Operation Three Castles, May 7, 1945
The greatest forgotten action of the Interior Forces*
Norbert-Jan Nuij
As an attempt is made to disarm some German soldiers, a shot is fired. Moments later, all hell breaks loose. This event is often cited as a possible trigger for the shooting on Dam Square – German troops open fire on the gathered crowd from their Kriegsmarine position in the Groote Club building.
What really happened behind the Royal Palace?
In the autumn of 1944, the three main resistance organizations (LO/LKP, OD and RVV) united to form the Nederlandse Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten (NBS or BS, Netherlands Interior Forces). The plan was to mobilize an underground army ready to play a role in the liberation of the Netherlands. In practice, it proved extremely challenging to forge the diverse beliefs and methods of these resistance groups into an effective collaborative effort. In Amsterdam, the designated BS commander of the so-called ‘Combat Section’ was Reserve Major Carel Frederik Overhoff (alias: ‘Knecht’: Servant).
As the resistance had information that German troops would cause significant destruction during the final battle, plans were made in late 1944 to secure important locations and buildings in the city, such as power plants and train stations. In the city center, this included the Royal Palace on Dam Square and several buildings behind it: Telephone Exchange 4 at the corner of Spuistraat and Raadhuisstraat, the neo-Gothic Main Post Office/telegraph office (now Magna Plaza shopping mall) on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, and the adjacent Office for Transactions and Telephony, called ‘Geldkantoor’: money exchange office. The latter massive building (now an supermarket and the W Amsterdam hotel) was particularly important as an international telephone exchange. Overhoff writes in his War Memories: “The most important was the Geldkantoor because on its first floor were the international telephone connections. The Germans had planted explosives. Its preservation was of the utmost importance. Therefore, the occupation of the complex was assigned to a special unit reporting directly to me. It was the RVV tasked with this duty.” [1]
The RVV (Council of Resistance) was thus responsible for Three Castles, the codename for these three (actually four) buildings – named after a popular cigarette brand of that time. The RVV commander in Amsterdam, formally subordinate to Overhoff, was the communist and former Spanish Civil War fighter Max Meijer (1908-1976), but whether he or Overhoff appointed the unlikely leader of Three Castles remains unclear.
Eclectic ‘battalion’
The leader was the 37-year-old Dr. H.A.L. (Heinz) Trampusch, an Austrian biologist. In 1936, he lost his job at the University of Bonn due to his intermarriage to the Jewish Alice Badian. He moved to Amsterdam, where he started working as a volunteer at the medical faculty of the University of Amsterdam. After the Anschluss of Austria, the socialist Trampusch decided to stay in the Netherlands and brought his wife over. During the occupation, he was involved in clandestine education and helped Jewish children go into hiding. In the winter of ’44-’45, under Trampusch’s (alias Jankees) leadership, an RVV-Student Company was formed, which would eventually become part of Three Castles Battalion. After Trampusch was appointed as the overall leader of the operation, medical student Samuel Albert (Boet) de Lange took command of the Student Company. De Lange, after the execution of Gerrit van der Veen, became one of the leading figures of the forging organization Persoonsbewijzen Centrale (PBC, Central Office for Identity Cards) and worked alongside Herman Sandberg (chief editor of newspaper Het Parool from 1961 to 1981). The eclectic ‘battalion’ further consisted of resistance members from the PBC, other students, RVV members, people from the artists’ resistance, and a Police Group (about 50 men) mainly from the Warmoesstraat police station, as well as Jews affiliated with the resistance and at least one German deserter. On May 5 and 6, the various groups gathered as inconspicuously as possible in the building of the Van Gelder paper factory (Singel 236) – a total of about 300 people, including couriers.
At around 3:00 PM on May 7, when German troops opened fire from De Groote Club building (situated on The Dam corner Kalverstraat/Paleisstraat), Operation Three Castles was in full swing. The Main Post Office and money exchange office were surrounded and taken over. The German occupiers were brought in through the rear entrance of the Palace, which had already been secretly occupied a few days earlier.
Why Trampusch proceeded with the operation, even though the Germans had capitulated two days earlier, is unclear. Was it because the occupiers were still armed and the money exchange office was reportedly guarded by SS officers? Did the arrival of the British reconnaissance unit signal the time to act, or was it the absence of the main Canadian force that followed? Although he does not provide a direct reason for taking action, in an interview with magazine Vrij Nederland [March 28, 1981], Trampusch stated: “The general confusion of the armistice the next morning meant that orders were no longer coming through. Therefore, I had to determine the moment of action on my own authority.”
Much to the dismay of BS district commander for the Central district, Petrus J.M. van der Reijden, Three Castles fell outside his authority. In 1951, he wrote: ‘It was very surprising that in the middle of my district, the so-called 3 buildings (Post & money exchange office, etc.) were not placed under my command but were left independent at the RVV’s request. I repeatedly warned against this. It was an dilettante unit with different commander each time.’[2] According to Trampusch’s account in Vrij Nederland, the occupation of the Money Office proceeded smoothly and without incident. The commanding officer wanted to talk and happened to be Austrian as well. Trampusch recalled: “He asked: ‘Where are you from?’ He turned out to be the head of the post office in Krems an der Donau and had only one desire: to go home as quickly as possible.” Section commander of the Police Group, Sergeant J.J. van Leusden, describes in his report how, after the occupation of the Money Office (around 3:00 PM), he led his group to escort the German occupiers to the Palace. Meanwhile, other German soldiers were also being detained on the streets behind the Palace and brought there. [2]
According to Trampusch’s account in Vrij Nederland, the occupation of the Money Office proceeded smoothly and without incident. The commanding officer wanted to talk and happened to be Austrian as well. Trampusch recalled: “He asked: ‘Where are you from?’ He turned out to be the head of the post office in Krems an der Donau and had only one desire: to go home as quickly as possible.” Section commander of the Police Group, Sergeant J.J. van Leusden, describes in his report how, after the occupation of the Money Office (around 3:00 PM), he led his group to escort the German occupiers to the Palace. Meanwhile, other German soldiers were also being detained on the streets behind the Palace and brought there. [2]
Around three o’clock, witness J.M. Smulders saw BS troops, “almost all in police uniforms with helmets,” stop a German army car between the Palace and the Main Post Office. The two occupants were taken to the rear entrance of the Palace. He then saw a naval soldier being brought in, but he stormed out of the rear entrance of the Palace again. Shots were fired, and he was recaptured.[3] In a well-known photo, two German soldiers are shown with their hands raised at the corner of Paleisstraat and Spuistraat. Reportedly, after some resistance, one of the two was shot, prompting the soldiers in De Groote Club to open fire. Even from the roof of De Groote Club, it is highly doubtful that this arrest could have been seen. Moreover, film footage shows these soldiers being led away unharmed. [3]
Ms. Greet Radier, who worked at the ‘Kas-Vereniging’ Bank diagonally across the street, observed the following: “We were standing on the sidewalk in front of our building with many others, and we saw two Germans standing in front of baker Lelieveld (corner Spuistraat/Raadhuisstraat, red.), one already had his hands up and the other was just raising them when I saw it. It was a Grüne! (Ordnungspolizei member, red.) I thought it was a magnificent sight! I believe they had tried to flee into that house, as I saw a policeman climbing onto the roof a little later, but he came down with two packages and the Germans had to go along! When that Grüne raised his hands, there was another cheer! But while we were still watching, suddenly a few shots rang out from the direction of De Groote Club, and people came running into Paleisstraat from there. More shots were fired, and we quickly went into Spuistraat to the bicycle storage amid the crackle of more gunfire. The resistance members were also driving people away, further into Spuistraat.’ Later, Radier heard from colleague Ms. Jo Zuurendonk what had happened: ‘She had been standing right at the front on Dam Square near De Groote Club and saw that a marine soldier or officer was ordered by one of the BS members to surrender his rifle, which he refused to do and started shooting at people, then the BS members shot back, the marine collapsed, but much more shooting followed, and many civilians were hit. It was terrible! I think the Germans were first provoked by the attitude of the crowd, and secondly, I think the resistance fighters didn’t actually have the right to disarm the Germans; they should have left it to the Canadians, but those guys were naturally eager to handle the situation themselves.’ [4]
Shot Down
According to policeman Henk Evers, who was on his way to Spuistraat with his group for Three Castles (stopping Germans along the way, taking their weapons, and bringing them to the Palace), the shooting from De Groote Club was “a reaction because an overly active member of the BS had tried to disarm them.” Evers’ group was also active: “Behind the Palace, we encountered two men from the Kriegsmarine. They had submachine guns on their backs and were about to use them. Rein Hankel, a member of our group, grabbed his weapon and mowed them down.” [5] Several witness accounts describe the same or similar incidents where German soldiers were shot.
In 2004, Jan Pols stated that after Germans were taken to the Palace, a marine on a bicycle arrived with a Mauser submachine gun on his chest. He was shot in the leg before he could shoot. Earlier, in 1992, G.M.F. Theuwkens reported the same in the NRC newspaper [May 19, 1992]: “I was not far from De Groote Club when a German marine, armed with a submachine gun, rode up on a bicycle in the midst of the commotion. He was stopped, and they tried to disarm him. He dismounted and readied his weapon to shoot. However, before he could open fire, an Amsterdam policeman shot him in the leg.” This story was already published in the newspaper De Volkskrant on May 8, 1945, but in that version, one of the two Germans fired the first shot.
A different version appeared in the newspaper De Waarheid on May 8: “Around 3 PM, two SS officers were disarmed by BS members in Paleisstraat. With their hands raised, they were escorted to the Palace guard amid cheers. Three soldiers coming from Rozengracht were also ordered to surrender their weapons. Instead of complying, they attempted to rescue the SS officers. One of them shot at a BS member, who was quicker and wounded the man with a shot from his revolver, rendering him incapacitated.” This suggests multiple incidents occurred simultaneously in the same area, meaning more than one German soldier was shot before the firing began from De Groote Club.
According to some witnesses, the arrests behind the Palace were forceful. “The BS members roughly stripped anyone in a German uniform of their weapons and insignia. They literally kicked the Germans into the Palace amid the crowd’s jeers.” [6] Gerard Schulte, who was a 15-year-old boy at the time, also saw this: “The soldiers were kicked and beaten into the Palace by the BS members amid cheers from the onlookers. The soldiers in De Groote Club might have seen this and it could have triggered the subsequent shooting.” [7]
According to Sergeant Van Leusden, the transfer of the German occupiers from the money exchange office to the Palace occurred without incident. However, two Germans were released “because they had to arrange their own food supply,” and Van Leusden saw “them heading towards De Groote Club on Dam Square. Shortly after, four Kriegsmarine members emerged from the dead-end alley behind De Groote Club onto Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, throwing hand grenades towards the money exchange office and firing in the same direction, hitting both the crowd and BS members.” [8]
Another witness, Mrs. Jansen, also reported trouble at the rear entrance of De Groote Club. “A girl was saying goodbye to a German sailor there. BS members saw this and went to grab the girl. The German started shooting, and the BS members fired back from the money exchange office. We retreated to Dam Square but were stopped in Paleisstraat by a shopkeeper. We had to go inside because they were also shooting from De Groote Club onto Dam Square.” [9]
Wild shootout
As the crowd behind the Palace fled in all directions, just like on Dam Square, the BS engaged in a wild shootout with the Kriegsmarine in De Groote Club and other scattered German units. From the roof and windows of De Groote Club, German guns covered most of Dam Square and its access roads. However, the access roads themselves were controlled by the BS. Despite their strategic position, the Germans were completely surrounded after the takeover of the money exchange office and Main Post Office. The Kriegsmarine stronghold was fired upon from Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, the Palace, surrounding buildings and rooftops (probably including the tall newspaper The Telegraaf building at Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 225), and to a lesser extent from the north side of Dam Square. There also may have been some German snipers active from rooftops. Several German counterattacks behind the Palace were halted. Two military trucks speeding towards the commotion from Raadhuisstraat were caught in crossfire on bridge no. 8 over the Singel and crashed against the back corner of the money exchange office. At the Main Post Office, several German trucks also got stuck. The soldiers took cover in houses on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal. Later, a group of cyclists (20 to 30 men) provided some German reinforcements, but they could not break the stalemate either.
End of the Battle
Just as there are various stories and theories about the cause and beginning of the shooting, there are also multiple accounts of how the firefight ended. The most common account is Overhoff’s report, in which he describes how, immediately after the shooting started, he went to the Ortskommandantur (local headquarters) at Museumplein to seek help. The Ortskommandant (garrison commander), Lieutenant Colonel (Oberstleutnant) Hans Alfred Oskar Schröder, sent his Captain, Hauptmann Feldgendarmerie Bergmann – who fumed: “Das ist natürlich wieder die verdammte Marine, welch eine Schweinerei” (“That is, of course, the damned navy again, what a disgrace!”) – on Overhoff’s motorcycle with a sidecar, with Sergeant Jan de Jongh at the wheel. Upon arriving at Dam Square, Overhoff and Bergmann entered De Groote Club and restored peace and order. They also managed to stop their men behind the Palace from firing. Finally, they headed by sidecar towards Central Station, where another firefight had broken out, and managed to end the battle there as well – during which De Jongh was fatally wounded near the Victoria Hotel opposite Central Station. For his courageous actions, Overhoff was awarded the Military Order of William in 1947. [10]
Trampusch and various people from the Three Castles contingent claim that they forced De Groote Club to surrender with a bazooka, a rocket launcher. According to Trampusch, he called the commander of De Groote Club Lieutenant (Oberleutnant) Claasse(n). After some threats exchanged, policeman George Lodewijks aimed the bazooka from a rooftop window of the Palace at De Groote Club. The first grenade misfired, but the second flew through an open window and exploded, supposedly blowing apart the glass porter’s lodge. Shocked, the Kriegsmarine unit is said to have surrendered. According to P. Sickinghe, the palace head, supervisor Adriaan Perfors, who lived in the Palace on Dam Square with his family during the occupation, witnessed this. Three weeks before the capitulation, 35 men from the Police Group had secretly taken residence in the Palace in preparation for Operation Three Castles. This unit “fired from the Palace – in the presence of supervisor Perfors.”[11]
Perfors’ daughter Willemijn, as a child, heard that the Germans surrendered because De Groote Club was full of ammunition and weapons. In 1981, Trampusch said: “If a grenade had hit one of those landmines, it would have been a massive ascent to heaven. The entire Groote Club would have blown up.”
Central District Commander Van der Reijden was also involved in the ceasefire, at least according to his 1951 report. He claimed to have called Hafenkommandant (port commander) Fregattenkapitän Alexander Stein, who in turn had already ordered Claase(n), the commander of the naval unit in De Groote Club, to intervene. After relative calm returned to Dam Square, Van der Reijden sent his adjutant Nico Vos to end the resurgent firefights behind the Palace. In his report, Vos described how he, along with Claase(n), called loudly on Germans, BS members, and remaining civilians in Spuistraat and Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal to cease fire.
Capitulation Terms
Although it is almost impossible to determine the exact trigger of the shooting, it is difficult to avoid a direct connection to Operation Three Castles. Indirectly, this can also be inferred from the text on the commemorative certificate printed afterward specifically for the members of Three Castles: “After the capitulation of the occupation of West Netherlands, on May 7th, the order came to take over the Geldkantoor (money exchange office), and this was the reason for the German Sailors in the Groote Club to open fire on the celebrating crowd at Dam Square.”
Adjutant Nico Vos wrote in his report, dated May 20th, that he had called the German commander of the Groote Club during the shooting and asked “what all this meant.” According to Vos, he replied, “Members of the BS had suddenly stormed the Money Office and overwhelmed the German occupation. Furthermore, shots had been fired at the Groote Club. Since, according to the capitulation terms, he was obligated to surrender the properties occupied by Germans intact to the Canadians, fire was also opened from the German side.” [12]
According to the same capitulation terms, German military personnel were to be disarmed after the arrival of the Allies. SD, SS, Grüne Polizei, and Landwacht (dutch paramilitary ss unit) were to be disarmed by the Wehrmacht itself. Additionally, in a meeting on May 6th, Overhoff had agreed with the German city commander Schröder that the German units would remain in their places and, if necessary, only move unarmed. [13] This would explain why BS members who encountered armed German soldiers on the street on May 7th concluded that they could act on their own authority. And although formally bound, in the order from Henri Koot, the highest Commander of the Interior Forces, dated May 6th (11:00 PM), the following passage was included: “If individual Germans or groups of Germans continue to cause destruction or intend to do so, or terrorize or attempt to do so, the BS will, until the Allies arrive on the scene, act independently against them if possible, in the old secret manner.” [14]
In hindsight, it’s easy to ascertain that had the Dutch Resistance remained indoors on May 7th, the city would have been spared a pointless shootout with many casualties. However, in retrospect, it can also be argued that this was nearly an impossible task for the Resistance at a time when the German occupiers had already surrendered but still controlled the capital city. On May 7th, the anticipated arrival of the Canadians served as the signal for the Amsterdam Resistance to spring into action. Disregarding the official directive to remain unarmed when venturing outside – before the arrival of the Allies – and refraining from disarming was more of a rule than an exception. The actions of the entire Amsterdam Resistance on May 7th appear more like a coordinated action from above that spiraled out of control. According to reports, the Resistance’s presence at Central Station and on Dam Square was ordered from higher up. It seems implausible that Overhoff, in his report and War Memories, depicts the Resistance as being completely restrained until the Germans began shooting. It’s highly unlikely that he was unaware of these actions and those of Three Castles (as the direct responsible party). It’s more plausible that the Resistance not only aimed to secure important strategic “objects” but – perhaps even more crucially – also aimed to arrest Nazi criminals and collaborators before they could flee. Extra weapons proved useful for this, and the quickest way to obtain them was by disarming German soldiers. With the arrival of the first Allied forces around noon, the Resistance was unleashed, and the city seemed definitively liberated. When the small British reconnaissance unit withdrew due to a lack of backup, there was no turning back for the Resistance. The tug-of-war between the former Resistance and the former occupiers then escalated into shootings on and around Dam Square, at Central Station, and at Vondelpark, resulting in at least 40 casualties – mostly civilians. In the euphoria after the liberation, nobody wanted a dampener, and it felt only natural to unilaterally blame the Germans in the Groote Club and to conceal or ignore one’s own actions. And so, the German salvos on the crowd became defining, and Operation Three Castles faded into obscurity.
Confidentiality
The strict confidentiality within the resistance made the difference between life and death, between success or failure, a well-known fact. And for many resistance fighters – especially the members of the Three Castles – this remained the life lesson after 1945 as well. They saw each other at reunions, became lifelong friends, and lived close to each other, in towns near Amsterdam such as Laren and Blaricum. But for the outside world, the book on 40-45 remained largely closed; even their children often knew little or nothing about what their father or mother had done during the war. It wasn’t until 1981 that Trampusch gave a one-time interview about Three Castles in Vrij Nederland.
Without the unissued Three Castles certificates containing name, alias, and group (for example, RVV, group I), along with a number of resistance reports obtained through family, the participants of this final major resistance action would have largely remained unknown. For many PBC and RVV participants, there isn’t even a personnel file in the National Archives. This led to situations like Eugene van Geest having to request a participation statement from his former ‘commander’ De Lange (who by then was a respected neurosurgeon in Rotterdam) in 1980 to finalize his pension. Nevertheless, the scarce puzzle pieces provide an intriguing picture, at least of the significant role played by the Persoonsbewijzen Centrale on May 7th. Three of the key leaders, Samuel de Lange, Herman Sandberg (editor-in-chief of Het Parool from 1961 to 1981), and Dick Reijneker, were assigned with other PBC members to at least three groups. These groups were involved, at least, in the occupation of the money exchange office and skirmishes behind the Palace, where the later renowned designer Friso Kramer (of the green PTT letterbox, among others) also participated. Remarkably, even more post-war well-known Amsterdammers were associated with Three Castles: Jeanne Roos (first TV announcer), Violette Cornelius (photographer), Lex van Delden (composer), and Fred Brommet (fashion photographer). Equally noteworthy is that the daughter (Jeltje) of the newly appointed mayor Feike de Boer was also with Three Castles, serving as a courier. [15]
*This article is an updated and extended version of the article (in Dutch) ‘Operatie three Castles – Aanleiding en einde van de schietpartij op de Dam, 7 mei 1945’ (Operation Three Castles. Cause and end of the shooting on the Dam, May 7, 1945) published in Drama op de Dam – 7 mei 1945 (2017) (p. 19-27). The main additions are two comments from Overhoff from his War Memories (notes 1 and 13), the previously unpublished diary entry of Greet Radier (note 4), and the final paragraph ‘Confidentiality’.
Notes:
1. NIMH, Bevrijding van Nederland (Liberation of the Netherlands), 447, inv. no. 83.
2. National Archives, BRIOP, 2.13.208, inv. no. 2745.
3. Bool/Hekking, De Dam 7 mei, Amsterdam 1992, p. 74.
4. Collection of the Resistance Museum, object no. 17426 (With thanks to Filip Bloem).
5. Cees Koring, Bureau Warmoesstraat, The Hague 2000, p. 47-48.
6. Tilly Krone, tijdgeest.nl/herinnering/1372.
7. Het Parool, 13 May 2013.
8. National Archives, 2.13.208, inv. no. 2745.
9. NIOD, dossier Bevrijding Amsterdam (Liberation of Amsterdam), inv. no. 249-1110.
10. National Archives, 2.13.208, inv. no. 2745.
11. Trouw, 4 May 2005.
12. National Archives, 2.13.208, inv. no. 2745.
13. NIMH, Liberation of the Netherlands, 447, inv. no. 83.
14. G.J. Ojen, De Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten, The Hague 1972, appendix XXXIX, p. 924.
15. In Drama op de Dam – 7 mei 1945, the story of the Exalto resistance sisters focuses on an interesting Three Castles group around Ed Toussaint van Hove. Furthermore, in De geldjas van Max Nord by Harry van Wijnen (chapters 3, 4, and 7), more fascinating resistance stories can be found about members of the Persoonsbewijzencentrale and Parool circles, who were also involved with Three Castles; such as Sandberg, De Lange, Kramer, Wim Bothe, Leendert van Geest, the brothers Bart and Roelof van Tongeren, and Peter de Bie.
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