1942: Netherlands

In 1940 the death rate in the Netherlands had increased by 9½ per cent as compared with 1938, excluding all deaths by enemy action, which were very heavy. A continuation of German occupation has not improved the situation. Queen Wilhelmina, speaking before a joint session of the Congress of the United States in August 1942 declared, 'News which has reached me from Holland reveals that there has been a great increase in tuberculosis and illness; and mortality rates, which before the war were very low, are now very high.'

Food Scarcity.

Food, which was so plentiful in the Netherlands before the German invasion, became so scarce in 1942 that the German High Court at The Hague imposed the death sentence on Netherlanders for being involved in the theft of ration cards. Other Netherlanders were executed for various food rationing offenses. Among the many things which the German occupation authorities had forbidden the Dutch population to do was the photographing of German or Netherland Nazi officials while eating, because the ration-ridden people are aroused by such pictures. The Dutch in 1942 were beginning to feel the effect of German policy announced by General Goering that the Germans would be the last people in Europe who would go hungry.

Agricultural Situation.

Dutch stockbreeding and dairy farming which has always been dependent to a large extent on the importation of oil seed and fodder from overseas has been sharply reduced. Large herds of livestock which could not be fed because of the blockade have been slaughtered or sent to Germany. The famous Barnevelder chickens have become practically extinct in their native home. There has been a general agricultural reorganization in the country. Staple food crops have been substituted for luxury cultivation. Many of the tulip and hyacinth fields for which the Netherlands was noted have been transformed into legume, potato, and sugar beet tracts.

Netherlands East Company.

To meet the dangerous food situation in the Netherlands and to undermine Dutch resistance the Germans proposed a scheme which would deplete the Netherlands of a large part of its inhabitants. The Germans established an organization called the Netherlands East Company with the purpose of settling a colony of 3,000,000 Netherlanders (approximately one-third of the total population of the country) in conquered Russia. After the conquest of the Netherlands East Indies by the Japanese, the Germans seized the resources of the three major Dutch companies identified with the East Indies, and forced them to cooperate with the German-sponsored Netherlands East Company. One of the leading figures of the new company is the Dutch Nazi, Rost van Tonningen, President of the Netherlands Bank. The Netherlands State is compelled to provide subsidies for the colonization and the Netherlands Bank is to participate in financing the Dutch settlement in Russia. There does not seem to be any indication, however, that the scheme will be successful nor that many Netherlanders, no matter how much they may be suffering in their homeland, are interested in participating in the commercial and agrarian exploitation of Eastern Europe under German control. So far, only a few hundred Dutch Nazis have left the Netherlands to found a new settlement in the Baltic area.

German Educational System.

The Germans intensified their efforts in 1942 to Nazify and Germanize the Dutch, particularly the youth of the country. Determined to educate the Netherlanders to collaborate with the 'New Order,' the Nazis opened over fifty German kindergartens and schools. The new educational policy was explained by the Dutch Nazi Secretary-General of the Education Ministry, who controls all schools, universities, physical culture and youth welfare in the Netherlands, when he declared: 'Too much emphasis has been laid on spiritual education; in the future Dutch, German, and gymnastics will be the main features.'

Special efforts have been made to diminish the influence of Roman Catholic schools whose enrollments have increased since the German occupation. Salaries of all teachers who are members of religious orders have been cut almost in half. All headmasters who are priests have been forced to resign.

Dutch youth is being regimented in much the same way as German youth under the Nazis. Anton A. Mussert, leader of the Netherland Nazis, has organized the Jeugdstorm, a youth section of his storm troopers. The Boy Scouts have been disbanded. Prewar youth hostels have become centers of Nazi education. A branch of the Hitler Jugend has been opened at The Hague. Compulsory labor service for six months for all boys between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four has been made a law of the land. The labor camps are training schools for the universities.

In July the Reich Commissar announced that Reich schools would be opened, similar to Nazi educational institutions in Germany, to give National Socialist political training to the Dutch youth. Only those who graduate from these Reich schools are allowed to attend universities.

These Nazi educational measures caused deep resentment among the Dutch. Hundreds of Dutch teachers were imprisoned or dismissed from their positions because they refused to conform with the new educational system. Numerous institutions, including the famous University of Delft, were closed. A joint protest was made by the Catholic and Protestant clergy in the Netherlands against the establishment of a National Socialist Labor Service and the National Socialist educational platform. A pastoral letter of the Catholic Archbishop and Bishops of the Netherlands and a joint declaration of the general synod of the Dutch Reformed Church on the subject was read from pulpits throughout the country. The violation under Nazi rule of the three basic principles of Dutch national life: justice, charity, and freedom of conscience and conviction which are anchored in the Christian faith, was condemned. The communication stated further that Dutch Christians had been deprived of the organs of Christian education; the Joint Council of Schools adhering to the Bible, and the Society for Christian Education. The Dutch clergy also protested the Nazi interference with the work carried on by the institutions of the Christian Society for the nursing and care of those suffering from epilepsy. Declaring that a Labor Service with National Socialist aims was a great danger to Dutch youth, the Catholic and Protestant clergy asked Netherlanders to take any possible steps to keep themselves out of the labor camps.

Deportation of Jews.

Deportation of all Jews from the Netherlands to Eastern Europe was speeded up by the Nazis in 1942. It is the German intention to clear the Netherlands of all Jews by expelling 180,000 persons by June 1, 1943. The Netherlands Government in Exile announced in the spring of 1942 that 740 of the 1,200 Dutch Jews sent by the Germans to enforced labor in the salt and sulphur mines at Mauthausen had died because the Germans had given them no protection against the poisonous vapors. But the Germans issued a decree in August that Dutch Jews must immediately obey the summons to accept work in Germany or be sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp. The Dean of the University of Leyden was arrested by the Gestapo when, in an address to professors and students, he condemned the dismissal of Jewish professors. The Catholic and Protestant clergy in a joint declaration read in all churches in the Netherlands courageously condemned the merciless treatment of the Jewish section of the population.

Requisitioned Materials.

Food was not the only scarce article in the Netherlands in 1942. The Reich Commissar issued orders imposing the death penalty for stealing or damaging furs and woolen clothing collected for the German troops in Russia. German authorities seized all silver, brass and nickel coins in the Netherlands and ordered the surrender of all nonferrous metals from private homes. The German army in the Netherlands requisitioned all men's bicycles. Even pet dogs have been conscripted by the German occupation authorities who ordered all Netherlanders who had dogs more than eighteen inches high to turn them over to German military officials.

Personnel of the Netherlands Government in Exile.

Several changes were made in the composition of the Netherlands Government in Exile in 1942. Early in the year Pieter A. Kerstens arrived in London from Batavia to assume his duties as Minister of Commerce, Industry and Shipping. Dr. Michiels van Verduynen, the Netherlands Minister to Great Britain, was appointed by Queen Wilhelmina to serve as Minister without Portfolio in the Cabinet. Queen Wilhelmina raised Vice Admiral J. I. Furstner, Minister of the Navy, to a Lieutenant Admiral, a rank that has not been used since the seventeenth century period of Dutch naval power. Prince Bernhard, consort of Crown Princess Juliana and an Air Commodore in the Royal Air Force, was appointed a Rear Admiral in the Netherlands Navy and a Major General in the Netherlands Army. Premier Pieter S. Gerbrandy was appointed to the additional post of Minister of Colonies by Queen Wilhelmina. He resigned as Minister of Justice, Dr. Van Angeren being appointed in his place. After the loss of the Netherlands East Indies Dr. Van Mook was appointed Colonial Minister. Jonkheer Van Lidth de Jeude was appointed Minister of War and Jonkheer Van den Brock, Minister of Finance. Possibly the most significant appointment was that of the Javanese Regent, Raden Soejona, scion of an aristocratic Javanese family, who was appointed Minister without Portfolio. This was the first time that a native Indonesian had ever been appointed to a Dutch Cabinet.

Dutch Resistance to German Reprisals.

Dutch resistance to the conquerors of their occupied country became more pronounced in 1942. Early in the year 500 citizens were arrested in the town of Amerspoort in reprisal for bomb attacks on the Nazis. In May over 70 Netherlanders, including some officers, were shot for anti-German activities. Widespread sabotage and anti-German demonstrations took place on the second anniversary of the German invasion of the Netherlands. Twenty-five hundred former officers and cadets of the Dutch army and over 400 prominent Dutch citizens were seized as hostages by the German military authorities. Many prominent Netherlanders were imprisoned or executed. Fearful of an Allied invasion combined with a Dutch uprising, the Germans moved their military headquarters from the coast to Arnheim on the German border. The headquarters of the Dutch Nazi party was transferred from The Hague to Hilversum.

Diplomatic Relations.

In 1942 the Netherlands Government established a legation in Australia. The governments of Great Britain and the United States raised the status of their diplomatic missions to the Netherlands Government in Exile to that of embassies and the corresponding Dutch Ministers were raised in rank to Ambassadors. Diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and Russia, severed at the time of the Bolshevik revolution, were established in an agreement signed in London.

As the year drew to a close it was announced that the Germans intended, with the aid of some Dutch Quisling, to raise an army of 250,000 Netherlanders to fight in Russia. The record of Dutch resistance does not indicate that any such attempt will meet with any response among the Dutch people.