Johannes Post (resistance fighter)

Johannes Post (born October 4, 1906 in Oosterhesselen , † July 16, 1944 in Overveen ) was a Dutch resistance fighter.

Life

Farmer and peat cutter

Johannes Post was born in the south of the province of Drenthe in the northeast of the Netherlands . He was the eleventh and youngest child of Jan Wolters Post and Trijntje Post, geb. Temp. He worked as a farmer and Torfbauer and was a member of the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) in the council of the municipality Oosterhesselen .

He married Dina Salomons on November 26, 1929 (July 3, 1903 - February 26, 1991). The marriage resulted in nine children, with the first child Jan Wolter only surviving a week. The couple were shaped by a deep faith and a biblical, Reformed piety.

The first years of the war

After the German troops invaded the Netherlands , Johannes Post refused to accept the occupation regime and its local collaborators , e. B. by the fact that he no longer paid taxes. He also distributed illegal literature, including the illegal underground newspaper Trouw (German: Treue ). He was supported by Arnold Douwes. During this time Johannes Post came into contact with Pastor Frits Slomp (with an alias: "Frits de Zwerver"). He distributed leaflets with him and provided him with illegal papers that he needed to hide Jews and other "people in hiding". At the beginning of 1943 he took in the Jewish girl Celina Johanna Kuijper (known as “Thea”) from the south of Amsterdam into his house. Celina Kuijper and her fiancé Ies Davids ("Peter") took over courier services and forged identity cards.

Armed resistance

Johannes Post received his first weapon from his older brother Marinus. This was the first step in the direction of armed resistance in the vicinity of the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland . He got in touch with Jan Wildschut , a former professional soldier who had gone into hiding after the Reich Commissariat for the Occupied Dutch Territories had announced at the end of April 1943 that the former Dutch conscripts would be obliged to do military service again.

Despite the risks he was taking, he once gave Frans Fergonet the opportunity to go underground. He seemed like a traitor who had moved from one day to the next. Several attempts on the Dutch traitor De Krol failed. However, the Weerbaarheidsafdeling building in Hollandscheveld went up in flames.

Johannes Post worked a lot with Jan Naber Albert Jan Rozeman . They called themselves "de NV" according to the first names Nico and Victor. 'Victor' was almost picked up by the notorious SD members Leo Poos and Marten Slagter . The first attacks on post offices had already taken place beforehand. On June 23, 1943, four post offices were attacked in one day, in Sleen , Zweeloo , Oosterhesselen and Nieuweroord .

Johannes Post, Celina Kuijper, Ies Davids , Jan Naber and Robert Rozeman hid in Drenthe for a while because the Germans were looking intensively for the leadership of the resistance.

Johannes Post and Celina Kuijper, a Jewish resistance fighter, were arrested on July 16, 1943 in a boarding house in Ugchelen by SD employees Jan Lamberts and Jannes Doppenberg. Both were held at the Apeldoorn police station . Johannes Post managed to break out, but was caught again immediately afterwards. On July 18, 1943, however, he was freed by a Dutch investigator. An attempt to break out by Celina Kuijper failed and she was transferred to the Westerbork camp. An attempt to escape from this also failed. She was transported from Westerbork to Poland , where she was killed in a gas chamber on arrival. Jan Post, a brother of Johannes Post, was captured by SD employees Lamberts, Doppenberg and Boesveld, but was later released.

In the summer of 1943, the search for resistance in Drenthe was intensified again. Johannes Post, who was now particularly targeted after his capture and escape, was given the new identity “Hemke van der Zwaag”. Three people from Hoogeveen in the south of Drenthe (notary Johannes Mulder, registrar Marius de Jonge and teacher Adriaan Baas) were shot dead at the former children's hospital 'Het Noorderhuis' in the Sparkasse grove. The two Jewish residents Levie and Manus van der Wijk were murdered in the same way two days later. To commemorate them, on February 25, 2003 the mayor of Hoogeveen unveiled the Spaarbankbos monument on the spot where they were murdered.

Johannes Post was captured again during an identity card check. The NV sneaked up to Meppel and let the traffic center of Staphorst on the southern border with Drenthe go up. The Germans retaliated against the resistance. In the spring of 1943, three men in Meppel and Staphorst, again without a trial, were put in front of their front door and gunned down along the way without warning, as the first of Aktion Silbertanne .

Johannes Post became known nationwide through his activities in Drenthe. In the course of 1943 he became national chairman of the Dutch resistance movement Landelijke Knokploegen (LKP). Together with Marinus he worked more in the background at Rijnsburg , where her brother Henk Post was pastor. A Johannes Poststraat named after him still exists in Rijnsburg.

In January 1944 Johannes Post and his resistance group settled in Breda at Nagtegaalstraat 12. Shops in Hardinxveld (unsuccessful) and Oegstgeest were attacked, among other things . An attempt to free Van der Zande, a director of the LO, failed. Raids in Woerden , Spijkenisse and Rhoon also failed. Experiments in, among others, Leiderdorp (January 4, 1944), Portugal (January 12, 1944), Oud-Beijerland (January 20, 1944), Klundert (January 21, 1944), Heerjansdam (January 25, 1944), Boekel (4 February 1944), Lisse (February 15, 1944), Katwijk (April 8, 1944) and Maassluis (April 10, 1944) failed.

In a raid on a police station in Archimedesstraat in The Hague (February 19, 1944), many weapons and official documents were taken as booty. Johannes Post was almost arrested again after an attack in Zwijndrecht (February 21, 1944).

In March 1944, Post was forced to join the LKP summit conference and once again oriented itself towards the northern part of the Netherlands. He was asked to go to England to continue the resistance from there, but he refused. The trip, in which, among others, Victor Henri Rutgers took part, was not a success.

Johannes Post was involved in the extremely successful attack on the Hoitsema print shop in May 1944.

In the final year of the war, many leaders of the resistance were arrested. A major misfortune was the arrest of Henk Dienske , provincial director of the nationwide aid organization for people in hiding (LO) LO Noord-Holland in Amsterdam. Also Leendert Valstar , better known as 'Bertus', and later Izaak van der Horst were arrested. Johannes Post succeeded Leendert Valstar and handed over the management for the north to Reint Dijkema . Johannes Post was often accompanied in his work by the Jewess Betty Trompetter , better known as 'Tineke van der Laan'. Johannes Post's new base in Amsterdam was the Witte de Withstraat with the Van der Duin family.

On June 23, 1944, exactly one year after the four successful raids in a single day, a raid on a shop in Haarlem was planned on behalf of Johannes Post, but it failed. Jan Wildschut, who was involved in the planning for the attack at the last minute, was captured and taken to Prison I (Weteringschans) in Amsterdam. His stay in Weteringschans, that of Wim Hartsveld, who was later imprisoned, and the presence of around ten other resistance fighters lasted until Post decided to free the prisoners. This plan for the 14./15. July 1944, however, was betrayed by Jan Boogaard .

Captivity and Murder

After his arrest in the early evening of July 15, 1944, he did not hear anything about the attack on SD employee Ernst Wehner because Post had been so abused. The attack on Weteringschans (all resistance members were seized) had the result that all dams were broken.

The interrogations began again the following day (July 16, 1944). Nobody gave anything away. Around noon, seven participants in the attack were brought together: Johannes Post, Jan Niklaas Veldman , Willem Frederik Smit , Arie Stramrood , Jacques Stil , Hilbert van Dijk and Cor ten Hoope (the latter two on stretchers). Guus Trestorff , seriously wounded during the exchange of fire, had died shortly before in the Wilhelmina Gasthuis hospital . At this meeting there were also eight resistance fighters who were involved in the attack on the Amsterdam residents' registration office a year earlier. All of them knew what these preparations meant. They were driven to the Kennemerduinen near Overveen in a closed truck, surrounded by guards . There the entire group, including the wounded, was shot dead . Ernst Klijzing , a leader of the Amsterdam resistance group, was among the victims . All victims were buried in a mass grave. The corpses were discovered on July 25, 1945 and later reburied in the Bloemendaal Cemetery of Honor .

Immediately after the unsuccessful attack, resistance fighters had held out at Boogaard's house for days. But no one came to the fore.

Betty Trompetter , who was apprehended in the Kinkerstraat, was sent to the Vught Kamp Vught camp and later to the Ravensbrück concentration camp . She survived the war because her Jewish identity had not been revealed. The Weteringschans supervisor, Ottenhof, also returned to the Netherlands from Germany after the surrender.

Shortly after the liberation Boogaard was taken prisoner and he admitted to his interrogators that immediately after the first encounter with the Amsterdam resistance he had informed his SD leadership of the whole plan up to the highest level. Boogaard was sentenced to death on July 19, 1946, and the sentence was carried out on March 1, 1947. The majority of his German SD superiors, including Willy Lages, head of the Amsterdam SD, one of the " Four from Breda ", got away with relatively short prison terms. Maarten Kuiper, a second Dutch SD'ler who worked before Willy Lages and who had murdered Hannie Schaft , among others , was executed on August 10, 1948.

He later moved to Rijnsburg and started major campaigns from there, for example an attack on the post office cantor in The Hague . After the unsuccessful attack on the Amsterdam prison , he was arrested on July 14, 1944. Two days later he was shot dead in Overveen (province of Noord-Holland ) and buried there. His brother Marinus , who was two years older and lived in Kampen , was also active in the resistance.

legacy

Johannes Post became very well known after the war. This was mainly due to the biography that the Drenther writer Anne de Vries , known for his book Bartje , had written about him.

In Havelte John Postkazerne, the location is 43 Gemechaniseerde Brigade of the Dutch army named after him, in Rijsoord the surrender museum Zwinderen and suffering a bridge. Many schools (including in Sneek and Hazerswoude-dorp) and at least 29 Dutch squares or streets are named after him. There is also a scout association in Assen named after him, the Johannes Post Group (also known as JPG).

After the war, Johannes Post received the Verzetskruis (1940–1945) on royal instructions . The government of the United States of America awarded him the Silver Medal of Freedom , which was presented to his family in The Hague on April 8, 1953 .

In addition, Johannes Post and his home village Nieuwlande received the Yad Vashem Award from the State of Israel after the war .

literature

• Anne de Vries : De levensroman van Johannes Post . Ankh-Hermes BV, Nijkerk, 14th edition 2013, ISBN 978-90-5977-937-2 .
• Anne de Vries : The hand of reconciliation in the shadow of the violence of the Third Reich . Friedrich Bahn Verlag, Konstanz 1960, new edition: Francke, Marburg an der Lahn 1981, ISBN 978-3-88224-202-7 .
• GC Hovingh: Johannes Post, exponent van het verzet. A biography . Kok, Kampen 1995.
• CM Schulten: Zeg mij aan wien ik toebehoor, het verzetskruis 1940–1945 . Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, Amsterdam 1993, ISBN 90-12-08001-0 .