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Louis Beel | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Official portrait,c. 1958 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Vice-President of the Council of State | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 1 August 1959 – 1 July 1972 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monarch | Juliana | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Bram Rutgers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Marinus Ruppert | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Member of the Council of State | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 1 June 1959 – 1 August 1959 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 1 April 1958 – 22 December 1958 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Vice President | Bram Rutgers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister of the Netherlands | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 22 December 1958 – 19 May 1959 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monarch | Juliana | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy | Teun Struycken | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Willem Drees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Jan de Quay | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 3 July 1946 – 7 August 1948 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monarch | Wilhelmina | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy | Willem Drees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Willem Schermerhorn | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Willem Drees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 2 September 1952 – 7 July 1956 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monarch | Juliana | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Willem Drees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Josef van Schaik | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Teun Struycken | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| High Commissioner of Dutch East Indies | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 29 October 1948 – 18 May 1949 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monarch | Juliana | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Willem Drees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Hubertus van Mook (as LieutenantGovernor-General) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Tony Lovink | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Member of theHouse of Representatives | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 27 July 1948 – 7 September 1948 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 4 June 1946 – 3 July 1946 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | Louis Joseph Maria Beel (1902-04-12)12 April 1902 Roermond, Netherlands | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 11 February 1977(1977-02-11) (aged 74) Utrecht, Netherlands | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | Catholic People's Party | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other political affiliations | Roman Catholic State Party (1933–1945) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | Radboud University Nijmegen (LL.B.,LL.M.,PhD) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation |
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Louis Joseph Maria Beel (12 April 1902 – 11 February 1977) was a Dutch politician of theRoman Catholic State Party (RKSP) and later co-founder of theCatholic People's Party (KVP) and jurist who served asPrime Minister of the Netherlands from 3 July 1946 until 7 August 1948 and from 22 December 1958 until 19 May 1959.[1]
Beel studiedLaw at theRadboud University Nijmegen obtaining aMaster of Laws degree and worked as a civil servant inEindhoven and for theprovincial executive ofOverijssel from July 1929 until May 1942 and as a researcher at his alma mater before finishing histhesis and graduating as aDoctor of Law inAdministrative law and duringWorld War II worked as a lawyer in Eindhoven from May 1942 until January 1945. Shortly before the end of the War, Beel was appointed asMinister of the Interior in theGerbrandy III cabinet, the lastgovernment-in-exile taking office on 23 February 1945. After acabinet formation, Beel retained his position in thenational unitySchermerhorn–Drees cabinet. After the1946 general election Beel was asked tolead a new cabinet and following a successful cabinet formation withLabour LeaderWillem Drees formed theBeel I cabinet and becamePrime Minister of the Netherlands and dual served as Minister of the Interior taking office on 3 July 1946.
After the1948 general election, Beel failed to achieve a new coalition following a difficult cabinet formation and was elected as a Member of the House of Representatives on 27 July 1948. Beel left office following the installation of theDrees–Van Schaik cabinet on 7 August 1948 and continued to serve in the House of Representatives as abackbencher. In September 1948, Beel was nominated as the nexthigh commissioner of the Dutch East Indies, serving from 29 October 1948 until 18 May 1949 and worked as a professor of administrative law andpublic administration at his alma mater and theCatholic Economic University from October 1949 until December 1951. Following acabinet reshuffle he was again appointed as minister of the interior in theDrees I cabinet, taking office on 6 December 1951. After the1952 general election, Beel continued his office in theDrees II cabinet and also becamedeputy prime minister, taking office on 2 September 1952. On 7 July 1956 Beel, resigned after his appointment to lead aspecial commission investigating apolitical crisis concerning theroyal family. In February 1958, Beel was nominated as aMember of the Council of State taking office on 1 April 1958. After the fall of theDrees III cabinet, Beel was asked to lead an interim cabinet until thenext election, and following a successful cabinet formation formed thecaretakerBeel II cabinet and again became Prime Minister of the Netherlands and dual served asMinister of Social Affairsand Health taking office on 22 December 1958.
Before the1959 general election, Beel indicated that he would not serve another term as prime minister or not stand for the election. Beel left office a second time following the installation of theDe Quay cabinet on 19 May 1959. Beel continued to be active in politics and in July 1959 was nominated as the nextvice-president of the Council of State, serving from 1 August 1959 until 1 July 1972.
Beel retired from active politics at 70 and became active in thepublic sector as a non-profit director and served on severalstate commissions and councils on behalf of the government. Beel was known for his abilities as an efficient manager and effective consensus builder. Beel was granted the honorary title ofminister of state on 21 November 1956 and continued to comment on political affairs as a statesman until he was diagnosed withleukemia in August 1976, dying six months later at the age of 74. He holds the distinction as the only prime minister to have served two non-consecutive terms after World War II and because of his short terms in office his premiership is therefore usually omitted both by scholars and the public inrankings but his legacy as a minister in the 1940s and 50s and later as vice-president of the Council of State continue to this day.[2][3][4][5][6]
Louis Joseph Maria Beel was born on 12 April 1902 inRoermond, a town with abishop'ssee in the province ofLimburg, in the very south of the Netherlands. He grew up in a predominantly Roman Catholic community and went to school at the famous Bisschoppelijk College (Diocesan College) of Roermond. He graduated in 1920 and found work as clerk-volunteer at the municipality of Roermond. Two years later he became secretary to the Educational Religious Inspector of the Roermond diocese,Monsignor Petrus van Gils. When in 1923 a Catholic University was founded inNijmegen (presently known as theRadboud University Nijmegen), Monsignor van Gils insisted on his secretary becoming a part-time law student in Nijmegen. In 1924 Beel began commuting between Roermond and Nijmegen. After obtaining hisbachelor's degree in 1925 he found a new job as an administrative assistant in the government of the eastern province ofOverijssel. He moved to its capital, the town ofZwolle, and left his place of birth Roermond. During the time he lived in Zwolle, Beel got married and his first child, a son, was born. In addition to being a provincial civil servant, Beel accepted a part-time lectureship at an institute for professional training, Katholieke Leergangen, and he wrote his first articles on legal subjects.
In 1928 Beel obtained his master's degree in law atRadboud University Nijmegen. Subsequently, he applied for a better job, and managed to find one as a clerk at the municipality ofEindhoven, also in the south of the Netherlands at that time a booming city as a result of the establishment of thePhilips group. With his wife, his son and his mother-in-law he moved to Eindhoven in 1929 and lived there for more than fifteen years. Three daughters were born there. Beel's professional career progressed rapidly and in less than one year he became a principal clerk. As he had inZwolle, Beel proved to be an industrious man. He continued his part-time lecturing at the Katholieke Leergangen, he published regularly in the legal press and in 1935 he obtained his doctorate in law at theRadboud University Nijmegen.
At the time of his resignation as a municipalCivil servant in 1942, Beel was Director of Social Affairs and Deputy Town Clerk. Beel resigned because he opposed theGerman occupation of the Netherlands. To avoid being taken prisoner by the German occupational forces he frequently had to go in hiding.Eindhoven was liberated on 18 September 1944 at the time of the World War II military offensive known asOperation Market Garden.Dutch resistance fighters, massively manifesting themselves immediately after the Germans had gone, saw Beel as one of them. He became the spokesman of a group of prominent citizens in Eindhoven, who had resisted theGermans during the war. The group was not in favour of a continuation of the pre-war political party-lines, with the ever-dominantAnti-Revolutionary Party. In this vein they sent an Address, drafted by Beel, toQueen Wilhelmina, who still resided in London. Beel was urged to accept the function of adviser to the Military Administration (Militair Gezag), the temporary government in the liberated southern part of the Netherlands underSupreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. In this capacity Beel was invited by theDutch government-in-exile to travel to London and to advise on dealing with the war victims. He arrived in London on 1 January 1945. On 10 January he visited at her requestQueen Wilhelmina in her English mansion Mortimer. This visit gave a decisive turn to Beel's life.
TheQueen intuitively saw in Beel, a Roman Catholic from the South who ostentatiously had rejected Nazism, the prototype of the patriot and of the sort of "renewed" person she was looking for to replace the members of her war-cabinet, of whom she no longer wholeheartedly approved. Beel was promptly appointedMinister of the Interior in thethird Gerbrandy cabinet. This cabinet resigned immediately after the end of the war, in May 1945, to free the path for a new one to be formed by two aliberal,Wim Schermerhorn, andsocial democrat,Willem Drees. They invited Beel to remain asMinister of the Interior in their cabinet (theSchermerhorn–Drees cabinet). According to his own words, Beel reluctantly agreed. He moved with his family fromEindhoven toWassenaar, a villadom close toThe Hague, the government's residence.
A post-war parliamentary election could finally be held in May 1946. In the election campaign Beel voiced the political resistance from the religious and liberal parties against the economic planning and socialism favoured by Prime Minister Schermerhorn and his political supporters. Unlike theBritish election of the previous year where the Labour Party gained a decisive victory, in the Netherlands the "Socialist breakthrough" which had been expected did not materialise in this first post-war election. TheCatholic People's Party was the big winner, though no party had an overall majority.Queen Wilhelmina requested Beel to form a new cabinet. He became prime minister of aRoman/Red coalition, which he called the "New Truce", since it was the first cabinet in Dutch history of socialists and Roman Catholics. This Beel cabinet set the course for the political and economic development of the post-war Netherlands.
In social policy, temporary measures were introduced in December 1946 entitling wage-earners to an allowance for the first and second child under the age of 18. The Old Age Pensions Emergency Provisions Act of May 1947 provided means-tested pensions for all persons over the age of 65 regardless of their previous employment record, and the Pensioners' Family Allowances Act of July 1948 introduced family allowance for those in receipt of invalidity, old age, or survivors' benefits "according to the Invalidity Insurance Act 1919."[7] In 1947, the duration of sickness benefits was doubled from 26 to 52 weeks.[8] Under a law of 15 July 1948 (Stb. I 309) the age limit for the right to orphan's annuity under the Disability law went up from 14 to 16 years.[9]
In 1948 a parliamentary election was again required for a constitutional renewal, which was thought necessary to solve the problems emerging in theDutch East Indies, where the nationalists led bySukarno andHatta had proclaimed the independence of their country immediately after the Japanese surrender. The KVP won again and Beel was asked to form a new cabinet. He might again have become prime minister, but he failed to form the grand coalition of socialist, Catholic and liberal parties, which he deemed necessary to secure the corrections in the Constitution.Josef van Schaik, a fellow KVP politician, took over and succeeded in forming a broad based cabinet by offering the socialistWillem Drees the function of prime minister,Josef van Schaik himself being satisfied with the function of deputy prime minister. Drees appointed BeelHigh Commissioner of the Crown in the Dutch East Indies, as a successor to Lieutenant Governor GeneralHubertus van Mook, a man of proven managerial abilities, who had to resign unwillingly.
The Dutch government inThe Hague made several attempts to reach an agreement with theRepublic of Indonesia. Beel, stationed in Batavia (now namedJakarta), was not in favour of such an agreement because of his suspicions - later proven to be right - that the new Republic did not want the establishment of a federal state, as was planned in the Dutchdecolonisation policy. Under the auspices of theUnited Nations Security Council an agreement was achieved in May 1949 to hold a Round Table Conference inThe Hague in order to prepare the transfer of sovereignty. Beel made efforts to thwart the agreement. However he was unsuccessful and he resigned from his Office of High Commissioner of the Crown.
Beel returned to his home at the end of May 1949 and a few months later he accepted a professorate in administrative law at hisAlma Mater inNijmegen, one of his early ambitions.
On 7 November 1951,Johan van Maarseveen,Minister of the Interior, suddenly died. Prime Minister Drees appealed to Beel to return to office. Again reluctantly, Beel accepted Prime Minister Drees' offer. He also held the function ofMinister of the Interior in the next Drees cabinet after the elections of 1952. In July 1956 Beel asked that he be allowed to resign from government to become, as a private citizen, chairman of a committee of three "wise men" that was requested byQueen Juliana and the ConsortPrince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld to help solve problems pertaining to the royal family. The problems were related to faith healerGreet Hofmans, whom the Queen had invited to the royal palace in order to cure her youngest daughter, who had been born half blind in 1947. The renowned German magazineDer Spiegel had accused Mrs. Hofmans of playing a "Rasputin" role in the royal family. Within a month the committee had fulfilled its task by writing a secret report, which banished the sensitive affair from publicity. Three months later Beel was appointedMinister of State, a prestigious title of honour.
In 1958 after an interlude of eighteen months without a public office, Beel was appointed member of theCouncil of State. Soon afterwards however he was called upon to form his second cabinet - arump cabinet from December 1958 until May 1959, that had to dissolve parliament and call a new election. After this election Beel assisted the Roman Catholic politicianJan de Quay in forming a Catholic–liberal cabinet, thus ending the Roman/red coalition, which had been Beel's own initiative in 1946. TheDe Quay cabinet appointed Beel as Vice-President of the Council of State, the most prestigious office in the Dutch administration, the head of state being the honorary President of the Council of State.
Whereas other political leaders, who had come forward after the war, one by one left the political scene and the "participation-democracy" of the New Left movement created a new type of politician, Beel retained in the authority of the Council of State a great influence on government. He owed his role to the way he performed his high office as well to his position of confidence with the royal family. In various affairs the royals faced, Beel's taciturn way of acting on behalf of the monarchy and his prudent pulling the strings behind the scene as Vice-President of the Dutch Council of State gave him the nickname "TheSphinx". The power he derived from both positions christened him "Viceroy of the Netherlands". The authority of Beel and his controlling influence in political circles became manifest when new cabinets had to be formed or cabinet crises had to be warded off. Through the thirteen years of his vice-presidency Beel had a steering hand in nearly every cabinet formation, including the dramatic formation of the cabinet of thesocial democratJoop den Uyl in 1973.
As from 1 July 1972, at the age of seventy, Beel resigned (prematurely) from his office of Vice-President of the Council of State. His wife had died some years before. He retired with hismentally handicapped eldest daughter and her attendant to the quiet village ofDoorn. On 11 February 1977 Beel died in theUniversity Hospital Utrecht fromleukemia.
Media related toLouis Beel at Wikimedia Commons
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by Hendrik van Boeijen (ad interim) | Minister of the Interior 1945–1947 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Prime Minister of the Netherlands 1946–1948 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Hendrik van Boeijen (in 1945) | Minister of General Affairs 1947–1948 | |
| Preceded by | Minister of Colonial Affairs (ad interim) 1947 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded byas Lieutenant Governor-General | High Commissioner of Dutch East Indies 1948–1949 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Frans Teulings (ad interim) | Minister of the Interior 1951–1956 | Succeeded by Julius Christiaan van Oven (ad interim) |
| Preceded by | Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands 1952–1956 | Succeeded by |
| New office | Minister of Social Work (ad interim) 1952 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Justice (ad interim) 1956 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Social Affairsand Health 1958–1959 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Prime Minister of the Netherlands Minister of General Affairs 1958–1959 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Vice-President of the Council of State 1959–1972 | Succeeded by |
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| Government appointed (1800–1948) |
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