Introduction

Had this happened in your days or also in the days of your ancestors?
Then tell your children thereof and your children let them tell their children and let these children pass it on to the next generation.

Prophet Joël 1, 2&3.

Inspired amongst others by the above quote, written on a mausoleum in my hometown, I decided to dig into my uncle’s life history and provide some clarity. Part of this endeavor has been completed and has led to the synthesis of the booklet:

War diary of Joseph Bukkens.

The library at my hometown was my initial source of information and later I started to collect books on the "Englandspiel" in order to find out and make clear what had actually happened. By now I have a vast collection. Look under Books elsewhere on this site.

After some time during my investigation I got frustrated as I discovered it was a naïve thought to try to reconstruct history. I stumbled on references to documents first due to be released in the year 2042. Since I was born in 1938, statistically I will be dust by then so I will preserve my work and the collection of books and documents for the next generation to serve as a source of information by that time.
In principle however I will make all information available to anyone interested as from now. I shall ask a guarantee to make sure all lent items will be returned so integrity of the collection remains intact as well as a fee for post and packaging.
Lending term can be negotiated. Mail me when interested.

First an initial short explanation; what is the "Englandspiel" literally translated "the England game"?
In short it was a tactic of The English as well as the Germans with the primary goal to mislead each other by feeding one another false information. Subject were captured Dutch agents (educated in England and dropped in Holland) who were assigned by the English to prepare an English invasion.
The Germans posed as these agents and communicated with the English through the radio (Morse code) using intercepted codes. The English in turn made the Germans believe that they took this information for real and fed the Germans with their own false information. Double Cross.
The "game" was named "Englandspiel" by Joseph Schreieder, an SS officer and head of the division Referat IV E, one of the most directly involved participants. The same game was named "Operation Nordpol" by Herman Giskes, head of the Abwehr, a division that was also involved.
To a get an idea of what Englandspiel was all about in detail go to page The game on this site.
If one calls it a game, then what was the goal of the game? Who were the participants and which were the rules? More about this you will find on the pages Dutch Gov. SOE-SIS and Abwehr

What do we know today about the "England spiel" and its agents and was it a straight forward single operation or part of a greater purpose or conspiracy. The answer is we don�t know for sure. We know that conspiracy theories are in great demand but we also know that sometimes in crises situations some plans cannot be disclosed for security reasons without fulfilling the definition of conspiracy.
Now how do we find out the truth? In this case I believe there is no absolute truth and we can safely say that truth is merely a personal perception. The truth of one may be a different one than the truth of another.
So in order to build up my own truth in this matter I shall have to read a lot and listen to what others have to say, claim, think and feel.
To highlight an example of this process, on my page about the town of Assen I was allowed by authorities, with restrictions, to review the archives on admission lists to the local jail.
Knowing for a fact that "Englandspiel" agents have been staying there I searched for their names on the lists in use before and during their stay. I found none, not a name or reference to any of them.
According to the record, what did happen was, that a week before the arrival of these agents in Assen there was considerable movement of prisoners to other prisons and no new prisoner registrations were entered until the agents had long been transferred to Rawicz.
So can we deduct from these facts that they have or have not been there? It proves to me indirectly that they were there at that time; this is all we can go by. The only circumstantial evidence to aid to the argument is that from food delivery records it appears that a delivery was made for 50 persons during this time suggesting they were there.

Thus all what is left is research and investigation to find out what was the faith of the other eleven agents. Look on the web page Research to find out more about these agents. Look on the web page Joseph Bukkens to find more details specifically on him.

Further information on governments involved and the prison camps where the agents were held you will find under the related buttons.

If you find any omissions or mistakes on this website please let me know by sending an E-mail message. Click on Send a mail on the menu of this page. This website is not yet ready and complete. I decided to post it anyway and I choose to update it constantly with new information.

Hints and explanations:

In order to prevent unintentional departure from this website I have put all external links to other websites grouped on one page called Links. As you may have already found out, the underlined blue words in some text refer to links on this web site or to pages with mostly the same name.

Good luck and enjoy!

Adri Wijnen.