THE Traitor Of Arnhem (1952), King Kong, Christiaan Lindemans, Barry Wynne on Colonel Oreste Pinto

German spy in the Dutch resistance Christiaan Lindemans 'King Kong'
Operation Market Garden September 1944
Story first hand from British Intelligence Officer Col. Pinto told by Barry Wynne, Interviwed by Tony Gosling

A Bridge Not Far - was Market Garden sabotaged at Lent, Nijmegen Bridge? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50ogHjrQFBE

THE TRAITOR OF ARNHEM
Chapter 9 - extracted from
Spycatcher By Lt. Col. Oreste Pinto Published by Panther Books (1952)
http://www.bilderberg.org/traitor.htm
THE case I am now going to relate is certainly the most important that I ever experienced and is perhaps the most important spy-case in the whole history of espionage. The latter is a tall claim which I shall do my best to substantiate. but first I should like the reader to appreciate that the claim is not made merely because I played a part in unmasking the man who did unparalleled damage to the Allied cause. Let us consider the facts. Had Field Marshal Montgomery's daring bid for a spearhead attack across the Maas and Neder Rijn bridgeheads succeeded and had the main forces linked up with the gallant paratroopers at Arnhem, a wedge of armour would have been thrust at the heart of Germany. Successful exploitation of the thrust would probably have ended the war in Europe before Christmas, 1944, six months sooner than was in fact the case. There must be few strategists or tacticians who could deny this probability. It is impossible to measure the saving in the lives of soldiers and civilians which would have resulted from such a shortening of the war. Hundreds of millions of pounds worth of devastations of land and buildings would have thus been a voided. The British Government alone was spending some £6,000.000 per day on the war effort at that time. Had the European war been shortened by six months, it would have saved a gigantic sum in the neighbourhood of £2.900,000,000 for the Exchequer. When one considers what other Governments. notably the United States, were jointly spending in prosecuting the war, the moneys that might have been saved and later devoted to reconstruction for peace amount to astronomical figures almost without significance to the average wage-earner. More important still, bad the Western Allies penetrated far into Germany and occupied all of Berlin and West Germany before the Russians had arrived from the East, the whole sad story of Allied relations since 1945 might have been far different, and, had the Western Allies been able to " deal from strength," possibly far happier....
.......Lindemans may not have mentioned the actual name of Arnhem, but he did tell Colonel Kiesewetter that the landings were to take place north of Eindhoven. He said as much in his signed confession. Now every large-scale parachute landing, as any amateur tactician should know, is made with the object of seizing some vital area and holding it for a limited length of time. Paratroops, the elite of the Army, are too valuable to be scattered aimlessly over the countryside in penny packets. One glance at the map would suffice to tell the German military experts what points these airborne troops would be concentrated on “ north of Eindhoven." There was no valuable objective in the open fields. No. The obvious targets were the bridges at Grave, Nijmegen and Arnhem. If these could be seized and held long enough for the main body to link up with the paratroops, then a dangerous bridgehead aimed at the heart of Germany would be developed.

So Lindemans's infamy can never be whitewashed. When he told Colonel Kiesewetter of the top-secret plan to land airborne forces “ north of Eindhoven" in two days' time, he betrayed the Battle of Arnhem........
.......But when I went to get the vital file it was not in its proper place. I searched carefully on neighbouring shelves and in nearby filing cabinets in case it had been accidentally filed away in the wrong place. There was no sign of it. I checked the record index to make sure that the system had not been reorganised in my absence. There was no entry to show that there ever had been a file on the Lindemans case. In fact the very name “ Lindemans “ had been carefully and completely expunged !

I began to make pressing inquiries. At last I learned that a certain senior officer [Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands? – ed.] had called for the file some days earlier. I tackled him. He admitted that he had had the file in his possession for a short time but had passed it on to another senior officer. I went to see the latter. When I questioned him he looked blank. No. he had never set eyes on the Lindemans file. I returned to the former senior officer. He was equally surprised. He could have sworn that the other senior officer had taken the file from him on such and such a day. And there the matter ended. From that day to this I have never set eyes on the Lindemans file and there was nothing further for the moment that I could do......