He was known by the soubriquets "King Kong" (for his height and build) or in some circles as "le Tueur" ("The Killer") [2] as he was reportedly ready to shoot at the slightest provocation.

[6] Krist, as he was called by comrades, had worked for the Allies, being personally responsible for the death of at least twenty-seven Germans during the guerrilla war in the outskirts of Antwerp.

Around September 1942, he established his own escape line in Abbeville, where he was arrested two months later after being denounced by a woman living in Paris, an acquaintance named Colette.

He had begun collecting jewels and other valuables from rich women to provide fighting funds for an underground "escape route" through occupied Belgium and the Netherlands into Spain and Portugal.

Lindemans had regular contact with resistance movements, some with communist tendencies such as the Raad van Verzet or Council of Resistance (which engaged in both communications sabotage and the protection of onderduikers, i.e. people in hiding)[9]), the CS VI group of Amsterdam (a clandestine sabotage and intelligence organisation, one of whose members was Dutch Captain Kas de Graaf,[10][n 1]) the Trouw (Fidelity), the Het Parool (The Spoken Word), the Dutch-Paris escape line run by John Henry Weidner[11] and evasion networks within the jurisdiction of MI9.

[12] Lindemans was a member of one of the 12 recognised units of the Belgian underground army called fr:Les Affranchis (The Liberated, ranked 12,[13] founded by Camille Tromme), allowing him to possess a machine gun and a revolver.

They searched her bag and her room and found three ID cards, Kommandantur signatures, pass and German employment permits, all stolen the previous day.

In addition to the items discovered, three revolvers and a box of ammunition, to be handed over to a French resistance movement in Bordeaux (Lindemans was there at the time of his wife's arrest) were confiscated.

Abwehr deal: Release of Lindemans' brother and wife By March 1944, Christiaan was able to initiate contact[n 4] with the Abwehr[n 5] operatives in Brussels, due to his inability to pay 10,000 Florins asked by the first intermediary agent in exchange for their freedom, Lindemans agreed to meet Dr Gerhard, sometimes called "Dr German" (pseudonym for Hermann Giskes, who had run the successful Operation North Pole and who could speak perfect English without a trace of a German accent.)

[17] Giskes claimed that he performed his part of the bargain,[18] Henk Lindemans was released in due course and went as a voluntary worker to Germany where he had some acquaintances[19] From here on, Christiaan Lindemans (Abwehr codenamed CC) was instructed to renew contact with resistance agents and transmit back to Major Hermann Giskes[n 7] information about the resistance movement in the occupied Netherlands, France and Belgium.

Lindemans was to spy on Prince Bernhard's HQ and find out who was the primary source of intelligence (contacts in the Dutch resistance, radio operators and other suppliers of information).

He was to offer himself as an agent, the mission was to find out what plans Canadian Intelligence[n 11] had made for the Netherlands and as soon as possible cross the lines with that information, in that case he was to use a secret code to get past German sentries.

Lindemans, involved in the liberation of the city of Brussels, alongside three Belgian police officers, attacked German forces who were still holding out in the North railway station district.

Bernhard rudly pressured Captain Peter Baker that Lindemans could be trusted and should be used as the Dutch liaison to cross the lines with information for the local resistance about the upcoming operation Market Garden.

Kooy started to suspect Lindemans, had him searched, and a copy of the Deutsche Zeitung in den Niederlanden and a pass signed by Major Ernest Kiesewetter, head of FAT[n 20] 365 in Driebergen (Giskes' subordinate and successor) was discovered in his pocket, Lindemans answered that he had picked up the newspaper on the road and the document bearing Kiesewetter's signature was a forgery.

On duty with the SOE and in company of two British officers, Lindemans paid a visit to French resistance fighter, Charles Buisine on 17 October.

Buisine, a veteran of the Battle of France, had been recruited into the SOE in 1940 by Lindemans with the immediate rank of Lieutenant, he was head of an intelligence and escape network codenamed Sector 6-North-F (stretching from the neighbouring of Orchies to Lille) with HQ in Beuvry.

[51]In the following days, Buisine learnt, to his own disbelief, that Freddi Desmet, SOE Captain of the Belgian army with an impeccable track record and Christiaan Lindemans, one of the leaders of the Communist group CS VI of Amsterdam who was being held prisoner by the British Military Police on suspicion of treason, were the same.

[54] Lindemans' information (report dated 22 August) was incomplete but enough to let the German High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) pinpoint enemy targets, most likely the bridges at Grave, Nijmegen and Arnhem.

In early September, Field Marshall Model who had the task of defending a line running from the North Sea to the Swiss border (500 miles), had ordered the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen and the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg to Arnhem for refitting and upgrading under the direction of Bittrich who would set up his command post in the area in preparation for the upcoming Allied invasion of Germany in reaction to the V-2 campaign.

The limited availability of German jet planes, most of the Me 262 were grounded due to the lack of fuel, made it impossible to fully use Lindemans' intelligence on the position of Eisenhower's HQ and the whereabouts of Allied battle tanks.

Verloop, who at that time was in Allied hands, claimed[n 23] that Lindemans had betrayed Operation Market Garden to intelligence officer Kiesewetter on Friday, 15 September at the Abwehr station in Driebergen.

Lindemans' questioning at Camp 020 had revealed that he had general knowledge on some of Nazi Germany's top-secret weapons including the V-2 program and the existence of an atomic bomb that could burn and destroy everything within a radius of 500 yards, that large amounts of gold were stored in an unknown location in Brussels.

[citation needed] He returned to Dutch custody (7 December 1944) where he was jailed in Breda Prison up to March 1945 and in Scheveningen until summer 1946 for treachery during the war.

The British intelligence service took the matter seriously and intervened with the help of one of their agents inside Scheveningen Prison to get through to Lindemans, in exchange for his wife's safety, he agreed to share information on a Russian organisation that had ties with senior members of France, Germany and the Netherlands Armed forces and civilian administrations.

The article was printed in the French quarterly publication Revue d'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale et des conflits contemporains in 1984.

He was also interviewed by American journalist, Brendan M. Murphy, for his projected book on British spy turned traitor Harold Cole, published in 1987.

In January 1944, posing as patriots, Verloop and fellow Abwehr agent, Antonie Damen, raised suspicion in the mind of one member of the Belgian resistance movement, Mrs Lambot of 15, rue d'Alliance, Brussels.