1945: Walraven van Hall, banker to the Resistance

ExecutedToday.com ^ | February 12, 2019 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

Wally van Hall, the Dutch banker, fraudster, and national hero, was executed by the Nazi occupation on this date in 1945. Walraven — to use his proper given name — was born into a well-heeled family, the brother of eventual Amsterdam mayor Gijs van Hall.

The man’s expertise in the occult crafts of banking gained an unexpected heroic cast during World War II when Wally became the “banker to the Resistance,” quietly sluicing the funds needed to support anti-occupation movements.

Notably, he plundered the present-day equivalent of a half-billion Euro from the Dutch National Bank by swapping fraudulent bad bonds for good ones.

This profession was no less dangerous for being so esoteric. He was betrayed by an informer who was himself executed in revenge by the Resistance; van Hall has posthumously received his country’s Cross of Resistance as well as Israel’s recognition as Righteous Among the Nations for his aid to Dutch Jews. He’s the subject of the 2018 film The Resistance Banker.

[marktwain]

From this source:

But in reality, the Germans had no idea who van Hall was to the bitter end. He was shot along with several other suspected resistance fighters in retaliation for a Nazi officer’s assassination. Historians to this day do not know why the Germans arrested van Hall.

Wow. A very successful resistance fighter. One of the best. Never broke, kept his secrets to the end.