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The Wamel Case.
The last investigation of the
Dutch National Crime Squad of war
crimes in World War Two.
The truth matters
On September 20th 1944 fifteen men
from the village of Wamel were
executed in the town of Tiel. It was
always assumed that soldiers of the
German Kriegsmarine (Navy) did this.
Years later additional information
surfaces incidentally. Detectives
Mosk and Waterman of the Dutch
National Crime Squad start a
historical criminal investigation.
They identify the real perpetrator
and are believed to close the file
called 'War Crimes in World War
Two'.
The investigation landed on the desk
of detective Mosk and his colleague
Waterman. 'The investigation',
Mosk explains, 'was set in motion
after a Mr. Jan Rijnders provided two
names of Germans who are presumed to
have been involved in the case.'
Rijnders discovered these names by
accident. For years he had been
conducting a private investigation
to the faith of his grandfather, who
was arrested in 1944 and never
returned. In the Regional Archive of
the Rivierenland area he finds the
clue in the Wamel Case. Research to
his grandfather leads Rijnders to
the German public prosecutor Ulrich
Maass. He tells Maass about the
Wamel Case and the two names he
found in the archive, together with
a certain Volkmann from the German
Kriegsmarine. From Maass, Rijnders
receives a copy of a police report
from 1977, when German soldiers had
been questioned concerning war
crimes committed in Tiel. When the
chief of the Dutch Investigative
Service - the predecessor of the
National Crime Squad- hears this
story in 2003, he explains it to the
National Prosecutor’s Office.
Detectives Mosk and Waterman are
then instructed to investigate the
Wamel Case aside from their regular
case load.
Volkmann
Soon, detective Mosk finds out that
Volkmann must have belonged to the 'Fährflottille
Waal' of the Kriegsmarine. The
investigation confirms that the
Fährflottille was in fact activated
in September 1944 and consisted of
personnel of the Kriegsmarine. This
unit was divided into smaller
subunits and stationed in various
locations along the Waal river to
swiftly ferry retreating troops
across the river. The name of the
commanding officer of the subunit in
Tiel: Obersteuermann Otto Volkmann.
In November 2003 Rijnders hands the
documents to Mosk and Waterman.
Among the documents is a police
report by the police in Tiel, dated
1945, about the executions in 1944.
Mosk: 'The first part of the
investigation consisted of an
analysis of all the available police
reports. Based on that analysis and
on investigation conducted in The
Netherlands and in Germany, during
which we received much assistance
from Ulrich Maass, we were able to
create a reconstruction of the
incident. This made evident that the
execution was committed by one
perpetrator, an Oberleutnant of the
Luftwaffe and not, as had always
been assumed, by soldiers of the
Kriegsmarine.'
Sequence of events
The situation in September 1944 is
hectic and chaotic, especially for
the Germans. While the Allied
offensive – Operation Market Garden
– bogs down, the Waal river near Wamel is no-man’s land and the
stretch of river near Tiel is still
in German hands. The Kriegsmarine
uses de ferry between Tiel and Wamel
to ship retreating troops across the
river. On the 19th of September
there is heavy fighting between
Allied troops, Dutch resistance
fighters and German troops. The
Germans retaliate the next day. In
the afternoon of the 20th they set
off from Tiel and head to Wamel.
From witness accounts it becomes
apparent that the Germans spread out
near Wamel in order to rout English
troops from the river bank. A German
soldier is wounded severely and is
evacuated to Germany. Later, it
appears that this soldier is the
only witness who is still living.
Then, at about five o’clock in the
afternoon, German soldiers take
several inhabitants from Wamel from
their homes. Several of them are
taken to a small building containing
an electrical power transformer. Two
young men who attempt to flee are
being shot at by a German with a
machine pistol. One of them is
fatally hit and he is the first
victim. The remaining men are
brought to Tiel. According to
witnesses, the pale man who gives
the orders, the Oberleutnant, is
wearing a grey-green uniform. He is
estimated to be 35 to 40 years of
age and about one meter and seventy
centimetres tall. He is the only
German with a machine gun.
In the evening, under supervision of
the Luftwaffe commanding officer,
the men are taken to the riverside
wall in Tiel. Some of the soldiers
try to stop the furious Oberleutnant.
But he is raging and eventually
shoots and kills all fourteen men in
a brief instant.
Witnesses
'In Germany', Mosk tells, 'we
discovered that the Kriegsmarine
Obersteuermann, Volksmann, died in
1952. Other witnesses appeared not
the be alive anymore either,
including the perpetrator. We did
locate the wounded soldier.' In
2005 this witness told the
detectives that he was stationed in
Schoonderwoerd as a radar operator.
On the 20th of September he was
ordered to liberate German soldiers
in Tiel, who had been taken prisoner
by Allied troops and partisans.
Apart from that, he can not remember
anything. Except that he was
frightened, was wounded in action
and subsequently taken home.
'He was chocked heavily when we
told him of the drama that someone
from his regiment had caused.'
During that interview the man
mentioned the code name of the radar
station in Schoonderwoerd: Gorilla.
Mosk: 'The commandant of that
radar station turned out to be no
stranger to us. It was the
Oberleutnant. Consequently, the only
living German soldier must have
known him.' A second interview
followed a year later. Mosk: 'When
we confronted him with our findings,
he described his leader as a true
Nazi with whom he wanted to be the
least involved. The man had tried to
ignore the war as much as possible.'
Truth
Mosk and Waterman also succeeded in
locating a Dutch witness. They found
a man, a nine year old boy at the
time, who had seen the massacre with
his own eyes. According to this
witness, the Germans got into an
argument, during which one received
a punch. Eventually it became
evident that this was the one who
shot the fourteen men in short
succession. 'Not only the
Kriegsmarine, but also the Luftwaffe
was involved in the actions in Wamel',
Mosk continues. 'The most
important issue is that surviving
relatives and inhabitants of Wamel
and Tiel now know the truth. This is
also of historical significance.'
Mid April 2007 the report of the
massacre was handed to the Mayor of
Tiel, the National Archive and to
other organizations. It is suspected
that the Dutch National Crime Squad
has now closed the last
investigation to war crimes in the
Second World War.
(Note: this is a
version of the report in which the
name of the killer, the Luftwaffe
Oberleutnant, is kept anonymous.)
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