Hitler's Europe Ablaze by Philip Cooke

Author:Philip Cooke
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2014-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

The Netherlands

Marjan Schwegman

When German troops invaded the Netherlands (see Chapter 2, p. 34 for map) on 10 May 1940, the country was unprepared for war. There had been no foreign occupation since the Napoleonic era and no involvement in a European war for more than a hundred years. Thanks to a policy of strict neutrality, the Netherlands had managed to stay out of the First World War. The Dutch government had hoped it could continue to pursue this policy, engendering a sense of immunity that soon turned out to be unfounded. The Dutch capitulation was signed on 15 May 1940, after only five days of combat and bombing, the destruction of the centre of Rotterdam being the most shocking incident. Less than two years later, at the beginning of 1942, the Empire of the Dutch East Indies was taken by the Japanese.

Queen Wilhelmina had been able to leave the country with the Dutch Cabinet on 13 May 1940. She settled in London, where a Dutch government-in-exile was formed. It maintained the Netherlands’ formal existence as an independent state. It was therefore in a position to influence the Dutch under German occupation, with Wilhelmina as the unofficial leader of the government and the main source of inspiration for the resistance.1 In her speeches for Radio Orange the queen did not shrink back from strong language: ‘Wie op het juiste oogenblik handelt, slaat den Nazi op den kop’ (‘He who acts at the right time, will hit the Nazi on his head’).2

In the Netherlands, Hitler appointed a so-called Aufsichtsverwaltung (Supervisory Civil Administration) under the leadership of Arthur Seyss-Inquart, an Austrian who was given the title of Reichskommissar (High Commissioner). He was assisted by four Generalkommissare (General Commissioners) and fourteen Beauftragten (Commissioners) in the eleven provinces and the three largest cities Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam. The Generalkommissare took charge of the Dutch ministries, which since the flight of the Dutch Cabinet to London had been run by the highest civil servants of the departments, the so-called Secretaries General. Although Seyss-Inquart issued decrees that had the force of law throughout the war, the Dutch civil administration was left intact, with Seyss-Inquart and most of his Generalkommissare limiting themselves to outlining policy and supervising the administration. The country was therefore controlled by only several hundred German civil servants.3 The exception to this maintenance of the existing structures was the way the country was policed. SS-Brigadeführer Hanns Albin Rauter was appointed as Generalkommissar für das Sicherheitswesen as well as Höhere SS-und Polizeiführer (General Commissioner for Security and Higher SS and Police Leader). In this capacity he controlled the German Security Police (SiPo), the Security Service, or Sicherheitsdienst (SD), and the Ordnungspolizei, the German civil order police, popularly called Grüne Polizei because of their green uniforms. The Dutch police was also subordinated to Rauter. During the occupation, the role played by the German police in maintaining law and order and in fighting the resistance grew increasingly important. In 1942 Rauter had about 23,000 men of the Ordnungspolizei and the Waffen-SS at his disposal.

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