42 PETER MOOGK, UNIVERSITY of BRITISH COLUMBIA Nederland Ontwaak!: the Nazis' Failure to Win Over the Dutch During the Occupatio

42 PETER MOOGK, UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA Nederland Ontwaak!: The Nazis' Failure to Win Over the Dutch During The Occupation Prelude for facilitating Nazi crimes, one should point out that they were not all opportunists who joined the winning For Canadian soldiers advancing into the Low side for personal gain; prewar fascists were animated Countries, the political situation was simple: they by an idealism, perverse though it seems to us now, were fighting the Germans and freeing oppressed and they deserve to be taken seriously to be nations from Nazi tyranny. Despite the essential truth understood. of that perception, reality was more complicated. The enemy sometimes turned out to be a Dutch Nazi and The months of confusion Canadian Army photographers recorded the arrest and humiliation of collaborators in liberated towns. To For nearly a year after the five-day conquest of understand the popular mood of relief, joy,and the Netherlands in May 1940, the population was torn vengeance at the time of the liberation, one must take by conflicting emotions. Anger was directed against account of the experience of the German occupation the Germans for their unprovoked and undeclared war and the role of Dutch collaborators. on this neutral kingdom and for the unjustified destruction of Rotterdam; irritation was directed "Netherlands Awake!" was the motto of one against Queen Wilhelmina and the chief government Dutch fascist party founded in imitation of the ministers who had apparently abandoned the German Nazi movement. This motto, a variant of population and fled to England to save themselves. "It "Deutschland Erwache!," sums up the propaganda was an awful moment," recalled Diet Eman, "because policy ofthe occupation government after May 1940: it was as if our mother had left us behind with the to awaken the Dutch to their destiny in the Greater Germans.,,1 Later, people understood that a Germanic Reich and to lead them to accept Nazi government-in-exile was still free to guide the Dutch doctrines and institutions. When the political population, unlike Belgium'S King Leopold, who awakening of most Netherlanders did occur, however, endured the Nazi occupation with his people. The it was a nationalistic, religious and democratic queen and administration in London became a rallying rejection of the conquerors' ideology, provoked by the point for resisters and a source of pride. In May 1940 heavy-handed policies of the Germans. the Dutch commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Gen. H.G. Winkelman, was left behind to negotiate Retrospective Dutch patriotism and Allied the capitulation under the threat of having more propaganda created a version of history in which the historic cities flattened by the invaders. Nazis and their ideology were rejected from the start of the occupation. The opposition of "the valiant and The mechanized armoured formations of the stout-hearted Dutch" to the Germans was a frequent Germans and their overwhelming air power made the theme in Winston Churchill's speeches. That Netherlands' defences appear antiquated and opposition, in reality, emerged slowly and after a amateurish. Pre-invasion photographs of Dutch period of confusion and doubt. Nor was Nazi soldiers on bicycles and skates, meant to impress propaganda rejected by everyone. The Germans people with the nation's military preparedness, recruited almost 100,000 active collaborators from the contrasted sadly with the tanks and dive-bombers of population, and they might have been more successful the Germans. The defenders had underestimated the with different methods and a more diplomatic possibility of airborne attacks on Fortress Holland to approach. Diplomacy and moderation, however, were seize airfields and river crossings behind the defensive alien to the Nazis. Without excusing the collaborators lines. Nederland Ontwaak!: The Nazis' Failure to Win Over the Dutch During The Occupation 43 Those who watched the entry of the conquerors not function any more, systems of production that marvelled at the long columns of armoured vehicles break down."3 Democratic politics were associated and trucks full of soldiers. Theo van Duren wrote with pettiness and a concern with party above nation. "there were lines of lorries (trucks) as far as I could Self-doubt and this cynicism provided an opening for see .... Each lorry was filled to capacity with fair fascism. haired, red-faced soldiers, singing at the tops of their voices ... I began to understand why they got through Fascism was one of the cures offered for the Holland so quickly. Who could start anything against political and economic ills of the 1930s. Against the that avalanche?"2 The same thought occured to other familiar shortcomings. of Dutch democracy, fascism observers: how did we imagine that we could repel promised a rapid e~onomic recovery and national such a disciplined, well-equipped enemy? To salvage solidarity. Local f~cists, however, did not present a self-respect from the disaster, the Nazi victory was united front. In a country with some sixty religious also attributed to underhanded methods, such as denominations, political divisions were to be dressing infiltrators in Dutch uniforms or in civilian expected. In addition to Anton Mussert's National clothing and even, as rumours had it, disguised as Socialist Movement (Nationaal Socialistische priests, monks and nuns. Beweging), founded in 193 I and inspired by Mussolini's ItaliIan blackshirts, there were four other Faith in the protection of neutrality was another fascist parties. The most slavish imitators of the shattered illusion. Hitler's earlier invasion of Denmark German Nazis, the National Socialist Dutch Worker's and Norway had shown that neutrality was no Party (NSNAP), split apart when each of the three protection against the Nazis, and yet civilian leaders founders claimed to be the real leader of the party. - including Prime Minister G. J. de Geer - still Clearly, the single-leader principle of Italian and hoped that Dutch neutrality would again be respected German fascism was not accommodated to Dutch as it had been in the First World War. One could individualism. attack France without passing through the Netherlands and the Germans promised to respect the country's Europe's fascist states offered a plausible neutrality. Looking back, the invasion seemed entirely alternative to unemployment and national aimlessness predictable and unstoppable. Nazi promises had been in the 1930s. Resistance leaders' plans for a more broken in the past. Further resistance seemed futile. It united postwar nation were an acknowledgement that was easy for exiled leaders, safe in England, to call even democrats did not want to go back to the for non-cooperation with the invaders; they were not divisive politics of the 1930s. In Germany and Italy, living under the Germans. public works projects provided employment and improved the country's infrastructure. The Awe for the conqueror was one of the many conscription of young men for a national labour emotions that made people receptive to the Nazis' service to buifd highways seemed constructive and new order. Foreign conquest is a savage blow to any purposeful. Calls to serve the nation and to nation's self-respect. Corrosive self-doubt was already subordinate selfish interests to the collective good at work before the invasion. The Great Economic were communicated in various ways; Gemeinnutz geht Depression of the 1930s sapped faith in the capitalist vor Eigennutz (the common need comes before system. Dutch political life was fractured along personal needs) was inscribed on the rim of two and religious as well as ideological lines and each group five-mark coins. Class distinctions were to disappear had its own party. No single political party could win in the new people's community (Volksgemeinschaft). a majority and governments were an alliance of The nobility of manual labour was a Nazi theme and special interest parties. The resultant coalition the "Strength through Joy" programme· of recreational governments did not respond decisively to the facilities and holidays for industrial labourers, economic crisis. The famous historian Johan Huizinga combined with workers' housing projects and caught the mood of the mid-1930s when he wrote development of a cheap people's car - the famous "the cohesiveness of our social order is everywhere in Volkswagen - made the Nazis' claim to be socialists doubt. A vague fear for the future has crept in, a almost believable.. For the unemployable poor, feeling that civilization is in decline and may even "Winter Help" was to provide aid from public collapse .... We witness forms of government that do donations. If one overlooked the persecution of 44 Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies political opponents and minorities, the Third Reich offered jobs at home and in the Reich. Theo van had the seductive veneer of a welfare state. It had Duren noted that "some people started working for the apparently replaced chaos with order, discipline and Germans, who were offering enormous wages for national pride. Herman Friedhoff remembers his drivers and labourers on the airfields. Such people father saying, with some admiration, that in Nazi were at first detested by everyone, but slowly the Germany "the trains run beautifully on time and temptation became too strong and more and more fell massive motorways are built. There's no for the higher wages.,,6 German rule did not seem so unemployment and people work diligently. Germany bad, after all. A few expected more efficient seems to have left the traumas of defeat behind.,,4 government from a Reich Commissioner with the power to rule by decrie, without a parliament. There were other features of the national-socialist / state that one might admire. The NazL emphasis on The feeling that the Germans were basically a physical fitness would have appealed to the Dutch, civilized people, despite recent history, dulled the who had their own hiking clubs and recreational critical faculties.

Load more