Mulder, Menco Rein.

Mulder, Menco Rein, born on 23-12-1923, in Groningen, Netherlands, as the tenth child and fourth and youngest son of Harm Mulder and Jantje, born Buiskool. 

Menco was the brother of Dirk Mulder,   who is also listed on the memorial stone in Haren. Dirk four years older, had no history of resistance. He was mentally challenged and worked in Harenermolen at the Dijksterhuis nursery. He could barely read and you had to explain everything to himin detail, his sister Klaartje said much later. During the week he stayed with his employer, on Saturdays and Sundays he was with his family at the Otium house on Stationsweg in Haren. The family had gone over and over with him what he should do when a German soldier shouted “halt.” He was to stand still and, above all, not run away. But when the moment came, he couldn’t help but run. He was so scared that he didn’t even notice the German soldier standing behind him. It happened at seven o’clock at the Onnerweg railroad crossing, near a marshalling yard that was wellguarded, because goods were regularly stolen from trains that were temporarily parked there. According to the police, who delivered the body to his home, he was in a restrictedarea. A German soldier shouted at him to stop, whereupon he began to run. The soldier fired.

Menco studied at the nautical college to become a helmsman and obtained his apprentice helmsman’s certificate in 1942. Menco disembarked in Sweden on 04-07-1943, and reported to the Dutch consul in Stockholm. After signing a volunteer declaration to serve in the Dutch army, he was issued a Dutch passport valid for Sweden and England. He was sentenced to six months of forced labor for spying on the Germans, but this was reduced to three months through the mediation of the consul. He then worked cutting wood in the forests.In February 1944, he managed to reach England, as a England sailor, where he reported to the Dutch Intelligence Service in London. There he was trained as an agent. The purpose of this intelligence service was to gather military and other information in the Netherlands and pass it on to the Dutch government in exile and to the Allies. Weather reports were also passed on to the Allied air force. The agents were parachuted into occupied territory with transmitting equipment.

Menco was initially not considered for deployment. He had a large port wine stain on his face, which posed a risk of recognition. In order to live as inconspicuously as possible as a secret agent, he had a birthmark on his face surgically removed. In March 1945, Menco Mulder was assigned to deliver radio sets in the Netherlands to a fellow MI6 agent,  (or Intelligence Officer) Karel Christiaan “Robbie Mooiweer (Bloemendaal, 14 april 1923 – 1971)”, who operated from Twente but no longer had reliable equipment. On the night of March 27-28, 1945, Menco parachuted near Nieuwkoop with five radio sets, including his own. Mooiweer provided shelter. After his successful landing, Menco delivered the radio sets and reported to The Hague as instructed. There he worked for the Packard group until April 7. He then traveled to Utrecht, where Packard-Irene urgently needed an operator. Menco transmitted from the home of Sister Althuis, a deaconess. But it was not his hiding place. Althuis was in the resistance. The Deaconess House contained a complete weapons depot for the resistance. The Germans had gotten wind of it, so it had to be moved in a hurry in April. Sister Althuis hid some of the weapons in her home.

On the night of April 22-23, 1945—Haren had already been liberated for over a week—Menco sent his last messages. His plan was to try to travel to liberated Groningen the next day. At three o’clock in the morning, the SD raided Sister Althuis’s home, searching for hidden weapons. When the SD officers found Menco’s transmitting equipment, they did not continue their search for weapons. Menco Mulder was arrested and imprisoned at SD headquarters at Maliebaan 74. The next morning, Mencohe was found dead in the detention room. He had given the SD an alias he had not used before: Pieter Berg. The SD had an autopsy performed by the pathologist Prof. P. Nieuwenhuijse. A photo of Menco was taken during the autopsy.

Death and burial ground of Mulder, Menco Rein.

On 05-05-1945, Menco was buried in the first cemetery, together with six resistance fighters who had been shot. Soestbergen Cemetery is a public cemetery in the Dutch city of Utrecht, located at Gansstraat 167, Soestbergen. After the liberation of Utrecht, it took some time and effort before it became clear that Pieter Berg was an alias for Menco Rein Mulder. The Intelligence Bureau quickly learned that Menco was dead; Commander Jan Marginus Somer, head of the IB, visited Menco’s parents in Haren on May 20 and informed them of his death. It was not until June 27 that two of Menco’s brothers-in-law visited Utrecht and recognized Menco from a photo at the Central Investigation Department. They also spoke to Profesor. Nieuwenhuijse at that time. Menco’s body showed no signs of torture; the cause of death was listed as heart failure. In October 1945, the death of Menco Rein Mulder was registered in Haren.

Commander Somer was married to Geesje Strating from 1922 to 1946, with whom he had two daughters and a son. After their divorce, he was married to Weia Tabitha van Altena from 1946 until his death. They had three sons together. Somer passed away at the age of 79 on 03-04-1979.

For Harm Mulder and Jantje Buiskool, liberation began with the terrible news that, after their son Dirk, their youngest son Menco had also been killed in the war. Menco Rein Mulder was reburied on 12-10-1945, at De Eshof cemetery. His gravestone reads: “The Netherlands is still worth giving your life for.” The municipality of Haren had rejected a request to contribute to a grave of honor because of the possible precedent it would set. The head of the Dutch government’s Information Bureau in London, Lieutenant Colonel Jan Marginus Somer, was present at the reburial.Menco was posthumously awarded the Bronze Lion, a royal decoration for bravery.

Eight days after the reburial of his son Menco, Harm Mulder died of a heart attack at the age of 67.

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