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HANNIE SCHAFT: THE ASSASSIN WITH THE FIERY RED HAIR

Feature Articles Will Dabbs world war II

August 30, 2024 Will Dabbs
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Jo Schaft seemed like a pretty normal little Dutch girl right up until she
became a cold-blooded Nazi slayer.

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

Jannetje Johanna Schaft was born on 16 September 1920, in Haarlem, a city in
northern Netherlands. As a child, she went by Jo. Her mother was a devout
Mennonite, while her father taught school. When the little girl was seven, her
older sister Anna succumbed to diphtheria. Her parents were exceptionally
protective of her as a result.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

 * The World Goes to Hell
 * The Law Student Goes to War
 * You Never Forget Your First
 * Schaft Had Many Superpowers
 * No Shortage of Business
 * Schaft and Her Next Level Killing
 * Catastrophe
 * Hannie Schaft: Defiant to the End
 * The Aftermath
 * Ruminations
 * Hannie Schaft Legacy

Jo’s father was a member of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party, and politics
was a common topic of conversation around the home. When she came of age, Jo
enrolled in law school intending to become a human rights lawyer. While studying
law she developed friendships with several Jewish students. In the late 1930’s
with persecution of the Jews on the rise across Europe, Jo felt energized to
support them.  






THE WORLD GOES TO HELL

So much scum in such a tight, enclosed space. These were the masterminds behind
the German Operation Fall Gelb.

The Germans seized the Netherlands in 1940 as part of the overarching Operation
Fall Gelb (Case Yellow). Thus began a brutal occupation that stretched until the
country was finally liberated by the Allies in 1945. For five long years, the
Germans as well as their Dutch collaborators tirelessly battled resistance
forces. Jannetje Johanna Schaft found herself right in the middle of all of that
chaos.

In 1943, the Germans demanded that university students sign a declaration of
allegiance to the Nazis. Jo refused, as did roughly 80% of her fellow students.
She was subsequently ejected from school before graduation. Jo then moved back
in with her parents in Haarlem. However, she brought two of her Jewish
university friends along with her and hid them from the hated occupiers.


THE LAW STUDENT GOES TO WAR

Now with a little time on her hands, Jo sought out the Resistance. Once
established, she was given the codename Hannie. She became known for her fiery
red locks. 





Hannie started out small, stealing ID cards for her Jewish friends and working
as a courier. However, in short order she developed a proclivity for wet work.
Hannie’s true calling was sabotage and assassination. Lots of folks talked about
killing Nazis. Hannie Schaft actually did something about it.

This is the actual .380ACP Browning M1922 used by Hannie Schaft on her
Nazi-killing exploits during the last year of WW2. Photo by Thayts

Her weapon of choice was a Browning M1922 pistol in .380ACP. Trim, reliable, and
concealable, the FN M1922 saw widespread distribution both within the
Underground and as a service pistol among Nazi forces. Hannie Schaft put hers to
exceptionally good use.


YOU NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST

Hannie’s introduction to the dark, shadowy world of targeted assassination was
remarkable. After training in basic weapons maintenance and marksmanship, she
was assigned her first live hit–the targeted killing of a local villain rumored
to be an SD officer. As part of a two-person hit team along with a fellow
Resistance operative named Cor Rusman, Hannie made her approach to the target.
When the time was right, she presented her handgun, leveled it at the man, and
squeezed the trigger. Next came a sickening click. The weapon was unloaded.





The SD man then calmly introduced himself as Frans van der Wiel, the commander
of the local Resistance cell. Hannie had passed her test. While she had clearly
demonstrated her dedication and willingness, she was furious about having been
put through it. However, she was now cleared for field ops.


SCHAFT HAD MANY SUPERPOWERS

Patriots of all flavors rose up across Europe to oppose the hated Nazis.

Over time, Schaft learned to speak German fluently. She cultivated relationships
with Nazi soldiers so as to get closer to her targets. She and her young female
friends would put on bright red lipstick and frequent local watering holes
looking to pick up German soldiers. They would feign drunkenness and then invite
the men out into the woods for a little off-the-books fun before cutting them
down and stashing the bodies. Being an attractive woman is like having a
superpower. Hannie Schaft used hers to kill Nazis.

Time has muted the extent of her operational history. Nobody had time to keep
detailed records. However, her personal tally was nonetheless impressive. She
was eventually spotted at the site of one of her hits and reported to the
authorities. No one knew her identity, but her appearance was distinctive. The
Nazis subsequently placed, “The Girl with the Red Hair” on their most-wanted
list.


NO SHORTAGE OF BUSINESS

Many of the little pocket guns used by the Nazis as well as the Resistance
during WW2 were fairly underpowered. Photo by Judson Guns.

On 21 June 1944, Hannie and a fellow Resistance shooter named Jan Bonekamp
undertook the targeted killing of a Dutch police officer collaborator named
Willem Ragut. Hannie shot the man in the back with her .380ACP Browning.
However, Ragut returned fire, striking Bonekamp in the gut before succumbing to
his wounds. 

Bonekamp’s injury was lethal, but he survived long enough to make it to the
local hospital. There he inadvertently identified Hannie to Nazi sympathizer
nurses after they claimed to be with the Resistance. The Nazis were unable to
locate Schaft, but they arrested her parents and dispatched them to the
Herzogenbusch concentration camp near Den Bosch. The trauma of these events
pushed Hannie underground for a time. Miraculously, her parents were safely
released after two months.


SCHAFT AND HER NEXT LEVEL KILLING

This is the body of Fake Kris on the street after he was gunned down by Dutch
Resistance operatives. This is Truss Oversteegen with her Sten submachine gun.
She and Hannie seduced and killed Nazis together.

From this point forward, Hannie dyed her hair black and tried to be careful. She
helped plan the killing of a collaborator policeman named Fake Krist in October
of 1944. On 1 March 1945, Hannie and Truus Oversteegen killed another Nazi
policeman named Willem Zirkzee. 

Two weeks later they wounded Ko Langendijk, a local hairdresser who worked as an
informant for the German SD. Langendijk survived both this attack and the war
only to be sentenced to life in prison for supporting the Nazis during the
occupation. However, by now Hannie Schaft was developing a well-earned
reputation.


CATASTROPHE

Hannie Schaft was arrested at a German checkpoint on 21 March 1945, for
illicitly distributing an illegal communist newspaper called de Waarheid (“The
Truth”). In reality, the paper was just her cover. She was actually actively
moving secret messages for the Resistance. The newspaper thing was
incriminating, but was not the sort of infraction the Germans automatically just
flat-out killed you over. Hannie was remanded to a German-run prison in
Amsterdam for interrogation and torture.

Hannie successfully resisted her captors’ efforts to extract information.
However, over time her hair inevitably grew out. When the Germans recognized her
red roots they knew they had finally captured the master assassin Hannie Schaft.
Though the war was just weeks from ending, the Nazis decided that Schaft must
die.


HANNIE SCHAFT: DEFIANT TO THE END

This cadaverous Nazi turd was one Willy Lages. He directed that Hannie Schaft be
murdered despite the obvious fact that the war was lost for Germany.

On 17 April 1945, two Dutch Nazis named Mattheus Schmitz and Maarten Kuiper
transported Hannie to the dunes of Overveen near Bloemendaal on the direct
orders of Willy Lages. Lages headed up the SD in Amsterdam during WW2 and was a
proper monster. The young firebrand Resistance fighter was only 24 years old at
the time. The two turncoat Dutchmen forced Hannie to kneel, and Schmitz shot her
in the back of the head at near-contact range. What happened next made Hannie
Schaft a legend.

Many of the compact service pistols used by the Germans and their minions were
pathetic little .32-caliber pocket guns. In this case, the round deflected off
of Hannie’s skull. She then purportedly turned to her executioners and said, “Ik
schiet beter!” This translates to, “I shoot better!” Kuiper then stepped forward
and killed the woman with a burst of fire from his submachine gun.


THE AFTERMATH

The Dutch people turned out by the thousands to protest the lenient treatment of
the Nazi war criminal Willy Lages.

There is no record of Mattheus Schmitt ever having been prosecuted after the
war. However, Maarten Kuiper and Willy Lages were both brought up on charges for
war crimes. Kuiper was sentenced to death and executed in 1948. Lages was
similarly sentenced. However, in a profoundly controversial move, the Dutch
Queen Juliana refused to sign his death warrant. His sentence was commuted to
life in 1952.

Lages was eventually freed in 1966 due to poor health. His release sparked
widespread public protests. Lages eventually returned to Germany where he died
of natural causes in 1971.


RUMINATIONS

It took a minute, but eventually the Dutch people properly memorialized the
Resistance heroine Hannie Schaft.

The Bloemendaal dunes where Hannie Schaft died was the location of a large
number of German executions during the war. Once the dust settled, Dutch
authorities exhumed the bodies buried there. They found 421 men and one
woman–Hannie Schaft. She was re-interred with honors at a ceremony attended by
the Dutch Queen and her husband.

Hannie Schaft’s reputation waxed and waned through the years. Queen Juliana
unveiled a large bronze commemorative statue in her honor in the Kenau Park in
Haarlem near where she was born. She was posthumously awarded the Dutch Cross of
Resistance as well as the Medal of Freedom by General Eisenhower. However, she
was also an avowed communist. During the Cold War, veneration by the Dutch
communist party took the shine off of her exploits.


HANNIE SCHAFT LEGACY

Tens of thousands of Dutch communists visited Hannie’s grave until 1951, when
such celebrations were forbidden. One event had to be broken up by several
hundred riot police backed up by four tanks. It was a weird time.

Hannie Schaft had the honorific Righteous Among Nations bestowed upon her by Yad
Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. This award is earned by non-Jews
who sacrificed exceptionally to protect Jews during the Holocaust.

Eventually, with the Cold War won and communism in decline in the Netherlands,
interest in Hannie Schaft’s exploits was kindled anew. Books and movies about
her life followed. There is now an annual event staged in Haarlem in her honor.
The last Sunday of each November is set aside as a day of remembrance in the
Netherlands for Hannie’s life, work, and martyrdom.

Hannie Schaft was eventually afforded the veneration she deserved after devoting
her life to killing the Nazi occupiers.

Unlike movie depictions, killing at close quarters is reliably hard. It requires
resolve, nerve, technical skill, the right tools, and no small amount of raw
unfiltered hate. Hannie Schaft had all of these in abundance. In her brief life
and gory death, we see resistance personified. At a time when she could have
simply stood aside and let the war pass her by, Hannie took up arms and killed
Nazis. She was a patriot of the highest order.

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 * Captain Bob September 2, 2024, 5:38 pm
   
   I have to agree with “Mike in a truck” in that the pistol being simply
   unloaded would not be part of “the test.” Even amateurs would check the
   chamber for a cartridge and she was supposedly at the cusp of her training.
   Most likely the firing pin was removed to ensure safety.
   
   ↩ ∞
 * Mike in a Truck September 2, 2024, 11:39 am
   
   I don’t think for a second that Hannie’s pistol was unloaded when she
   attempted to shoot Franz. A trained fighter would have performed a chamber
   check when issued a pistol. A loaded magazine adds heft to a pistol..she
   would have noticed that also. Either the firing pin was removed,or the pistol
   altered not to fire or dummy rounds were in it. Quite a remarkable young
   lady. I fear though that the ghost of Hannie will arise in this nation. Soon.
   
   ↩ ∞
 * William September 2, 2024, 11:21 am
   
   To: Dr Dabbs
   GunsAmerica
   Bravo Sir! I find your articles extremely interesting and well written. Some
   of your subject material and persons I never knew or heard about. Please keep
   publishing this material.
   
   ↩ ∞
 * BR549 September 2, 2024, 10:15 am
   
   From the article: “So much scum in such a tight, enclosed space.”
   
   Sounds like you could be talking about meetings in Davos. SSDD.
   
   ↩ ∞
 * AK September 2, 2024, 9:52 am
   
   Heroic no doubt. I also have no doubt this young woman would, given the
   opportunity, donned an NKVD uniform and gunned down – or worse – anyone who
   opposed or was even lukewarm about Bolshevism.
   
   National Socialism and Communism…different sides of the same coin. And while
   there are no NAzi’s in the US outside of incels cowering in a few decrepit
   bunkers in West Virginia or Coeur D’Alene, there are many thousands of
   professed Communists in universities, government and corporate America.
   
   Which was the greater threat, again?
   
   ↩ ∞
 * Randy September 2, 2024, 8:51 am
   
   Great article as usual Dr. Dabbs. I really enjoy how your writing takes
   people most of us have probably never even heard of and brings there story to
   life.
   
   ↩ ∞
 * Frank September 2, 2024, 8:36 am
   
   How many of us will have “what it takes” when our own homeland succumbs to
   the ever-increasing, divisive, and destructive tactics of Marxism 101?
   Although I pray and hope for peaceful, prosperous times… I don’t believe them
   to be in our foreseeable future. We too, will need many who are skilled and
   true to their oath to defend the Constitution. It will help immensely if we
   also have the moxie of this young woman who rose to the occasion, and paid
   the ultimate price.
   
   ↩ ∞
   * rm September 2, 2024, 1:56 pm
     
     Don’t forget that this woman was doing what she did in support of Marxism.
     Yes, heroic, but misguided. Ask yourself, who was fighting Marxism in
     Europe at the time.
     
     ↩ ∞
     * Frank September 2, 2024, 2:55 pm
       
       Hating both Fascism and Marxism are not mutually exclusive. I need not
       favor one to despise the other.
       
       ↩ ∞
 * Richard Glitz September 2, 2024, 8:17 am
   
   Enjoyed this article as I do all of Will’s writing. I’d like to point out the
   picture of a postage stamp with Jo Schaft’s picture is not Dutch as implied
   by the caption. Rather, it was issued by East Germany — hence the words
   “Deutsche Demokratische Republik.” Maybe celebrating what a loyal communist
   can do when faced with Nazis? Odd that she became stamp-worthy in a regime
   nearly as oppressive as the one she fought against.
   
   ↩ ∞


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