Traces of the Rode Jeugd, Rode Hulp, and Rood Verzetsfront

Abstract One of the Dutch groups the Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD) concentrated on was the Rode Jeugd (Red Youth). In 1971, this group bombed the car of the chief of the Eindhoven police force. Although the BVD considered their early activities forms of sabotage, the Rode Jeugd’s Marxist-Leninist ideology and international network inspired the BVD to dedicate vast resources to collecting intelligence on the organization and their members. This vignette explores two examples of the BVD’s operational activities against the Rode Jeugd and their successor organizations Rode Hulp and Rood Verzetsfront. The first involved a true “ticking bomb” scenario in which a suspected member was arrested with a suitcase full of explosives. In the second topical scenario, a suspected member of a terrorist organization visited a training camp in the Middle East. On 24 September 1976, Israeli authorities announced that they had detained a Dutch woman, twenty-three-year-old Ludwina Janssen from Breda.