Dutch Nazi-Hunting Teens Lured Hitler’s Troops To Their Deaths

A pair of Dutch teens were part of a handful of young women who went undercover to seduce Nazis before killing them, according to the new book, “Seducing and Killing Nazis: Hannie, Truus and Freddie: Dutch Resistance Heroines of World War II.“

According to the New York Post, Truus Oversteegen was three months shy of her 17th birthday when Germany invaded the Netherlands in May, 1940. Oversteegen, a newly minted member of the Dutch resistance, was involved in hiding Jewish children, homosexuals and political dissidents in safe houses throughout her hometown of Haarlem – approximately 12 miles west of Amsterdam. 

It as after a Nazi murdered a child in front of its family that she decided to take a more active role in the resistance.

“He grabbed the baby and hit it against the wall,” she describes in the book. “The father and sister had to watch. They were obviously hysterical. The child was dead.”

Truus took aim at the Nazi and shot him dead.

“That wasn’t an assignment,” she said. “But I don’t regret it . . . We were dealing with cancerous tumors in our society that you had to cut out like a surgeon.”

Assassins

Truus, her younger sister, Freddie, and law student Hannie Schaft were among a handful of young women who took on clandestine roles to destabilize Nazis during the Second World War. While women’s resistance work was largely confined to spying, code-breaking and typing, few actively dared to take on the work of the Dutch trio — as underground assassins. –New York Post

“These women never saw themselves as heroines,” writes author Sophie Poldermans, a Netherlands-based human-rights activist. “They were extremely dedicated and believed they had no other option but to join the resistance. They never regretted what they did during the war.“

Truus’s younger sister Freddie was just 14 when she started working in the resistance – often dispatched as a courier of vital information during the occupation. Later, Freddie, Truus and Hannie Schaft worked to seduce Nazis by going to bars in makeup and bright red lipstick to pick up soldiers and lure them to their deaths.

“Ha Heinz, come here,” the girls would say, pretending to be drunk in front of potential targets.

Hannie, barely 20 when the Netherlands was invaded, made a point of teaching herself German for the work. Lithe and striking, with red hair and milky white skin, she became an expert at starting seemingly casual conversations with Dutch Nazis and German soldiers. Suggesting that they accompany her on romantic walks to the woods, they would often be shot dead by her male comrades who were lying in wait.

While the three young women often relied on the men of the resistance for the ambush and shooting, they were not shy about using guns themselves and became expert at shooting targets from their bikes. In addition to German soldiers, they also went after Dutch collaborators, Poldermans said.

“They were killers, but they also tried hard to remain human,” said Poldermans, 38. “They tried to shoot their targets from the back so that they didn’t know they were going to die.” –New York Post

The sisters have refused to reveal how many people they’ve gunned down, saying “You never ask a soldier how many people he’s killed.”

Read the rest of the report here.