(archive number 46)
Ootmarsum, 8 June 1945.
To the Department Political Investigation
OLDENZAAL
The undersigned, BUDDE, Herman Petrus Theodoor, aged 24 years, civil servant at the council of Ootmarsum, politely informs you of the following:
“On 9 June 1943 I was suspected of sabotage and in breach of official secrecy regarding the confiscation of radio sets and radio registers. I was arrested by police officers from Oldenzaal, at the town hall in Ootmarsum and taken to the concentration camp Vught. Then on 10 September ’43 I was transferred from this concentration camp to the prison in Utrecht, where I stayed until 2 November ’43. On the last reported date, my case came before the German Obergericht in The Hague, with the authority conditionally releasing me after questioning.
The German secret service (S.D.) in Enschede informed me a few days later that I was unworthy of my place as a civil servant and that they were still interested in me. Sometime later I received a call from the Employment Office in Enschede to appear there. On 14 January 1944, the Obergericht in The Hague had withdrawn the charges against me. After that I was repeatedly summoned by the Employment Office in Oldenzaal, where the NSB leader Dijksma took my mediation in hand. After I had asked him several times about the reason for my deportation to Germany, he informed me that this was done on the orders of a “certain” German authority in Enschede. (According to my conviction the S.D.)
As I was told by Mr. Moss deputy manager of the Employment Office in Oldenzaal, this matter was almost certainly played in cahoots between the Mayor of Oldenzaal, named Weustink, NSB leader Dijksma in Oldenzaal and the S.D. in Enschede.
Mr. Mos told me that the deportation to Germany of persons from the town of Ootmarsum in its entirety was discussed between the said leader Dijksma in consultation with the NSB mayor Weustink, who was the town clerk in Ootmarsum before 1942. I had already been several times placed on a list of persons from the town of Ootmarsum by mayor Weustink, as a person who could be employed in Germany ‘without any objection’. The latest list (which I had received from Mr. Mos for inspection at the time) consisted of about 20 people, all from Ootmarsum, none of them, after an investigation by the deputy manager Mr. Mos, were eligible for deportation.
The intended list was written, with a typewriter from the office at the town hall of Oldenzaal, while the last name (I thought: H.J.Sijtsma, Ootmarsum), was written in ink and in which I recognised the handwriting of mayor Weustink.
Since this NSB mayor always worked behind the scenes, I can’t prove anything against him. However, it is certain that Weustink cooperated as much as possible with the deportation of men from Ootmarsum to Germany. Mr. Moss, now deputy Mayor of Losser may be able to confirm this.
On 14 April 1944 at 23.30 hours I was arrested in my house in Ootmarsum by the Land Guard, Department Oldenzaal, consisting of 5 men, 3 of whom were armed with pistols and two with a shotgun. According to the words of one of them, who was addressed by the others with “commander”, this arrest was made on “orders of greater authority” and the reasons were not known to him. I was taken to the town hall in Ootmarsum and placed under the guard of the post-commander of the Marechaussee Rorink, after which I was then transported after half an hour to Oldenzaal and there I was locked up at the police station. According to the on-duty guard Corporal van de Weerd NSB mayor Weustink of Oldenzaal was regularly informed by telephone whether I had already been locked up and he was given orders to sharply guard me.
The post-commander at Ootmarsum, Mr Rorink, had also asked Mayor Weustink what to do with me, to which he received an answer that I should be transferred to the police station in Oldenzaal as soon as possible. (Mr Rorink could possibly be heard on this point). On Monday morning, April 17, 1944, I was sent to the Employment Office by two members of the Land Guard in Oldenzaal and led to the NSB leader Dijksma. Immediately I asked him why I had been arrested, to which he replied: “For deportation to Germany. ” I told him that I thought this was a scandalous way of mediation, to which I was answered, “It is Your own fault. You are trying in every possible way to withdraw from the work effort to Germany, you are unwilling and are therefore now being taken away. You should call yourself lucky that you will not be taken to concentration camp in Amersfoort.”
That very day I was taken to Germany by train at about 11 o’clock under the guidance of 3 land guards.
Signed Herman Budde
- After the war, Weustink was immediately arrested and on 27 January 1947 he was sentenced to eight years in prison. In the official report of the trial, Herman’s affair is also cited. Under charge number 28 it says: “Help or support given to the enemy, by instructing to arrest H.P.Th Budde at Ootmarsum, who was in hiding, and, after this had been done, to ask a policeman at Oldenzaal whether the arrest had been made, and if so, to guard the person strictly“