A lawyer in the Dutch Resistance

Not all members of the Second World War Resistance movements in occupied Europe carried guns, explosives or secret radios, some of them, just as vital as the others, wielded briefcases. Resistance involved more than just heroic armed acts against the occupying German forces, sabotage, spying, an underground press and hiding the persecuted, downed allied aircrew and resistance workers. There was the important work of providing financial support to the resisters which tends to be forgotten about because it was less dashing and less exciting though no less dangerous. For those respectable citizens arrested for such activities the penalty could be a concentration camp and death. Among these was the lawyer-attorney Geert Willem Klein, chief investigator of the Nationale Steunfonds (National Support Fund) of Dutch Resistance movement in Assen near Groningen.

There could have been no one more upstanding and respectable than a lawyer which was the perfect cover for an underground worker. Geert Willem Kleine was born on July 10, 1911 in Groningen, the son of Klaas Kleine, a head teacher. He studied law at the University of Groningen and set up a practice at Assen. He married Alida Arnolda Schilder (1918-67) on 1 May 1942, but their married life was to be only too brief as a result of his clandestine activities on behalf of the Resistance.

The Nationale Steunfonds had originated in a scheme to financially support the families of members of the Dutch merchant navy who were in the service of the Allies. It had then been extended to assist the Onderduiken, Jews, army officers, men evading deportation for forced labour in Germany. Money was initially raised from collections from the Dutch people but was then continued by the Dutch Government in exile. The banker Walraven van Hall co-ordinated this movement nationally and the organiser for the north and east of the Netherlands was Jacob van den Bosch.

Kleine’s role as chief investigator was to identify, contact and investigate eligible cases for aid and to determine the amount of benefit that should be paid. It was then the role of a separate distribution department to pay out aid to individuals. A lawyer like Kleine was very well qualified to undertake this work and could carry out his work under cover of his legal practice and his social life. It was, however, not without risk.

The record card for Geert Kleine reveals that he was 6 feet tall with brown eyes and dark blond hair. As well as Dutch, he spoke German, French and English.

He was arrested by the Sicherheitsdienst on 4 June 1944 and sent to Herzogenbush Concentration Camp. When Herzogenbush was evacuated when threatened by the Allied advance, he was moved on 8 September 1944 to Sachsenhausen with the prisoner number 401152. After a month there he was transferred to Buchenwald on 13 October 1944, given a new prisoner number 93324, and sent to the satellite camp of Langenfeld-Zwieberge as slave labour to dig underground galleries for the Malachit armament factories, manual work for which his earlier life had left him unsuited. There he died from heart failure, circulatory problems and an intestinal infection, aged 33 years old, at 8.30 on the morning of 17 December 1944. He was buried in a mass grave at Langenfeld.-Zwieberge.

Geert Kleine had to surrender his personal possessions, including his clothing when he was sentenced and sent to a camp. His clothing, that of the respectable young lawyer, was itemised and stored. The hat, coat, three piece suit, shirt, tie and underwear that he was wearing when arrested were all transferred with him as he was moved from one camp to another pending his release though his death meant that ultimately they were never returned to him. Meanwhile he was given inadequate concentration camp uniform to wear while he carried out hard labour. His own clothes after his death were appropriated and marked as ‘aufgelost’ or ’dispersed’, which meant that they were disinfected, daubed with paint to distinguish them from ordinary civilian suits and distributed to other prisoners to be used as camp clothing. A decree from the SS Chief Economic and Administration Office on 11 November 1944 had ordered that the personal effects of foreign prisoners should no longer be returned but would be considered to be verwertet (“utilised”), meaning that they would be confiscated and sold, and this was stamped on Kleine’s card which listed the consignment of his clothing received at Sachsenhausen on 18 October, a week after his own arrival. His clothes were plundered and utilised, no longer needed by him after death and yet unsuitable for the needs of the slave labourers to whom they were allotted.

War memorial plaque to students of University of Groningen, Academy, Building, Broerstraat 5, 9712CP, Groningen

Stolpersteine, Zuidersingel 1, Assen, home of Mr G.W. Kleine, lawyer-attorney and chief investigator of the National Support Fund of Dutch Resistance movement

Although consigned to an unmarked grave, Geert Kleine is commemorated on a number of memorials at his former home in Assen, university at Groningen, and the law courts in Amsterdam.