The Traitor of Arnhem: The Untold Story of WWII's Greatest Betrayal and the Moment that Changed History Forever

“British journalist Robert Verkaik tells the story of Market Garden’s failure in the context of one of the most remarkable and consequential spy stories of World War II.”

After the successful breakout of the Normandy beachhead in July–August 1944, the Allied Supreme Command decided on a single strategic thrust to end the war in the west by Christmas. Spearheaded by the 21st Army Group led by British Gen. Bernard Montgomery, Operation Market Garden would bypass the Siegfried Line in a combined airborne-infantry assault through the Netherlands to seize bridges over the Lower Rhine River, break into the Ruhr valley, and take the German capital of Berlin. The key to success was surprise. Market Garden failed because the Germans knew the Allies were coming.

British journalist Robert Verkaik tells the story of Market Garden’s failure in the context of one of the most remarkable and consequential spy stories of World War II. Verkaik contends in The Traitor of Arnhem that Anthony Blunt, one of the infamous “Cambridge Five” spies who worked in MI5 and MI6 against their own country on behalf of Stalin’s Soviet Union, was the source of intelligence (codenamed “Josephine”) about Market Garden that triple-agent Christiaan Lindemans provided to the Germans a few days before the airborne operation was launched. That information enabled the German armed forces to reinforce their defense of the bridges and defeat the Allied offensive.

Verkaik has mastered the relevant information about the spy game of the Second World War that resembled what former CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton (who served in the wartime U.S. Office of Strategic Services during the war) called a “wilderness of mirrors.” There were spies on both sides of the war, but also double agents and triple agents who worked for England, Germany, and Soviet Russia at the same time.

Christiaan Lindemans (also known as “King Kong” due to his enormous strength and size) was one of them, and much of Verkaik’s book deals with Lindemans’ multifaceted treachery. He was a member of the Dutch resistance forces who initially worked for the Allies but later served both German and Soviet interests. Verkaik notes that most histories of Market Garden identify Lindeman as the “traitor of Arnhem,” but that is only part of the story.

And what a story it is—told by a master storyteller who has mined the relevant historical sources, carefully assessed the sometimes’ murky evidence, insightfully depicted the principal characters and their supporting cast, and made history come alive with verve, energy, and panache. Each chapter of Verkaik’s book leaves you yearning to learn more.

Christiaan Lindeman was caught up in a larger geopolitical contest for preeminence in the postwar world. Verkaik understands that the Cold War began during, not after, the war. Stalin’s alliance with the Western powers was a marriage of convenience, just as was his temporary pact with Hitler between 1939 and 1941. Churchill understood this. Franklin Roosevelt did not. Churchill supported Market Garden because it was an opportunity to get to Berlin before the Russians and shape postwar Central Europe in the West’s favor.

So at the same time that Soviet soldiers were killing Germans on the eastern front, London-based Soviet spies were providing intelligence information to the Germans to use against Allied forces in the west. Stalin’s goal was to get to Berlin before the British and Americans, and to conquer as much territory in eastern and central Europe as possible before the end of the war. That, Verkaik writes, makes Blunt’s treachery far worse than Lindemans’.

Verkaik acknowledges that there is no “smoking gun” that directly implicates Blunt as the real “traitor of Arnhem,” but he provides a strong circumstantial case that Blunt was, in his words, “the most devastatingly successful and destructive spy in history.” Thousands died as a result of Blunt’s treachery. Millions more in Eastern and Central Europe “were condemned to lives of cruel oppression under the Soviet regime.” And the Soviets were in a much stronger position to wage Cold War more effectively because of Blunt’s treason. Anthony Blunt, not Kim Philby, was the real “master spy.”