File No.:

Title: Location where the "GI General" was murdered in Holland
Investigation made at: N309 Provincial Road locally known as Eperweg across from Parkweg in 't Harde, Municipality of Elburg, Province of Gelderland, The Netherlands
(52°25'03.1"N 5°52'55.5"E)
Period Covered: 22OCT1944
Date: 15FEB2026
 Case Classification: Location of Historic Events (War Crime)
Status of Case: Case Closed
 

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Fig.: .
Name: Theodore Herman Bachenheimer
Born: 23APR1923, Braunschweig, Weimar Republic
KIA: 22OCT1944,'t Harde, German-occupied Netherlands
Buried: Beth Olam Jewish Cemetery, Hollywood, California
Rank: Private First Class
REASON FOR INVESTIGATION
PFC Bachenheimer served with distinction in the 82nd Airborne Division, taking part in Operation "Husky" and the battles of SALERNO and ANZIO in Italy in 1943. His behind the lines work earned him wide attention in American newspapers and in radio shows. His death and location where it occured are lesser known to the general public. In this Battle Study this agency describes the location.

Fig.:  Theordore Bachenheimer ready for a traning jump
at Fort Benning, Georgia in 1942
SYNOPSIS:
During Operation "Market Garden" in SEP1944, Bachenheimer linked up with Dutch resistance members in NIJMEGEN, eventually leading a group of more than 300 fighters known as the Free Netherlands Army.
Already fairly famous, Bachenheimer was eventually captured by the enemy and although being a POW murdered while en route to a POW Facility in Germany. Battle Detective agency visited the location where this war crime occurred.

Nijmegen
On 19SEP1944 when the British ground troops of the "Garden" element of the operation arrived in Nijmegen, Dutch underground forces also came into action. Bachenheimer managed that day to clear the railroad station of German troop. He and two others took some small arms and ammunition from one of the trains, and thus armed with those weapons, they carefully crawled to "Post J" from which they could operate the loudspeakers of the station’s PA system, announcing in German: "Come out, hands up, or you’re all dead!" Bachenheimer even fired a few shots from his .45 calibre Thompson submachine gun near the microphone which was amplified over the loudspeakers.
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Fig.:  Left: Now & Then in Nijmegen, September 18th 1944. Ted Bachenheimer is seen riding a bicycle on Dobbelmannweg. Since he had his Headquarters on Groenestraat which is behind the photographer, it is presumed that Ted is cycling in that direction.
Right: Now & Then in Nijmegen September 20th 1944.
A Dutch resistance fighter (with laced boots) and monks from the Jonkerbosch boarding house pose with Ted Bachenheimer.
The G.I.-General
"His headquarters was a small overstuffed room in an old Nijmegen school. Two other twenty-year-old boys worked with him in that room. They ate there, with their weapons and grenades hanging on the walls. The corner of the room was piled with souvenirs. I once heard Bachenheimer question a prisoner, and I never saw a job better done. Then he received a German informant from whom he wanted to obtain certain information about nearby German defense installations. After that, two officers from other regiments arrived. They also wanted to get information, but they ended up in a dispute over a patrol they wanted to send out. Bachenheimer insisted that he did not think the proposed soldiers were fit for the job. From time to time English officers, Dutch resistance fighters, and Dutch citizens came with various requests: to arrest a certain betrayer, or to release some person from prison who had mistakenly been arrested. No detail was too large, or too small for Bachenheimer, who was a very capable and serious human being. Neither could anyone shake his modesty. […] Bachenheimer had an extraordinary talent for war, but, in reality, he was a man of peace. Ín principle I am against any war', he would say, 'I simply cannot hate anyone.' When I came to say goodbye to him, he was not in his office; he was in enemy territory."
- Martha Gellhorn in The American Weekly -
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Fig.: The General's Army
Theodore Bachenheimer (3) among staff members of his intelligence organization in front of the Kindergarten on Groenestraat in Nijmegen.
Typical of Bachenheimer is the fact that he wouldn't look into the camera. Other staff mambers are identified as:
1: Dutch Resistance (Ordedienst OD; Public Safety) member Watse Jansen, 2: US Serviceman Willard "Bill" M. Strunk, 3: Theodore Bachenheimer, 4: OD member Ir. P.J. Verlee, 5: OD Member Jo van Hest, 6: OD Member Loes Schreuder, 7: OD Member "Zwarte Jan" Postulart, 8: OD Member Mies van Haren, 9: Royal Military Police Sergeant-major (Opperwachtmeester) Broere, 10: US Serviceman Bill Zeiler. 		(click to enlarge)

Fig.: Article by Associated Press about Bachenheimer's Intelligence gathering organization in the 82nd Airborne Division's Area of Responsibility in September 1944 (article delayed due to wartime circumstances; source: Find a Grave)
Final Mission and Capture
In OCT1944, Bachenheimer joined British officer Peter Baker on a mission known as Operation "Windmill" intended to help evacuate stranded Allied paratroopers from the ARNHEM region. Their base in a Dutch farm was raided by German forces on 16OCT1944. Bachenheimer and Baker were captured, interrogated, and transferred through several holding sites before being loaded onto a train bound for STALAG XI B in Germany.

Escape and Death in 't Harde
On the night of 20–21 OCT1944, Bachenheimer escaped from his boxcar with three other prisoners but became separated from them. He was recaptured somewhere between NIJKERK and 'T HARDE. Local accounts report that on either 22 or 23OCT1944, German soldiers stopped a truck along the Eperweg in 'T HARDE, where three shots were heard. Bachenheimer’s body was later retrieved from a nearby military base with two fatal gunshot wounds; one to the neck and one to the back of the head.

Memorial
A memorial now stands at the location where Ted Bachenheimer's remains were found  in 'T HARDE, which forms the central place of remembrance for his death.
This agency visited the marker in the shape of a headstone with the Star of David as seen on US military cemeteries for fallen soldiers of the Hebrew faith. In the past, individuals have placed replica identification discs ( so-called "dog tags") on a chain on the marker but these are removed by unknowns afterwards.
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Fig.:  The memorial in honor of Theodore Bachenheimer
on Eperweg across from Parkweg in 't Harde

CONCLUSION:
The location of Ted's body and the bullet wounds to his head and neck suggest the Germans may have discovered his Jewish identity and executed him separately, avoiding accountability. Had he died while still in their custody, German military authorities would likely have ensured a proper burial rather than leaving his body by the roadside.
This agency is not familiar with the existence of a criminal investigation made into this war crime, let alone its findings.

EXHIBITS:
Bachenheimer was scheduled to receive a commission as a second lieutenant within weeks. His remains were eventually returned to the United States and reburied in the Beth Olam Jewish Cemetery in HOLLYWOOD, CA.
He was also featured as "The G.I. General" in Real Life Comics #25 (1945).

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1)2)3)4)
1) Battle Detective Tom at the memorial in 2021 in his rank of second lieutenant
in the Royal Netherlands Army at the time;
2) A postman stands in for Theodore Bachenheimer while shooting the "Now-"photo on Niek Engelschmanlaan in Nijmegen; 3) At the same spot where Bachenheimer sped by on his bycicle in 1944 a young bike rider sped by on Dobbelmannstraat in Nijmegen;
4) Report of Interment of the remains of Bachenheimer (source: Find a Grave);

The G.I. General" story on pages 46 to 50 of Real Life Comics #25 (1945)
Note Dutch resistance fighters resembling Latin-American rebels and women wearing traditional Volendam headwear in Nijmegen.

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