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Jean Greindl

Baron Jean Greindl (born 10 April 1905, Brussels, died 7 September 1943, Etterbeek), code named Nemo, was a member of the Belgian Resistance He became the leader of the [[Comet Line (Le Réseau Comète) in Belgium in April 1942. The Comet Line, made up of thousands of civilian volunteers, helped Allied airmen shot down over Nazi-occupied Europe to evade capture and return to Britain via Spain.
Captured by the Germans in February 1943, he was imprisoned in the Etterbeek artillery barracks. He was killed by an American bombing raid on Etterbeck on 7 September 1943.

Greindl was the second of five children of Paul Greindl and Isebelle de Burlet. In 1925, after completing his studies in Agronomy, he traveled to the Belgian Congo where he worked on and established rubber and coffee plantations. In 1937, he married Baroness Bernadette Snoy d’Oppuers (born 1909) in Belgium. The couple returned to the Congo. In February 1940, Greindl and his wife and daugher left the Congo to return to Belgium. World War had begun and Belgium was invaded and conquered by Nazi Germany in May 1940. However, Greindl was exempt from military service because he was the eldest of five brothers. With the invasion of Germany, as an employee of the Ministry of Colonies, he fled Belgium with other government officials to the Pyrenees in southern France, but returned to Belgium in August 1940.^[1]

In 1946, Greindl was awared the Croix de Guerre (Belgium) with Palm and the U.S. Medal of Freedom.