Date of birth:

January 20th, 1919 (Vlagtwedde/Groningen, Netherlands)

Date of death:

February 19th, 1945 (Halfweg/North Holland, Netherlands)

Buried on:

Dutch Honorary Cemetery Bloemendaal
Plot: 35. 

Nationality:

Dutch

Wim Speelman studied economics in Amsterdam.
From June 1940, Speelman was a member of the In Verdrukking (In Repression) committee, which wrote and distributed illegal pamphlets and calls for resistance. From the autumn of 1940, he was the main distributor of the illegal magazine Vrij Nederland (VN). In March/April and September 1941, dozens of employees of the VN organisation were arrested. Speelman, who had gone into hiding, managed to continue VN with Hos and his second cousin Van Namen, among others.
As a result of betrayal by W. Pasdeloup, Speelman was arrested on 9 December 1942 in the Parkhotel in Amsterdam. He managed to escape three weeks later, sustaining serious injuries to his back.
Due to a profound difference of opinion with VN editor Van Randwijk, both on principle and technical-organisational grounds, Speelman ceased his work for VN. In early 1943, he co-founded the Protestant Christian illegal magazine Trouw. Speelman became the ‘soul and engine’ of Trouw's distribution network.
The illegal magazines VN and Trouw were printed at the Bakker printing works in Amsterdam. The printing company had escaped serious danger several times and was temporarily closed at the beginning of January 1945 after the arrest of two top executives of Vrij Nederland and Trouw. When two other printing companies also had to be shut down due to arrests, Bakker was called upon to resume printing Trouw.
At the same time, the Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo) learned from the interrogation of an arrested resistance fighter that Trouw was printed at Bakker's. On 29 January 1945, the Sipo raided the printing office. Not only Bakker and seven members of staff were arrested, but also Speelman. Speelman had handed in the typesetting for Trouw shortly before the raid, but had returned to pick up his forgotten gloves. He was recognised by Kriminalsekretär Viebahn, arrested and transferred to the prison in Amsterdam with the others. Here they were put on the list of Todeskandidaten who were eligible for execution in reprisal.
On 17 February 1945, he was executed in Halfweg along with nine others as a reprisal for an attack on the Amsterdam-Haarlem railway line committed by the resistance with a load of explosives. He was buried in a mass grave in the dunes near Overveen along with his fellow prisoners.

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• Photo 1: Eerebegraafplaats Bloemendaal
• Photo 2: Jeroen Koppes
• - Schulten dr. C.M., "Zeg mij aan wie ik toebehoor", Het verzetskruis 1940-1945, Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, Amsterdam, 1993 - Eerebegraafplaats Bloemendaal
  

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