Silbertanne-Aktion

A.M. de Jong

The Silbertanne-Aktion started off in September 1943 and lasted about a year. The Aktion was initiated by the head of Sipo and SD Erich Naumann and his boss Hans Albin Rauter. During this Aktion about 56 Dutch men were killed by mostly Dutch SS-members and members of the Sonderkommando Feldmeijer or other collaborators. These men were assassinated as a reprisal for the killing of Nazi's and NSB-members by the Dutch resistance. Read my stories about Heinrich Boere and Klaas-Carel Faber.

Last October 2010 an extensive study was published by Inger Schaap in which she describes each and every assassination of the Silbertanne killings in detail. The events that led to the assassination, how the victim was chosen, who was picked out to do the actual killing and how the actual killing took place.

The first assassination that started off the Silbertanne Aktion, followed upon the killing of a farmer and fanatic member of the NSB (Dutch National-Socialist Movement) by the Dutch resistance. The farmers' wife was severely injured during this attack. A few days later 3 men were killed in neighboring villages as a reprisal. Victims were randomly picked from a list of persons known to be anti-Nazi. Most of them not actual members of a resistance group but closely related to resistance-members. Ammunition used in the assassinations was mostly of English origin in order to protect the killers and to try to put the blame on the resistance. This ammunition was taken by the Nazi's from droppings by English planes or from arrested resistance-members.
A lot of the victims were killed in their homes in the presence of their family-members. The assassin knocked on the door, asked if he was the person they looked for and the person was shot in the head. Some of them were taken from their homes for interrogation, taken to a remote place by car and shot in the back "Auf der Flucht erschossen", "Shot, trying to escape".

One of the victims of the Silbertanne-Aktion was the Dutch writer A.M. de Jong.
He was killed in the village of Blaricum on the 18th of October 1943 as a reprisal for the attack on a member of the WA, his neighbor. The WA was a uniformed section of the NSB and used as security-guards for NSB leader Mussert and other NSB members. During the war a lot of WA-members volunteered for the SS and NSKK and fought for the Germans on the Russian front.

Sources:
Sluipmoordenaars; De Silbertanne-moorden in Nederland 1943 - 1944.
Assassins, The Silbertanne-killings in the Netherlands 1943 - 1944; by Inger Schaap; 2010.