The Traitor of Arnhem: WWII’s Greatest Betrayal

The Traitor of Arnhem: WWII’s Greatest Betrayal
With Robert Verkaik
Part of our Arnhem Week series
• Arnhem Week
More Operation Market Garden and Arnhem content on WW2TV
• Operation Market Garde...
Also part of our Spies and Secret Agents playlist
• Spies and Secret Agents
Following the overwhelming victory on D-Day, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin all seek to shape the global future to their own ends and win the race to Berlin.
The British launch Operation Market Garden, the greatest airborne operation the world has ever seen. It is a bold roll of the dice, which, if successful, will end the war in weeks. But behind the scenes, spies are working, and plans are betrayed, the operation fails and thousands of Allied soldiers die.
The Traitor of Arnhem tells a never-before-told story of this iconic operation, and of the very different figures working in secret to cause the catastrophic defeat. One traitor a terrifying giant of a man, a supposed hero of the resistance who sent hundreds of fellow freedom fighters to torture and death, the other an aristocrat and an English gentleman, working from inside the heart of the Allied war effort in London. Both of them working for the Russians.
Robert Verkaik is an author and award-winning journalist. He was the home affairs editor of the Independent and the security editor of the Mail on Sunday. Robert is the author of a number of history books published in Britain, but The Traitor of Arnhem is his first book to be published in America. He lives in Surrey, England.
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[@JakeCole1453]

Thanks Paul for this episode, love this stuff. It makes you think how close were other big operations of WW2 put in jeopardy over characters like these.

[@Caratacus1]

Hugely enjoyable thanks Robert and Woody. I just picked up the book (and the Colditz one too) and can't wait to get stuck in.

[@johnlucas8479]

A very interesting presentation and discussion by Robert

[@georgecooksey8216]

Thanks Paul and Robert. Excellent presentation and discussion.

[@nickjung7394]

Interesting talk. Like Robert, my Fathers family moved from Schiedam, Rotterdam to England in 1912. My Father and his brothers joined the British Army in 1940. I have a copy of my Fathers service records and there is a gap in them. I asked him once why he didnt serve overseas and he told me that he had been told not to be ause if he had been captured his family in Rotterdam would have suffered. Three of his brothers served overseas. I recently had another search of the National Archives and found a "description" of a document about my Father. The document itself is "closed until 2028"!

[@robertverkaik6397]

HI Nick. My grandfather's records were also sealed for a very long time. I had to use the Freedom of Information Act to open up the record at the National Archives. The record showed that he was investigated by MI5 during the war! But it turned out that it was only to assess his naturalisation status as a British citizen.

[@Hal_Jr]

Damnit, Woody, another onion to peel and book to purchase! 😂 Seriously though, a fascinating and thought provoking episode. Many thanks to both you and Robert.

[@paulowen7560]

Honest and frank - good stuff 👍

[@akashvankessel1249]

Absolute fascinating stuff!!

[@colinellis5243]

An excellent session!

[@michaelfleming6420]

Great details and revealing story. Keep up the great work. Thx

[@tiborhorvath7359]

The key to the Arnhem betrayal is Walter Model. He arrived in Arnhem a few days before. The question that should be asked is why. Model was a mr fixit and an important card in hitlers pack.He wasn’t sent there on a whim. By December he was stationed in the Ardenne, operation Wacht Am Rhein ( battle of the bulge) Also Cornelius Ryan goes to great lengths to dispel the betrayal when he focuses on the tank division being refurbished and that many had been prepped for rail transport. My first thought was that it wouldn’t take too long to make them operational again. Also research Oreste Pinto. He knew a great deal. Best T

[@jbjones1957]

The War Diary of General Parks, Chief of Staff for First Allied Airborne Army, states in early (6th-7th) September, 46 Group RAF transmitted the Operation Comet plan in clear uncoded messages. Luftwaffe signals interception could have easily picked this up and reported an airborne operation was imminent.

[@johnhallett5846]

man was that stupid

[@louisdisbury9759]

Back in the 1980s, I was a free-fall parachutist and I used to jump from Weston on the green, most of my fellow jumpers were, Paras, Marines and one or two SAS guys, I've visited Arnhem and spent a week there going over the drop zones and where all the battles were fought there and in the bar at Weston Arnem was always a good topic for discussion and the three things we all agreed on Was, Scattered dropzones, poor communication and Panzer groups on the ground commanded by an enemy that would not give one inch of ground and rarely surrendered.

[@ianprice9563]

Pretty much summed up the film there. Regrettably, there is much about ‘A Bridge Too Far’ (both the book and the film) which is incorrect/unreasonable/unfair.

[@louisdisbury9759]

@@ianprice9563 Did you know that Browning used 27 Dakotas to move his HQ to holland that could have been used for moving troops and I also attended a discussion at the imerial war museum Jeremy More gave a speech on the Operation it was an anniversary gig and I had a great discussion with him over the pitfalls of the operation,PS Weston on the green is ad active RAF base so bumped in to many a service man there that gave me their take on the operation..

[@murrayeldred3563]

EXCELLENT PROGRAMME.

[@exharkhun5605]

It's a good thing Lindemans was caught when he was. At the pace he was going through them he'd run out of sides before he'd run out of war. The historiography of WW2 is complex enough without us having to add fictional countries for him to switch to.

[@nodirips_8537]

¡Gracias!

[@WW2TV]

Thanks very much

[@AbanithViswam]

Thanks

[@WW2TV]

Thanks very much

[@RalphBrooker-gn9iv]

Robert Verkaik is fascinating. This whole issue is deeply intriguing and tragic. The East/West then Russia/West intelligence situation was pretty much fully determined by the Cambridge five. I have no sympathy for them. I despise them. And it rankles that Blunt was given immunity. But that is the price perhaps of the full and frank (as far as can be determined) debrief of a traitor. I find it very difficult to believe that Blunt and perhaps Philby know nothing about the existence and, if appropriate, identity of Josephine. If the men of the British 1st Airborne Division died - if that op failed - because of treachery from MI6 then I’m appalled. As Robert Verkaik points out, Market Garden could have worked. It wasn’t it seems to me a fatally flawed plan. Superb podcast.

[@paulpaterson1661]

Very good book

[@peterbrown1208]

At the risk of being repetitive. Wow. Great episode.

[@laurentpremel]

Glad to be able to access the comments :D I did enjoy Mr Verkaik statements but some points let me wondering... Let's start with what I thought I knew : Market/Arnhem bridge(s) : - Deelen airbase too heavily defended for drops and landings close to the Bridge, thus DZ and LZ far to the West. - 9Th an 10Th PzD reorganizing in the area, 9th (Hoestauffen ?) moving to refit in the Reich but "incapacitating" as much vehicles as could be. - Nijmegen area being a key factor in front of enemy advance. - Model worrying about being victim of a coup-de-main party - Major Kustin (?) wandering to assess a situation... AND : Did or didn't the germans found plans of Market Garden on the body of an US officer in a glider wreckage ???? It doesn't appear to me you asked, Woody, on that point, your host. What I learned or have been confirmed about : Lindemans was involved in the demise of early Dutch-SOE underground ops (may be grounding further contempt with intelligence from "Oranje") And that's about it :D So, maybe Blunt and a bunch of other spies were involved, but as Mr Verkaik points himself, if delivered at all, the plans went on Abwehr boards a day prior to Market Garden to begin ! Wouldn't have Model to be warned ?Then why would he believe to be a main target ? I didn't read Mr Verkaik book, I intend to but I'm yet not convinced ;) Anyway, you're my main and best appreciated "source", best regards and thanks, Woody :)

[@WW2TV]

Yes, all those points are valid I think and yes plans were found in a glider and were assessed by Model's staff. There are two stories in play I guess. The first being if the Germans did receive the message from "Josephine" on 16th it probably didn't tell the Germans much beyond what they knew already, or were quickly to find out anyway. The second point is the potentially massive story of Blunt passing stuff to the Nazis

[@laurentpremel]

@@WW2TV Glad we agree ;) Another thing to debate : Were the "5" activities not monitored ? :D Regards again :)

[@WW2TV]

People like Blunt and Philby were seemingly fully trusted at the time

[@laurentpremel]

@@WW2TV Indeed, and they floated above waves for a very long time, didn't they ;)

[@WW2TV]

Yep

[@HGmusiclist]

WOW, fascinating show!!!!! If true, could Market Garden been a success if betrayal was not a variable in the equation????......

[@scorcher67]

Thanks! Some Doom Bars for you Woody. Cheers.

[@WW2TV]

Thanks very much

[@elijenkins6129]

Ww2tv RULES!

[@WW2TV]

Thanks

[@timbrown1481]

“What a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive”! This is real James Bond stuff. Oh wait, he was lost in Arnhem shooting a German soldier!😂. Seriously, this spy stuff is an amazing story.

[@Rusty_Gold85]

I wonder if you can get any fingerprints be pulled from any files ,or is it impossible ?

[@KimBowen-oz3gz]

Sorry for the typos. I meant to say that he managed to ensure that the 82nd would not be cut off from 30 Corps.

[@ianprice9563]

I have to say, I’m massively sceptical about this. It just seems a bit too neat. However, I might read the book to see what Mr Verkraik argues that- and I hope he has good sources to support his contentions (starting with the teletext arriving at the German Foreign Office on 16 September with the details of Operation Market Garden.

[@WW2TV]

The documents are all cited. As we said in the show, there is no "smoking gun" what exists is a paper trail that points in a certain direction

[@I_Don_t_want_a_handle]

You are quite right about the political need to treat Arnham as an example of the plucky Brits up against the odds. However, there was also little political desire on behalf of the Attlee government to expose the double-dealing of our 'allies', the Soviets. In fact, the behaviour of the Soviets in WW2 is often played down or overlooked. Not just their barbarity and betrayals. I have always wondered if the strikes in 1944 by the miners and the dock workers were not designed to slow down the Western Allies to allow the Soviets to capture more territory. Why else would any union strike during a war, especially one so terrible as WW2, unless they were instructed to?

[@PeterOConnell-pq6io]

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy

[@georgethompson9396]

I think it’s you, no?

[@PeterOConnell-pq6io]

@@georgethompson9396 I may my own worst enemy, but I'm not with the Russians, too.

[@PeterOConnell-pq6io]

@@georgethompson9396 I may be my own worst enemy, but at least I'm not with the Russians, too!

[@paulwalton3391]

Hindsight is a great thing but for me the much bigger more experienced 82nd shud have got Arnhem 101st Nijmegan and 1st Airborne the Eindhoven bridges really think it would have succeeded!😔🤔

[@WW2TV]

The 82nd didn't have the heavy weapons 1st AB had - Polstens, the artillery etc

[@paulwalton3391]

@@WW2TV But surely heavy weapons are irrelevant in para ops its all about aggression surprise and speed in capturing the objective that is paramount and you could argue the 82nd proved that in their river crossing to finally capture Nijmegan Bridge for me dropping such a smaller number of lightly armed troops 8 MILES from their objective doomed it to failure considering they strongly suspected their was armour in the Arnhem area!

[@WW2TV]

So, if the 82nd Div had been dropped at Arnhem they woule have had the same DZs, so what difference what it have made?

[@WW2TV]

I also question your "more experienced" comment. Only the 505th had been on more than one operation before MG, the 504th had sat Normandy out, and the 508th had only done Normandy. Yet both the Parachute Brigades of the 1st had several combat ops under their belt in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, and the Air Landing Brigade had done Sicily

[@paulwalton3391]

They were more experienced and were a larger division and they did have their own anti tank guns and would Gavin had argued harder to be dropped on the objective regardless of flak as he was a proper airborne general unlike Urquhart no disrespect to Urquhart as he was a excellent infantry general!!

[@Bartelldarcy]

I'm broke as Lazarus, but I plan to throw in some shekels once my ship comes in. You really got me with that "If you watch more than a dozen of my shows per day" pitch. Bingo! Hope you get through the lean times and start bringing in the big bucks we all know are to be found in deep World War II history.

[@WW2TV]

As I always say, literally a couple of bucks/pounds a month is all it takes. Thanks for watching

[@KimBowen-oz3gz]

The old chestnut about the distance from the British dropping zones to the bridge. Let's not forget that, despite this handicap, imposed on 1st Airborne, by senior officers at First Allied Airborne Army HQ, many of them American, 2nd Battalion, part of 3rd Battalion and a number of other units managed to reach Arnhem Bridge and held the north end for longer than was expected in the plan. Gavin's division made no serious attempt to seize Nijmegen Bridge until 30 Corps arrived in Nijmegen on the 19th. The Waal Crossing by the 504th PIR, though brave, would have been unnecessary if Gavin had taken his main objective on day 1. The concentration on the Groesbeek "heights" which General John Frost later described as "insignificant" is baffling and not helped by Gavin's several different explanations of this that made after the war. Usually these explanations revolve around supposed pre drop orders given by him to Colonel Lindquist of 508 PIR and the failure of this officer to carry them out. Neither Lindquist nor his Executive Officer accepted that any pre drop orders relating to the need to seize Nijmegen Bridge were issued to them, and strangely enough, the only unit of the 82nd whose war diary for the period is not in the US national archive is the 508 PIR.

[@WW2TV]

Fair points, but nothing to do with the Traitor story of the video

[@Caratacus1]

The most logical explanation for Gavin's timidity that I've read is given in his unedited diaries (his wife later had his diaries edited posthumously to take out the naughty bits). Gavin's last drop in Normandy was a disaster, he lost control immediately and his HQ was overrun at one point. He was determined that wasn't going to happen again. So he sat tight up on Grosbeek even though the bridge was undefended and Monty/Brereton had ordered him to attack it asap. He was further reinforced in this timid approach by his boss Browning who jumped with him and was seemingly happy to go along with it. His diaries also showed he didn't trust the British and was convinced it was going to fail from the start. Not what a Para Commander should be doing, immediate aggression is key.

[@oldlifter530]

The Soviets wanted Germany. The Arnhem operations success would have interfered with this.

[@Centurion101B3C]

The story goes that upon hearing Market Garden failed, Marshall Zhukoz pleasantly rubbed his hands and observed: "This is good! Now WE get to take Berlin.".

[@RayBecker]

I love our cousins across the pond but this was planned by Monty and Churchill gave his blessing. To compound the problems, the British planners insisted on using British Airborne to assault Arnhem. At that time, we were struggling with Logistics and we had the best Logistics of all the combatants. They were so gung ho about taking Arnhem that they dismissed the Intel on German forces on the highway. They literally just dismissed it out of hand. You won't find a more brave soldier than a Brit but the planners goofed. Radio comm's were a major problem. Over those distances, you need frequencies below VHF. Market Garden may have exposed Allied forces in the Ardennes to destruction because of materiel being used for Holland. Logistics is a bitch and if an army cuts corners, men needlessly die. Yes, it would've been nice to cross into Germany by Christmas but the whole thing was rushed and poorly planned. Market Garden was THE largest Airborne operation in history. Now consider what massive resources were needed. It does not bother me that the 82nd and 101st had a reduced role. What bothers me is the useless loss of men. The Germans had a meat grinder in Arnhem and on that highway. Cromwells and Sherman's were cut to pieces by anti-tank guns, Panther and Tiger tanks. We had air superiority and we did not take advantage of it because of old, tired Generals who were nostalgic over horse and Cavalry. They didn't like Airplanes because they didn't understand them. Everybody knew that Goring was a buffoon and couldn't run a lemonaide stand. Sometimes I really wonder what was really going on. Like Patton dying in a staff car, built like a tank going 26 mph? Yeah, sure. Somebody got pissed off because Patton wanted to take out the Ruskies. You can call me whatever but until you've Served in the Military, shut your damned trap.

[@johndawes9337]

Montgomery had no jurisdiction to order First Allied Airborne Army and RAF to accept his suggestions and they didn’t. Montgomery argued for double missions flown on day one, for closer drops to Arnhem and for coup de mains on the bridges. The air commanders refused all of this. Consequently, Arnhem was not Montgomery’s battle to lose technically speaking. Deep down he may have felt the same way. It was planned mainly by the Air Force commanders, Brereton and Williams of the USAAF, though I’m not letting Hollinghurst of the RAF off here. His decision not to fly closer to Arnhem doomed 1st Airborne. It was Bereton and Williams who: ♦ decided that there would be drops spread over three days, defeating the object of para jumps by losing all surprise, which is their major asset. ♦ rejected the glider coup-de-main on the bridges that had been so successful on D-day on the Pegasus Bridge and which had been agreed to on the previously planned Operation Comet. ♦ chose the drop and and landing zones so far from the Bridges. ♦ Who would not allow the ground attack fighters to take on the flak positions and attack the Germans while the escort fighters were protecting the transports, thereby allowing them to bring in reinforcements with impunity. ♦Who rejected drops south of the Wilhelmina Canal that would prevent the capture of the bridges at Son, Best and Eindhoven by the 101st because of “possible flak.“ From Operation Market Garden: The Campaign for the Low Countries, Autumn 1944:ty John Peate.

[@WW2TV]

You don't reference Brereton's meddling and Ike signing off on OMG..

[@WW2TV]

But seriously you believe the Bill O'Reilly theory that Patton was bumped off?

[@waynes.3380]

The American General's in Command of 1st Allied Airborne army and Tactical Air command did not learn the lesson's from the DDay drops. The American Divisions scattered all over Normandy and 6th British Airborne to gliding right on top of their objective's. Just for starters. Many other factors were at play. With Respect.

[@KimBowen-oz3gz]

Gavin's wartime reputation is a fiction. Everything I have read show him as a good Combat soldier but a poor and indecisive divisional commander who liked to point the finger at others for his poor decisions. Interestingly, though coup de main missions, which had been part of the Comet plan, were "forbidden" for Market Garden, Gavin somehow managed to arrange a coup de main on the Grave thus ensuring that the 82nd would cut off from. 30 Corps surrounded and destroyed. By his "actions" at Nijmegen and Groesbeek he denied the 1st British Airborne the same security and if Model had allowed Harmel to blow Nijmegen Bridge we might now be talking about an eve' greater disaster

[@WW2TV]

Harsh, Gavin is highly regarded by many

[@KimBowen-oz3gz]

I suspect that his fans do not include many who fought at Arnhem. Certainly John Frost could not understand his fixation on Groesbeek which are not the commanding "heights" implied in the American accounts. It also remains a fact that Gavin's failure to seize Nijmegen Bridge was directly responsible for the heavy casualties caused to the 504th PIR in the assault crossing and to the Grenadier Guards in taking the Valkhof / Huner Park area.

[@WW2TV]

Clearly OMG was his weak spot, but he did well in Normandy - La Fiere up to Hill 95 etc. He had previously done well in Sicily and Italy, given the miss drops. Now Lindquist, there was a poor commander

[@KimBowen-oz3gz]

Lindquist was a poor commander but I believe his story, and that of his exec, when they said that Gavin issued no pre drop orders to the 508th in respect of Nijmegen Bridge. All the papers relating to the 508th in OMG are mysteriously missing from the archives. I think that Gavin was covering his arse and he would certainly have had the clout to do it.

[@WW2TV]

I don;t think we'll ever know the full truth of Gavin at Nijmegen. Much arse-covering postwar

[@KimBowen-oz3gz]

If the 82nd had been given Arnhem it would likely have been an even greater disaster than that which happened to the British. The British took around 60 six pounder anti tank guns to Arnhem with the latest APDS ammunition for them. They also took 16 Seventeen Pounders which could knock out any German tank. The 82nd had nothing like this capability and would have been at a serious disadvantage against the German armour which was deployed at Arnhem which included a number of Tiger 1's and 2's. Also I would point out that the "stronger" 82nd totally failed at Nijmegen to take their main objective despite there being very little in the way of opposition for much of the first day of the battle. While the British sent 2000 men of 1st Para Brigade to seize Arnhem bridge and the high ground to north, of whom 740 arrived. The 82nd only managed to send first a platoon, 40 men, and then a company, to seize what was the absolute key objective of the operation and one of the longest bridges in Europe at the time. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the implied superiority of the 82nd over the British division. As for the 101st they also had issues seizing their objectives at Son and Best which had serious impact on the outcome of Market Garden so the argument that they also might have done better does not really hold up.

[@paulwalton3391]

@@KimBowen-oz3gz If that's the case why did we fail so badly with 8000 casualties out of 10000 in 1st Airborne area of operations it was quite frankly a military disaster and you could blame dozens of people for its dreadful outcome worse still it achieved nothing strategically and led to the deaths of Dutch civilians through starvation and revenge attacks by the nazis !!

[@johnhallett5846]

this is such a steaming pile of crap from the typical Limey apologist trying to excuse things like the british intelligence failures and the radio failures and off course the whole stupid plan to begin with

[@johndawes9337]

@@johnhallett5846 Gavin did fail to take the Waal bridge on landing and that my lil septic friend is the truth.also it was planned by Americans Brereton and Williams and Ike was the boss not Monty.

[@johnhallett5846]

@@johndawes9337 Churchill pressured the Joint staff doofus Monty's plan was idiotic British intelligence was not British radios failed British chosen drop zones failed but you blame everyone else

[@DaBigChode]

Great episode. Couple of questions and going based off memory. 1) Giskes was never imprisoned long term or executed for his actions? 2) Was Giskes part of the same operation where supplies and SOE agents were constantly captured upon parachuting into the region? And then the captured agents who were turned by the Germans; when transmitting their information they purposely left out their authenticator word to show that they had been captured but it had been ignored by British intelligence multiple times?

[@WW2TV]

I don't know the answers to those questions, sorry

[@robertverkaik6397]

@@WW2TV Giskes was captured and interrogated after the war and ended up working for the Americans in Germany. He also wrote a book called Norppol explaining his involvement with Lindemans and the Arnhem betrayal. Gikes was probably the best Abwher officer in Western Europe and the architect of Englanspiel, the most successful German counter-intelligence operation in Holland and possibly the entire