Annexure VIII

After hearing from Krim. Rat SCHREIEDER in Driebergen about the 10^th September 1944, in reply to my question that LAUWERS and JORDAAN had been taken to the Oranienburg Concentration Camp, I reported this news to the Kommandoführer. As their detention there was contrary in every promise made by the SD, GISKES instructed me to propose to the SD that they should be immediately release from the concentration camp; if necessary I was to go myself to Oranienburg and arrange for the release on the spot. I then returned to Driebergen, where Krim. Rat. SCHREIEDER gave me highly reassuring explanations concerning this treatment of the two prisoners. They were accommodated in
Stufe-I, i.e. they were well treated and looked after and lived in the same as every free worker in Germany except that they were accommodated in the camp.
I thereupon explained to SCHREIEDER that I was commissioned to procure the release of the prisoners. In consequence, after waiting two days, I received from SCHREIEDER, a document, signed by him, from the Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei and the SD in The Hgue, to the Oranienburg Concentration Camp, in which the Concentration Camp was instructed to deliver to me the two prisoners for my disposal. SCHREIEDER added verbally that the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) in Berlin and the Concentration Camp in Oranienburg had been advised in advance by teleprint. On the evening of the same day SCHREIEDER again rang me up and said that a telegram had just arrived from the Reichssicherheitshaupamt in Berlin that under no circumstances could the two prisoners be placed at the disposal of FAK-307.
In spite of this, I went to Oranienburg, where the release to me of the two men was flatly turned down, on the ground that LAUWERS and JORDAAN had been engaged in work on secret weapons and thus knew official secrets, and their release could only take place at the end of the war. On the pretence that it was urgently necessary to interrogate them on an Abwehr matter, I finally managed to arrange for the two men to be brought before me the next day. When I went again to Oranienburg the next morning it turned out that LAUWERS was nowhere to be found. It was presumed that he had been sent off to Rathenow as a worker. JORDAAN was thereupon brought before me. The 'interrogation' on an Abwehr matter was naturally a pretext to see for myself that JORDAAN was actually there and what was his state on health; I also wished to hear his own story concerning his position there and to find out any new posibilities for getting him out of the camp. JORDAAN appeared very badly cared for and extraordinarily depressed. Concerning LAUWERS whereabouts, he only knew that he was working with an Arbeitskommando outside the camp. As Things stood, I could give JORDAAN no hope of imminent release from the camp through our intervention, as we too were completely at that moment at the mercy of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. JORDAAN than said that he and LAUWERS knew well, from their own observation, to what an extent the SIPO were always frustrating any efforts on their behalf made by Abwehr III-F. However, he had arranged with LAUWERS that as soon as the war was over, provided he lived till then, he would report to the HQ in London all that had happened. Further, he wished, and LAUWERS did too, to see me agian after the war in happier circumstances, and for this reason gave me his home address in Haaksbergen, Huis de Bleek.
As is understandable, I too desired to know that after the war JORDAAN was at home again and well, as my inability to improve his position at that time depressed me greatly. When I left I had the impression that my visit had at least convinced him that he was not entirely abandoned.
On my reurn I reported to the Kommando on the result of my journey. The Kommandoführer now also saw no further possibility of undertaking anything in this matter which would lead to a positive result.

On my first interrogation by the USA Military Authorities (MIC) on 24^th April in Göttingen, I reported to the American Interrogation officer that in the Oranienburg Camp there were two English agents, called LAUWERS and JORDAAN, who belonged to the Dutch Section of the British Intelligence Service and who therefore should be taken over London immediately after the liberation. The same officer told me two days later, in the Schwarzenborn Camp, that JORDAAN had been found by the Americans. He had been taken to an American hospital as he was very weak and had to recuperate. There was no trace of LAUWERS.

w.mugge@home.nl