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National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging in Nederland | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Leader | Anton Mussert |
| Founder | Anton Mussert Cornelis van Geelkerken |
| Founded | 14 December 1931 (93 years, 349 days) |
| Banned | 6 May 1945 (80 years, 206 days) |
| Headquarters | Utrecht,Netherlands |
| Newspaper | Volk en Vaderland |
| Student wing | Nederlandsche Nationaal-Socialistische Studentenfederatie Nationaal Socialistisch Studentenfront |
| Youth wing | Nationale Jeugdstorm |
| Paramilitary wing | Weerbaarheidsafdeling |
| East Indies branch | National Socialist Movement in the Dutch East Indies |
| Membership(1944) | 101,314 |
| Ideology | Nazism Fascism Dutch nationalism Dutch irredentism Collaborationism |
| Political position | Far-right |
| Colors | Red Black |
| Party flag | |
 | |
TheNational Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (Dutch:Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging in Nederland,pronounced[nɑ(t)ɕoːˌnaːlsoːɕaːˈlɪstisəbəˈʋeːɣɪŋɪnˈneːdərlɑnt];NSB) was a Dutchfascist and laterNazipolitical organisation that eventually became apolitical party.[1] As a parliamentary party participating in legislative elections, the NSB had some success during the 1930s. Under German occupation, it remained the only legal party in the Netherlands during most of theSecond World War.
The NSB was founded inUtrecht in 1931 during a period when severalnationalist, fascist and Nazi parties were founded. The founders wereAnton Mussert, who became the party's leader, andCornelis van Geelkerken. The party based its program on Italian fascism and German Nazism: however, unlike the latter, before 1936 the party was notantisemitic and even had Jewish members.
In 1933, after a year of building an organization, the party organized its first public meeting, aLanddag in Utrecht which was attended by 600 party militants. Here the party presented itself. After that, the party's support began to grow. In the same year, the government forbade civil servants to be members.
In the provincial elections of 1935, the party gained almost eight percent of the votes[1] and two seats in theSenate. This was achieved against the background of the economic hardship of theGreat Depression, which increased the party's stature until 1937.[1] Mussert's image as a reliable politician and hispragmatism allowed him to unite the different types of fascism and contributed to the party's success. This was bolstered by the party's strong organization and its political strategy, which was not oriented towards revolution but a democratic and legal take over of the country. By 1936, the party was holding annual mass meetings nearLunteren in Gelderland and, in 1938, it built theMuur van Mussert there, a wall which was supposed to be one element in a set of buildings and monuments inspired by theNazi party rally grounds inNuremberg.[2]
In 1936, under the influence ofMeinoud Rost van Tonningen, the party became more radical and openly antisemitic. Rost van Tonningen began to question Mussert's leadership, with the support of the GermanNazi Party, increasing divisions within the party. Thisradicalisation led to decreased support for the party and a stronganti-fascist reaction of the political parties, trade unions and churches. In the1937 general elections, the party gained only four percent of the votes and four seats in theHouse of Representatives, although it increased its representation in theSenate to five seats. After 1937, the party's stature diminished and many members left.[1]
In parliament, the NSB MPs showed little respect for parliamentary procedures and rules. Many NSB MPs were called to order by the chairman of parliament for physical and verbal violence.
In the provincial election of 1939, the party also gained four percent of the votes.
After theSecond World War broke out, the NSB sympathized with the Germans and advocatedstrict neutrality for the Netherlands. In May 1940, 800 NSB members and sympathizers were put in custody by the Dutch government,[3] after the German invasion. Supporters of the party in theDutch East Indies were also interned at that time, and when a Japanese invasion of the colony began some of these were deported toSurinam and interned in theJodensavanne internment camp. Soon after theDutch defeat on 14 May 1940, the imprisoned European NSB members in the Netherlands were set free by German troops. In June 1940, Mussert delivered a speech inLunteren in which he called for the Netherlands to embrace the Germans and renounce theDutch Monarchy, which had fled toLondon.
In 1940 theGerman occupation government had outlawed all socialist and communist parties; in 1941 it forbade all parties, except for the NSB. The NSB openly collaborated with the occupation forces. Its membership grew to about 100,000. The NSB played an important role in lower government and civil service; every new mayor appointed by the German occupation government was a member of the NSB. On the national level, Mussert had expected he would be made leader of an independent Dutch state allied to Germany; in reality, however, the Austrian NaziArthur Seyss-Inquart was in charge of an occupation government. He chose to work with the remaining establishment as he realised that the NSB lacked popular support and talented candidates for more important functions.
Mussert had in total five meetings withAdolf Hitler in which he pleaded for an independent Netherlands, but he was unsuccessful. Although Seyss-Inquart had proposed that Mussert should be madePrime Minister of the Netherlands, he was only given the honorary title 'Leader of the Dutch People', and he was allowed to build a marginal State Secretariat, but he was given little or no actual power. His influence in the party waned as Rost van Tonningen and other more pro-German members gained influence. Unlike Mussert, Rost van Tonningen was in favour of incorporation of the Netherlands into a Greater Germanic Reich. Beginning in the summer of 1943, many male members of the NSB were organized in theLandwacht, which helped the government control the population.
On 4 September 1944, the Allied forces conqueredAntwerp and the NSB expected the fall of the Netherlands to come soon. On 5 September, most of the NSB's leadership and many members fled to Germany and the party's organization fell apart, on what is known asDolle Dinsdag (Mad Tuesday). Mussert himself spent the winter of 1944–45 at the estate of Bellinckhof, near Almelo. In these final months of the war the movement fractured further and further, and Mussert ordered measures against leaders who behaved 'dishonorably' in September 1944. In the beginning of 1945 he terminated the memberships of Rost van Tonningen and Van Geelkerken. However, at that time Musserts power was severely weakened by the war events and the fracturing of the NSB.
After theGerman surrender on 6 May 1945, the NSB was outlawed. Mussert was arrested the following day. Many of the members of the NSB were arrested, but only a few were convicted.
There were no attempts to continue the organization illegally. Former members were shunned and sometimes imprisoned. After that, they and their children remained stigmatized for a long time in society. The senior party leadership was arrested and faced charges:Mussert was executed on 7 May 1946,Van Geelkerken was imprisoned, and Rost van Tonningen committed suicide while awaiting trial.
The NSB started out as aclassical fascist party, which based itself on the principles ofleadership.[1] It wanted afascist state with a compliant government, fascist order and state control. It put thenational interest above the individual interest and the interest of social groups (pillars) that had characterized Dutch society. The party wasanti-parliamentary andauthoritarian. Its program, which was otherwise modeled on the program of the GermanNazi Party, initially did not contain the antisemitic andracist ideology of the Nazi Party.[1] After 1936, under the influence ofMeinoud Rost van Tonningen, the party became more oriented towards the Nazi Party and took on itsantisemitic andracist ideas. It also began to sympathize with the aggressiveforeign policy of Italy and Germany.[4]
Practical demands of the NSB were: abolition ofindividual voting rights,corporatism, a duty to work and serve in the army, limits on thefreedom of the press, laws againststrikes. It demanded a unification of the Netherlands withFlanders andFrench Flanders in aGreater Netherlands, which would also control a large colonial empire consisting ofBelgian Congo, theDutch East Indies and perhapsSouth Africa.[5] This state would not be a part of Germany, but only an independent loyal ally to Germany.
The NSB was against the currentpolitical structure of the Netherlands andparliamentary democracy itself.[1]
The party was organized withMussert serving asparty chair and political leader. From September 1940 until its dissolution, Carolus Josephus Huygen served as Secretary General of the party. Yearly the party organized aLanddag, where Mussert gave a political speech.
The NSB copied elements of theItalian Fascists andGerman Nazis. Like Mussolini's Fascists, the NSB uniforms included black shirts, and the Party adopted theFascist salute. Since 1933 it used the salute "Hou Zee!", which, Anton Mussert said, connoted courage and referred to the "glorious" maritime history of theDutch Republic. It also began using titles likeLeider for Mussert (Leader; similar toDuce orFührer),Kameraad for men (comrade) andKameraadske ('comradess', aneologism) for women. One party slogan was "Mussert or Moscow", evoking the Fascist defense against supposed Communist subversion.[6] Although the Party later adopted the Nazi red and black colors and theswastika symbol, the original NSB flag used thePrince's Flag. A bluewolfsangel (a hooked symbol of a wolf trap) on a white disc was set against an orange field.[7]
| 1 January 1933 | 900 |
|---|---|
| 1 January 1934 | 21,000 |
| 1 January 1935 | 33,000 |
| 1 January 1936 | 52,000 |
| 1 January 1937 | 48,000 |
| 1 January 1938 | 39,000 |
| 1 January 1939 | 37,000 |
| 1 January 1940 | 32.000 |
| March 1940 | 33,342 |
| 31 October 1941 | 90,788 |
| 31 March 1943 | 99,353 |
| 30 September 1943 | 101,314 |
HistoriansLou de Jong and A.A. de Jonge have characterized NSB members as socially isolated opportunists who were motivated to join the NSB through a mix ofopportunism,idealism andsocial connections.[8]
The NSB drew its main support from themiddle class:civil servants,farmers,business people andsoldiers supported the party. Most of these people were not part of the strongpillarized organisations surrounding the socialist unions, and theProtestant andCatholic churches. Instead they were often a loose member of the weaker liberal pillar, which was very diverse. The NSB party scored particularly well inDrenthe,Gelderland and the towns ofLimburg at the border withGermany. The synod of theReformed Churches in the Netherlands declared membership of the NSB irreconcilable with membership in their church denomination in 1936[9] and reaffirmed this in 1941.[10] TheCatholic Church warned against the party's ideology in 1936 and banned support for the NSB in 1936 on pain of exclusion from thesacraments.[11] A mandement from the Roman Catholic bishops declared in 1941 membership of the NSB illicit to a high degree.[12]
The NSB was surrounded by several party organizations. It published a weekly newspaper,Volk en Vaderland ("People and Fatherland"). Between 1931 and 1935 the party had its own paramilitary organization, the black uniformedWeerbaarheidsafdeling (WA), similar to theSturmabteilung of the Nazi Party. It was refounded in 1940.[13] It also founded its own youth organization,Nationale Jeugdstorm (Youthstorm); a farmers' organization; and a daily newspaper,Het Nationale Dagblad (The National Daily).
In 1940 the NSB formed theNederlandsche SS (Dutch SS), which had up to 7,000 members.
The party also had abranch in the East Indies, which enjoyed some modest popularity among the mixed Dutch-IndonesianIndo population, but began to rapidly decline after the NSB started to adopt moreracialist andblut und boden views, and was banned on 10 May 1940, in reaction to the European NSB entering into collaboration.
The term "NSB'er" has become synonymous with traitor in the Netherlands, and is used as an insult, especially in the context of ratting somebody out to authorities.
A grim joke afterWorld War II, made byDutch Resistance fighters, is that former NSB members insisted that their acronym actually stood for "Niet So [zo] Bedoeld" or "I didn't mean it like that" as they attempted to downplay their treachery.
The NSB was methodically isolated by other parties. Before the war the socialistSocial Democratic Workers' Party andNederlands Verbond van Vakverenigingen (Dutch Association of Trade Unions) coordinated counter-demonstrations and propaganda with a separate organization 'Freedom, Labour and Bread'. The NSB lobbied with the German occupiers to have other political organisations outlawed. Although the Germans had no problem with banning the socialists, communists and Christian-democrats, it was considerably harder for the NSB to convince them to get rid of their fascist rivals. Eventually, the Germans forbade these too and urged members to join the NSB, as these parties were considered too small. The most important rival for the NSB was theNederlandsche Unie, an organisation founded in 1940, which wanted to rebuild Dutch society within the cadre of the changed balance of power. Although their point of view was later considered collaborationist, many Dutch joined the movement as an alternative to the NSB, which it soon outgrew. The end for the Nederlandsche Unie came when they refused to support the German invasion of the Soviet-Union. Hence, as of 1941 to 1945, the NSB was the only permitted political party in the Netherlands.
| Election | Lead candidate | List | Votes | Seats | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | ||||
| 1937 | Anton Mussert | List | 171,137 | 4.2 | 4 / 100 |
| Election | Lead candidate | List | Votes | Seats | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | ||||
| 1935 | Max de Marchant et d'Ansembourg | List | 2 / 50 | ||
| 1937 | Van Vessem | List | 4 / 50 | ||
Before 1940 the NSB held seats inprovincial andmunicipal legislatures, but did not cooperate in any governments. After 1940 these legislatures stopped functioning and the NSB's role in local and provincial legislatures expanded. All newly appointed mayors were members of the NSB.
| Province | 1935 | 1939 |
|---|---|---|
| Drenthe | 4 / 35 | 3 / 35 |
| Friesland | 1 / 50 | 0 / 50 |
| Gelderland | 5 / 62 | 2 / 62 |
| Groningen | 4 / 45 | 2 / 45 |
| Limburg | 5 / 45 | 2 / 45 |
| North Brabant | 2 / 64 | 1 / 64 |
| North Holland | 7 / 77 | 4 / 77 |
| Overijssel | 3 / 47 | 2 / 47 |
| Utrecht | 4 / 41 | 1 / 41 |
| Zeeland | 2 / 42 | 1 / 42 |
| South Holland | 7 / 82 | 3 / 82 |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
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