge was transferred to the Oranjehotel in Scheveningen for several months and finally to a prison in Haaren . After three prisoners escaped from there, de Jonge and 50 other agents were brought to the Huis van Bewaring in Assen with handcuffs and hoods over their heads . From there he wrote the last letter to his parents on February 23, 1944. His brother Marinus, who was serving in the Dutch East Indies, returned to London and sought in vain permission to rescue Ernst de Jonge with the help of two paratroopers. This had presumably been transported to Rawicz in the meantime ; whether he died there or on the transport there is unclear. There is still no trace of him and ten of his fellow prisoners. 40 members of the group were murdered in Mauthausen concentration camp in September 1944 . The helmsman of the boat from 1936, Hans van Walsem, died on January 2, 1944 in Neuengamme concentration camp ; he too was active in the resistance.

Honors and memories

Plaque in memory of de Jonge on the building of the student association "Minerva" in Leiden

Ernst de Jonge was posthumously honored with the Bronze Lion and the Verzetsherdenkingskruis .

His rowing buddy Karel Hardeman wrote a book called Herinneringen aan jr mr Ernst W. de Jonge , which describes the common youth on Java and the student days. The older brother Marien de Jonge wrote a manuscript about his brother's life.

In 1978 the film The Soldier of Orange by director Paul Verhoeven came out, in which the life of the Dutch resistance fighter Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema is told. In this film, the character de Jonges is played by Jeroen Krabbé . In 2010 this story was brought to the stage as a musical; The venue is a former hangar in Valkenburg , a district of Katwijk. The 2200th performance took place on July 22, 2017.

Marien de Jonge survived the war and retired as a highly decorated military man - he served, among other things, as an adjutant to Queen Juliana . When he was 100 years old in 2011, he asked for a memorial plaque for his brother: “Waarom word ik honderd en is mijn broer zo vroeg storven?” This was placed on March 9, 2012 on the building of the student association “Minerva” in Leiden him and the actor Harpert Michielsen , who plays the role of Ernst de Jonge in the musical.

Web links

Commons : Ernst de Jonge  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Tony Bijkerk, Olympian , p. 39.
  2. ↑ a b Constanteyn Roelofs: Wildebras voor het vaderland , in Mare , weekly newspaper of the University of Leiden, March 8, 2012
  3. ↑ a b Erik Hazelhoff Roelfsema: Het leven van de Soldaat van Oranje. Unieboek | Het Spectrum, 2010, ISBN 978-9-049-10531-0 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  4. ↑ a b c Tony Bijkerk, Olympian , p. 40.
  5. ↑ a b Tony Bijkerk, Olympian , S. 41st
  6. ^ Engelandvaarders, the passengers and crew of the Zeemanshoop. In: holywellhousepublishing.co.uk. May 14, 1940. Retrieved January 3, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Frans Kluiters: Dutch agents 1940-1945. September 2008, accessed August 6, 2017 . (pdf)
  8. ↑ Tony Bijkerk, Olympian , p. 44.
  9. ↑ Tony Bijkerk, Olympian , pp. 44/45.
  10. ↑ Tony Bijkerk, Olympian , p. 45.
  11. ^ Engelandvaarders, the passengers and crew of the Zeemanshoop. In: holywellhousepublishing.co.uk. May 14, 1940. Retrieved August 6, 2017 .
  12. ↑ Dapperheidsonderscheidingen aan Nederlanders voor de Tweede Wereldoorlog. In: onderscheidingen.nl. May 8, 1945, accessed August 7, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Liesl Bradner: 'Soldier of Orange': It's the 'Hamilton' of the Netherlands, and it's immersive theater to an extreme. In: Los Angeles Times. December 22, 2016, accessed August 6, 2017 .
  14. ↑ 2.250th voorstelling - win kaarten. In: soldaatvanoranje.nl. Retrieved August 6, 2017 .
  15. ↑ Onthulling plaque Ernst de Jonge. In: soldaatvanoranje.nl. Retrieved August 6, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Jonge, Ernst de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jonge, Ernst Willem Jonkheer de (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch resistance fighter and rowers
DATE OF BIRTH May 22, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Sinabang
DATE OF DEATH September 1944