Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 can be mainly characterized by its prominent non-violence, summitting in over 300,000 people in hiding in the autumn of 1944, tended to by some 60,000 to 200,000 illegal landlords and caretakers and tolerated knowingly by some 1 million people, including German occupiers and military.

Dutch resistance developed relatively slowly, but the event of the February strike

February strike

The 1941 February Strike, also known as 'The Strike of February 1941', was a general strike organized during World War II in the Netherlands against the anti-Jewish measures and activities of the Nazis. Its direct causes were the pogroms held by the Germans in the Jewish neighbourhood of Amsterdam....

 and its cause, the random razzia and deportation of over 400 Jews, stimulated resistance greatly. The first to organise themselves were the Dutch communists, who set up a cell-system immediately. Some other very amateurish groups also emerged, notably De Geuzen set up by Bernard IJzerdraat and also some military-styled groups started, such as the Ordedienst ('order service'). Most had great trouble surviving betrayal in the first two years of the war.

Dutch counterintelligence, domestic sabotage, and communications networks eventually provided key support to Allied forces

Allies of World War II

The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...

 beginning in 1944 and continuing until the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 was fully liberated. Some 75% (105,000 out of 140,000) of the Jewish population perished in the Holocaust, most of them murdered in Nazi death camps. A number of resistance groups specialized in saving Jewish children.

Definition

The Dutch themselves, especially their official war historian Dr Lou de Jong, director of the official State Institute for War Documentation (Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, RIOD, now NIOD) distignuished between several types of resistance. Going into hiding, at which the Dutch appeared to excel, was generally not categorised by the Dutch as resistance because of the passive nature of such an act; helping these so-called 'onderduikers' ('under divers') was, but more or less reluctantly so. Non-compliance with German rules, wishes or commands or German condoned Dutch rule, was also not considered resistance. According to official publications, sabotage on an extensive scale must have appeared at those companies in Holland that kept on working during the war (collaboration was rife in the country), but until lately this was not seen as resistance.

Public protests of individuals, political parties, newspapers or the churches were also not considered to be resistance. Publishing illegal papers - at which the Dutch excelled, with some 1100 separate titles appearing, some reaching circulations of more than 100.000 on a population of 8.5 million - was not considered resistance per se. Only active resistance in the form of spying, sabotage or with arms was what the Dutch considered resistance.

Nevertheless, from all the 'non-resisting' categories participants were arrested by the Germans and often subsequently jailed for months, tortured, sent to concentration camps or killed. Up till the 21st century, the tendency existed in Dutch historical research and publications, not to regard passive resistance as 'real' resistance. Slowly, this has started to change, also because of the emphasis the RIOD/NIOD has been putting on individual heroism since 2005. The unique Dutch February strike

February strike

The 1941 February Strike, also known as 'The Strike of February 1941', was a general strike organized during World War II in the Netherlands against the anti-Jewish measures and activities of the Nazis. Its direct causes were the pogroms held by the Germans in the Jewish neighbourhood of Amsterdam....

 of 1941, protesting deportation of Jews from Holland, the only such strike ever occurring in nazi-occupied Europe, is usually not defined as resistance by the Dutch. The Dutch generally prefer to use the term 'illegality'('illegaliteit') for all those activiteities that were underground and unarmed.

After the war, the Dutch created and awarded a Resistance cross ('Verzetkruis', not to be confused with the much lower ranking 'Verzetsherdenkingskruis') to only 95 people, of whom only one was alive when receiving the decoration, a number in stark contrast to the hundreds of thousands of Dutchmen en -women that performed illegal tasks at any moment during the war. That the Dutch also obtained records in the field of collaboration, is a reality they are slowly coming to terms with in the new century.

Prelude

Prior to the German invasion, the Netherlands had adhered to a policy of strict neutrality. The country had narrow bonds with Germany, and less so with the British, especially because of the history of the Boer War

Boer War

The Boer Wars were two wars fought between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics, the Oranje Vrijstaat and the Republiek van Transvaal ....

 and the loss of Dutch territory in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 to the English. Few Dutch spoke English. The Dutch had not engaged in war with any European nation since 1830. During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, the Dutch were not invaded by Germany and anti-German sentiment was not as strong after that war as it was in other European countries. The German ex-Kaiser had fled to Holland in 1918 and lived there. The German invasion therefore came as a great shock to many Dutch people

Dutch people

The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

. Nevertheless, the country had ordered general mobilisation in September 1939. Already in November 1938 during the Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...

, many Dutch received a foretaste of things to come, when even from Holland German synangogues could be seen burning, such as the one in Aachen

Aachen

Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...

. An anti-fascist movement started to gain popularity - as did the fascist movement, notably the NSB

NSB

-Education:*National Spelling Bee, the Scripps National Spelling Bee, a competition in the US*National Science Bowl, a high school academic competition*Northampton School for Boys, a British Secondary School*North Sydney Boys High School, an Australian high school...

.
Despite strict neutrality, even going so far as shooting down British as well as German warplanes over Holland, the country's large merchant fleet was severely attacked by the German after September 1, 1939, the beginning of World War II. The sinking of the passenger liner SS Simon Bolivar in November 1939, with 84 dead, especially shocked the nation. It was not the only vessel.

German invasion

On 10 May 1940, German troops started their surprise attack on the Netherlands without a declaration of war

Declaration of war

A declaration of war is a formal act by which one nation goes to war against another. The declaration is a performative speech act by an authorized party of a national government in order to create a state of war between two or more states.The legality of who is competent to declare war varies...

. The day before, small groups of German troops wearing Dutch uniforms had entered the country. Many of them wore 'Dutch' helmets, some made of cardboard as there were not enough originals. The Germans employed about 750.000 men, three times the Dutch army, and some 1100 planes (Dutch army: 125) and six armored trains, managed to destroy 80% of the Dutch military aircraft on the ground in one morning mostly by bombing. Although the Dutch army was inferior in nearly every way, consisting mostly of conscripts, poorly led, poorly outfitted and with poor communications, the Germans lost over 500 planes in the three days of the attack, a loss they would never replenish. Also the first large scale paratroop-attack in history failed, the Dutch managing to recapture the three German-conquered airfields near the Hague within the day. Remarkable was the existence of privately-owned anti-aircraft guns. Not less amazing may be the fact that the Dutch army owned only 1 tank.

Major areas of intensive military resistance were

• the Grebbelinie, a north-south line some 50 km east of the capital Amsterdam
  Amsterdam
  Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
  
  , from Amersfoort
  Amersfoort
  Amersfoort is a municipality and the second largest city of the province of Utrecht in central Netherlands. The city is growing quickly but has a well-preserved and protected medieval centre. Amersfoort is one of the largest railway junctions in the country, because of its location on two of the...
  
   to the Waal
  Waal
  River Waal is the main distributary branch of river Rhine flowing to the central Netherlands for about before joining the Meuse near Woudrichem to form the Boven Merwede. It is a major river which serves as the main waterway connecting the Rotterdam harbor and Germany. Nijmegen, Tiel, Zaltbommel...
  
  , fortified, with field guns, with extensive inundations; the Dutch had to surrender after heavy losses
• Kornwerderzand, with a bunker-complex that defended the east end of the Afsluitdijk
  Afsluitdijk
  The Afsluitdijk is a major causeway in the Netherlands, constructed between 1927 and 1933 and running from Den Oever on Wieringen in North Holland province, to the village of Zurich in Friesland province, over a length of and a width of 90 m, at an initial height of 7.25 m above sea-level.It is...
  
   connecting Friesland
  Friesland
  Friesland is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient region of Frisia.Until the end of 1996, the province bore Friesland as its official name. In 1997 this Dutch name lost its official status to the Frisian Fryslân...
  
   to North-Holland and was successfully defended until the capitulation
• Rotterdam, the bridges over the Waal
  Waal
  River Waal is the main distributary branch of river Rhine flowing to the central Netherlands for about before joining the Meuse near Woudrichem to form the Boven Merwede. It is a major river which serves as the main waterway connecting the Rotterdam harbor and Germany. Nijmegen, Tiel, Zaltbommel...
  
  , successfully defended until the capitulation by the Dutch Marines.

After four days it seemed as if the Dutch had stopped the German advance, although at that time, the Germans had already invaded some 70% of the country, excluding only the urban areas in the west. Hitler, who had expected the occupation to be completed in two days (in Denmark in April 1940 it had taken only one day), ordered Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

 to be annihilated, leading to the Rotterdam Blitz

Rotterdam Blitz

The Rotterdam Blitz refers to the aerial bombardment of Rotterdam by the German Air Force on 14 May 1940, during the German invasion of the Netherlands in World War II. The objective was to support the German troops fighting in the city, break Dutch resistance and force the Dutch to surrender...

 on 14 May that destroyed much of the city center and killed nearly over 800 people and left some 85,000 homeless, to be followed by every other major Dutch city if the Dutch refused to surrender. The Dutch, having lost the bulk of their air force, realized they could not stop the German bombers and surrendered.

The 2000 Dutch soldiers who died defending their country, together with at least 800 civilians who perished in the flames of Rotterdam, were the first victims of a Nazi occupation which was to last five years.

Initial German policy

The Nazis, who considered the Dutch to be fellow Aryans, were less repressive in the Netherlands than in other occupied countries, at least at first. Their main goals were the Nazification of the populace, the creation of a large scale aerial attack and defense system, and the integration of the Dutch economy in the German economy. As Rotterdam already was Germany's main port, it remained so and collaboration with the enemy was widespread, stimulated by the flight of all the government ministers who had instructed their secretaries-general to carry on as if nothing happened. The open terrain and dense population, the densest in Europe, made it difficult to conceal illegal activities unlike, for example, the Maquis

Maquis

Maquis or macchia is a type of high ground in Corsica covered in thick vegetation, where privateers used to hide. The name has been adopted by a variety of guerilla movements in francophone countries.Maquis may also refer to:-Geography:...

in France, who had ample hiding places. Furthermore, the country was surrounded by German-controlled territory on all sides, offering few escape routes. The complete coast was forbidden territory for all Dutch.

The very first German round-up of Jews in February 1941 led to the first general strike against the Germans in Europe (and indeed one of only two such throughout occupied Europe).

If the Germans discovered people were involved in the resistance, they were often immediately jailed. It was the social democrats, Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

s, and communists who started the resistance movement. Membership of an armed or military organized group could lead to prolonged stays in concentration camps, and after mid-1944, to immediate death (as a result of Hitler's orders to shoot resistance members on sight, the Niedermachungsbefehl). Also the increasing attacks on Dutch fascists and on Germans led to large scale reprisals, often involving 10s or even 100s of randomly chosen people, who were executed, or deported after which they died, what happened to most adult males in the village of Putten

Putten

Putten is a municipality and a town in Gelderland province in the middle of the Netherlands. In 2007 it had a population of 23,024.Putten is surrounded by a great variety of landscapes. To the east of Putten lies the Veluwe, the biggest national park of the Netherlands...

 in one go, some 600.

The Nazis deported the Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 to concentration and extermination camps, rationed food, and withheld food stamps as a punishment. They started large scale fortificataions along the coast and constructed some 30 airfields, paying with money they claimed from the national bank at a rate of 100 million guilders a month (the so-calles 'costs of the occupation'). They also forced adult males between 18 and 45 to work in German factories or on public work projects. In 1944 most trains were diverted to Germany, known as 'the great train robberies', and in total some 550.000 Dutch were selected to be sent to Germany as forced laborers. Males over the age of 14 were deemed 'able to work' and females over the age of 15. Over the next five years, as conditions became increasingly harsh and difficult, resistance became better organized and more forceful. The resistance managed to kill high-ranking Dutch officials, such as general Seyffardt.

In the Netherlands, the Germans managed to exterminate a relatively large proportion of the Jews. The main reason was that before the war, the Dutch authorities had required citizens to register their religion so that church tax

Church tax

A church tax is a tax imposed on members of some religious congregations in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Sweden, some parts of Switzerland and several other countries.- Germany :About 70% of church revenues come from church tax...

es could be distributed among the various religious organizations. In addition, the country was occupied by the oppressive SS rather than the Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

 as in the other Western European countries, as well as the fact that the occupying forces were generally under the command of Austrians

Anschluss

The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....

 who were keen to show that they were good Germans by implementing anti-Semitic policy. The Dutch public transport organization and the police collaborated to a large extent in the transport of the Jews.

Activities

On 25 February 1941, the Communist Party of the Netherlands

Communist Party of the Netherlands

The Communist Party of the Netherlands was a Dutch communist political party. The CPN is one of the predecessors of the GreenLeft.- Foundation :...

 called for a general strike, the February strike

February strike

The 1941 February Strike, also known as 'The Strike of February 1941', was a general strike organized during World War II in the Netherlands against the anti-Jewish measures and activities of the Nazis. Its direct causes were the pogroms held by the Germans in the Jewish neighbourhood of Amsterdam....

, in response to the first Nazi raid on Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

's Jewish population. The old Jewish quarter in Amsterdam had been cordoned off into a ghettos and as retaliation for a number of violent incidents that followed 425 Jewish men were taken hostage by the Germans and eventually deported to extermination camps, just 2 surviving. Many citizens of Amsterdam, regardless of their political affiliation, joined in a mass protest against the deportation of Jewish Dutch citizens. The next day, factories in Zaandam, Haarlem, IJmuiden, Weesp, Bussum, Hilversum and Utrecht joined in. The strike was largely put down within a day with German troops firing on unarmed crowds, killing 9 people and wounding 24, as well as taking many prisoners. It was significant because opposition to the German occupation intensified as a result. The only other general strike in Nazi-occupied Europe was the general strike in occupied Luxembourg in 1942

1942 Luxembourgian general strike

The Luxembourgian general strike of 1942 was a pacific resistance movement organised within a short time period to protest against a directive that conscripted Luxembourg youth into the Wehrmacht...

. The Dutch struck four more times against the Germans: the students' strike in November 1940, the doctors' strike in 1942, the April–May strike in 1943 and the railway strike in 1944. No other country showed such overt refusal to cooperate with the occupiers.

The February strike was also unusual for the Dutch resistance, which was more covert. Resistance in the Netherlands initially took the form of small-scale, decentralized cells engaged in independent activities, mostly small-scale sabotage (cutting phone lines, distributing anti-German leaflets, tearing down posters). Some small groups had no links with others. They produced forged ration cards and counterfeit money, collected intelligence, published underground papers such as De Waarheid

De Waarheid

De Waarheid was the Dutch Communist Party newspaper. It originated in 1940 under the German occupation as a resistance paper, the day after general H.G. Winkelman had forbidden publication of the earlier Communist Volksdagblad. The party decided on May 15, 1940, to continue the Volksdagblad...

, Trouw

Trouw

Trouw is a Dutch daily newspaper. "Trouw" is a Dutch word meaning "fidelity", "loyalty", or "allegiance", and is cognate with the English adjective "true"...

, Vrij Nederland

Vrij Nederland

Vrij Nederland is a Dutch magazine which was established during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II as an underground newspaper but has since grown into a magazine. The weekly magazine is generally considered to be intellectually left-wing...

, and Het Parool

Het Parool

Het Parool is an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper. It was founded as a resistance paper during World War II by Frans Van Heuven Goedhart and Jaap Nunes Vaz...

, sabotaged phone lines and railways, produced maps, and distributed food and goods.

One of the most popular activities was hiding and sheltering refugees and enemies of the Nazi regime, Jewish families like the family of Anne Frank

Anne Frank

Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...

, underground operatives, draft-age Dutch, allied polits and crew-members. Collectively these people were known as onderduikers ('people in hiding' or literally: 'under-divers'). Later in the war this system of hiding people was also used to protect downed Allied airmen. Corrie ten Boom

Corrie ten Boom

Cornelia "Corrie" ten Boom was a Dutch Christian, who with her father and other family members helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. Her family was arrested due to an informant in 1944, and her father died 10 days later at Scheveningen prison where they were first held...

 and her family are among those who successfully hid several Jews and resistance workers from the Nazis. The total amounted to over 300,000 people per September 1944, tended to by some 60,000 to 200,000 landlords and carers.

In February 1943, two operatives of a Dutch resistance cell called CS-6 (for their address, 6 Corelli Street, in Amsterdam) rang the doorbell of a 70-year-old Dutch collaborator

Collaborationism

Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...

, retired Lieutenant-General Hendrik A. Seyffardt, in The Hague

The Hague

The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

. After he answered and identified himself, they shot him twice in the abdomen. He died a day later. This assassination of a lower-level official triggered a cruel reprisal from SS

Schutzstaffel

The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...

 General Hanns Albin Rauter

Hanns Albin Rauter

Johann Baptist Albin Rauter was a high-ranking Austrian Nazi war criminal. He was the highest SS and Police Leader in the occupied Netherlands and therefore the leading security and police officer there during the period of 1940-1945...

, the killing of 50 Dutch hostages and a series of raids on Dutch universities. By accident the Dutch resistance attacked Rauter's car on 6 March 1945, which in turn led to the killings at De Woeste Hoeve

Woeste Hoeve

De Woeste Hoeve is a place in the Netherlands near Apeldoorn which is remembered for an incident in the Second World War when, during the night of 6 March 1945, Dutch resistance fighters shot the Nazi Chief of Police, SS General Hans Rauter....

, where 117 men were rounded up and executed at the site of the ambush and another 147 Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 prisoners executed elsewhere. A similar war crime occurred on 1–2 October 1944, in the village of Putten

Putten

Putten is a municipality and a town in Gelderland province in the middle of the Netherlands. In 2007 it had a population of 23,024.Putten is surrounded by a great variety of landscapes. To the east of Putten lies the Veluwe, the biggest national park of the Netherlands...

, where over 600 men were deported to camps to be killed in retaliation for resistance activity.

'England-farers'

About 2000 Dutch managed to escape to England and offered themselves to their queen Wilhelmina for duty against the Germans. They were called the Engelandvaarders ('England-farers', suggesting especially those who had travelled by boat across the North Sea). Two major figures are noteworthy: Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema

Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema

Siebren Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema DFC RMWO , was a Dutch wartime RAF-pilot, Dutch spy and writer. He was a Knight 4th class of the Military William Order....

, who performed spy duties with some successful visits to Holland masterminded by Peter Tazelaar and whose life was made into a movie: 'Soldaat van Oranje' ('Soldier of Orange'), and Bob or Bram van der Stok

Bram van der Stok

Bram van der Stok, MBE , also referred to as Bob van der Stok, was the most decorated aviator in Dutch history, as well as one of the three men to escape to freedom in "the Great Escape" from German POW camp Stalag Luft III....

, who became squadron leader of the Dutch 322-RAF squadron

No. 322 Squadron RAF

No. 322 Squadron of the Royal Air Force was a Fighter Squadron during the Second World War-History:No. 322 Squadron of the Royal Air Force was formed from the Dutch personnel of No. 167 Squadron RAF on 12 June 1943 at RAF Woodvale. The squadron retained the code-letter combination VL which had...

. He is the most decorated soldier in Dutch history. Van der Stok was one of only three surviving and successful escapees from Stalag Luft III

Stalag Luft III

Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war camp during World War II that housed captured air force servicemen. It was in the German Province of Lower Silesia near the town of Sagan , southeast of Berlin...

 ('the Great Escape').

Radio

A major role in keeping the Dutch resistance alive was played by the BBC and Radio Oranje, Radio Orange, the broadcasting service of the Dutch government in exile. Listening to either (and any other foreign, non-Nazi) program was forbidden and after about a year the Germans decided to confiscate all Dutch radio receivers. About half of all sets were taken, the rest went underground.

Press

The Dutch managed to set up a remarkably large underground press that led to some 1,100 titles. Some of these never grew out of the hand-copied stage while others went on to print runs of tens of thousands of copies and still exist today, such as Trouw

Trouw

Trouw is a Dutch daily newspaper. "Trouw" is a Dutch word meaning "fidelity", "loyalty", or "allegiance", and is cognate with the English adjective "true"...

 (loyalty), Het Parool

Het Parool

Het Parool is an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper. It was founded as a resistance paper during World War II by Frans Van Heuven Goedhart and Jaap Nunes Vaz...

 (the watchword) or Vrij Nederland

Vrij Nederland

Vrij Nederland is a Dutch magazine which was established during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II as an underground newspaper but has since grown into a magazine. The weekly magazine is generally considered to be intellectually left-wing...

 (Free Netherlands), which last celebrated its 70th anniversary in September 2010 with a current print-run of 45,000 copies, almost the same number as its maximum during the war.

Organisation

As early as 15 May 1940, the day after the Dutch capitulation, the Communist Party of the Netherlands

Communist Party of the Netherlands

The Communist Party of the Netherlands was a Dutch communist political party. The CPN is one of the predecessors of the GreenLeft.- Foundation :...

 (CPN) held a meeting in order to organise their underground existence and resistance against the German occupiers. It was the first resistance organisation in the Netherlands. As a result, some 2000 communists were to lose their lives in torture rooms, concentration camps or by firing squad. On the same day Bernardus IJzerdraat

Bernardus IJzerdraat

Bernardus IJzerdraat was a Dutch resistance fighter in the Second World War.A tapestry restaurer from Rotterdam, he became involved as early as 1936 in the Eenheid door Democratie movement which opposed Fascism and Communism...

 distributed leaflets protesting against the German occupation and called on the public to resist the Germans. This was the first public act of resistance. IJzerdraat started to build an illegal resistance organisation called De Geuzen, named after a group who rebelled against the Spanish occupation in the 16th century.

A few months after the invasion, a number of Revolutionary Socialist Worker's Party

Revolutionary Socialist Party (Netherlands)

The Revolutionary Socialist Party was a Dutch socialist political party.-Predecessors:The oldest predecessor of the Revolutionary Socialist Party is the Revolutionary Socialist Union , a group of dissidents from the Communist Party Holland led by Henk Sneevliet...

 (RSAP) members including Henk Sneevliet

Henk Sneevliet

Hendricus Josephus Franciscus Marie Sneevliet, known as Henk Sneevliet or the pseudonym Maring , was a Dutch Communist, who was active in both the Netherlands and the Dutch East-Indies...

 formed the Marx-Lenin-Luxemburg Front

Marx-Lenin-Luxemburg Front

The Marx-Lenin-Luxemburg-Front was a resistance movement founded by Henk Sneevliet, Willem Dolleman and Ab Menist, some months after the German invasion of the Netherlands on 10 May 1940...

. Its entire leadership was caught and executed in April 1942. The CPN and the RSAP were the only pre-war organisations that went underground and protested against the antisemitic action taken by the German occupier.

According to CIA

Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

 historian Stewart Bentley there were four major resistance organizations in the country by the middle of 1944, completely independent of each other:

• the LO ("Landelijke Organisatie voor hulp aan onderduikers", or National Organization for Help to People in Hiding); it became the most successful illegal organization in Europe, set up by Mrs Helena Kuipers-Rietberg (a.k.a. as 'tante Riek'- auntie Riek) complete with its own illegal social services 'Nationaal Steun Fonds' run by Walraven van Hall
  Walraven van Hall
  Wallraven van Hall was a Dutch banker and resistance leader during the occupation of the Netherlands in World War II....
  
   that paid a kind of dole on a regular basis throughout the war to all families in need, including relatives of sailors and hide-aways;
• the KP ("Knokploeg", or Assault Group), with 550 members conducting sabotage operations and occasional assassinations;
• the RVV ("Raad van Verzet" or Council of Resistance), engaged in sabotage, assassinations, and the protection of people in hiding;
• and the OD ("Orde Dienst" or Order of Service), a group preparing for the return of the exiled Dutch government and its subgroup the GDN (Dutch Secret Service), the intelligence arm of the OD.

In addition to these groups, the NSF ("Nationale Steun Fonds", or National Support Fund) financial organization received money from the exiled government to fund operations of the LO and KP. It also set up large-scale scams involving the national bank and the tax service that were never discovered. The principal figure of the NSF was the banker Walraven van Hall

Walraven van Hall

Wallraven van Hall was a Dutch banker and resistance leader during the occupation of the Netherlands in World War II....

, whose activities were discovered by chance by the Nazis and who was shot at age 39. Because of Van Hall's work, the Dutch resistance was never short of money. Van Hall is considered the most important Dutch underground worker by national war-historian dr L. de Jong, and he finally got his monument in Amsterdam in September 2010.

Churches

Both The Dutch Catholic and reformed churches (the latter in all its several forms) were agreed on their total but cautious denial of Nazism and the occupation. Both cooperated with many illegal organisations and made funds available, for instance to save Jewish children. Many priests and ministers were arrested and deported; some died, such as father Titus Brandsma

Titus Brandsma

Blessed Titus Brandsma was a Dutch Carmelite priest and professor of philosophy. Brandsma was vehemently opposed to Nazi ideology and spoke out against it many times before the Second World War....

, a professor of philosophy and an early outspoken critic of Nazism, who eventually succumbed to illness in Dachau

Dachau

Dachau is a town in Upper Bavaria, in the southern part of Germany. It is a major district town—a Große Kreisstadt—of the administrative region of Upper Bavaria, about 20 km north-west of Munich. It is now a popular residential area for people working in Munich with roughly 40,000 inhabitants...

. Monseigneur De Jong, archbishop of Utrecht, was a steadfast leader of the Catholic community and a clear but wise opponent of the German occupiers. The Catholic stance on protection of converted Jews, amongst others Edith Stein

Edith Stein

Saint Teresia Benedicta of the Cross, sometimes also known as Saint Edith Stein , was a German Roman Catholic philosopher and nun, regarded as a martyr and saint of the Roman Catholic Church...

, a philosopher who was then also a nun in a Dutch convent, led to special prosecution of those Jews, sister Stein being deported. After the war, German documents showed that the Germans feared the role of the churches, especially when Catholics and Protestants worked together.

After Normandy

Following the Normandy invasion in June 1944, the Dutch civilian population was put under increasing pressure by Allied infiltration and the need for intelligence regarding the German military defensive buildup, the instability of German positions, and active fighting.

Portions of the country were liberated as part of the Allied Drive to the Siegfried Line

Drive to the Siegfried Line

The Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine was one of the final Allied phases in World War II of the Western European Campaign.This phase spans from the end of the Operation Overlord incorporating the German winter counter offensive through the Ardennes up to the Allies preparing to cross the...

. The Allied paratrooper disaster of Operation Market Garden

Operation Market Garden

Operation Market Garden was an unsuccessful Allied military operation, fought in the Netherlands and Germany in the Second World War. It was the largest airborne operation up to that time....

 liberated Eindhoven and Nijmegen, but the attempt to secure bridges and transport lines around Arnhem

Arnhem

Arnhem is a city and municipality, situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland and located near the river Nederrijn as well as near the St. Jansbeek, which was the source of the city's development. Arnhem has 146,095 residents as one of the...

 in mid-September failed, partly because British forces refused to accept intelligence offered by the Dutch resistance regarding German strength of forces; unfortunately they were right in believing that the sources had been compromised. The Battle of the Scheldt

Battle of the Scheldt

The Battle of the Scheldt was a series of military operations of the Canadian 1st Army, led by Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds. The battle took place in northern Belgium and southwestern Netherlands during World War II from 2 October-8 November 1944...

, aimed at opening the Belgian port of Antwerp, liberated the south-west Netherlands the following month.

While the south was liberated, Amsterdam and the rest of the north remained under Nazi control until their official surrender on 6 May 1945. For these eight months Allied forces held off, fearing huge civilian losses, and hoping for a rapid collapse of the German government. When the Dutch government-in-exile

Dutch government in exile

The Dutch government in exile was the government of the Netherlands, headed by Queen Wilhelmina, that evacuated to London after the German invasion of the country at the outset of World War II....

 asked for a national railway strike as a resistance measure, the Nazis stopped food transports to the western Netherlands, and this set the stage for the "Hunger winter", the Dutch famine of 1944

Dutch famine of 1944

The Dutch famine of 1944, known as the Hongerwinter in Dutch, was a famine that took place in the German-occupied part of the Netherlands, especially in the densely populated western provinces above the great rivers, during the winter of 1944-1945, near the end of World War II. A German blockade...

.

Some 374 Dutch resistance fighters are buried in the Field of Honor in the Dunes around Bloemendaal

Bloemendaal

Bloemendaal is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. According to the Dutch Central Statistical Bureau, Bloemendaal is the wealthiest place in the Netherlands.-Population centres :...

. In total, some 2000 Dutch resistance members were killed by the Germans. Their names are recorded in a memorial ledger Erelijst van Gevallen kept in the Dutch parliament and available online since 2010 .

Figures in the Dutch resistance

• Aart Alblas
  Aart Alblas
  Aart Hendrik Alblas, aka Klaas de Waard , was a Dutch navy officer, resistance member and Engelandvaarder. He participated in several resistance operations and is one of the most highly decorated Dutch resistance members...
  
  
• Willem Arondeus
  Willem Arondeus
  Willem Arondeus was a homosexual Dutch artist and author, who joined the anti-Nazi resistance movement during World War II.-Early life:...
  
  
• Frieda Belinfante
  Frieda Belinfante
  Frieda Belinfante was a Dutch cellist, conductor, a prominent lesbian and a member of the Dutch Resistance during World War II. After the war, Belinfante immigrated to the United States and continued her career in music...
  
  
• Christiaan Boers
• Corrie ten Boom
  Corrie ten Boom
  Cornelia "Corrie" ten Boom was a Dutch Christian, who with her father and other family members helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. Her family was arrested due to an informant in 1944, and her father died 10 days later at Scheveningen prison where they were first held...
  
  
• Jack van der Geest
  Jack van der Geest
  Jack van der Geest was one of only eight people ever to escape from Buchenwald concentration camp. He escaped on March 3, 1943...
  
  
• Titus Brandsma
  Titus Brandsma
  Blessed Titus Brandsma was a Dutch Carmelite priest and professor of philosophy. Brandsma was vehemently opposed to Nazi ideology and spoke out against it many times before the Second World War....
  
  
• Sally Dormits
• Jan Gies, husband of Miep Gies and fellow helper who hid and cared for Anne Frank, her family, and the others in hiding with them
• Frans Goedhart, founder of Het Parool
  Het Parool
  Het Parool is an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper. It was founded as a resistance paper during World War II by Frans Van Heuven Goedhart and Jaap Nunes Vaz...
  
  
• Daan Goulooze
• Paul de Groot
• Walraven van Hall
  Walraven van Hall
  Wallraven van Hall was a Dutch banker and resistance leader during the occupation of the Netherlands in World War II....
  
  
• Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema
  Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema
  Siebren Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema DFC RMWO , was a Dutch wartime RAF-pilot, Dutch spy and writer. He was a Knight 4th class of the Military William Order....
  
  
• Jan van Hoof
  Jan van Hoof
  Jan Jozef Lambert van Hoof was a member of the Dutch resistance in World War II, where he cooperated with Allied Forces during Operation Market Garden, and was executed in action. Before and during the war, Van Hoof was a Rover Scout, and the scouting medal the Nationale Padvindersraad was named...
  
  
• Bernardus IJzerdraat
  Bernardus IJzerdraat
  Bernardus IJzerdraat was a Dutch resistance fighter in the Second World War.A tapestry restaurer from Rotterdam, he became involved as early as 1936 in the Eenheid door Democratie movement which opposed Fascism and Communism...
  
  
• Gerrit Kastein
• Anton de Kom
  Anton de Kom
  Cornelis Gerard Anton de Kom was a Surinamese resistance fighter and anti-colonialist author.-Biography:...
  
  
• Helena Kuipers-Rietberg
• George Maduro
  George Maduro
  George John Lionel Maduro was a Dutch student who served as an officer in the 1940 Battle of the Netherlands and distinguished himself in repelling the German attack on The Hague.The miniature city of Madurodam is named after him, as well as the Maduroplein area in Scheveningen, in The...
  
  
• Geertruida Middendorp
  Geertruida Middendorp
  Geertruida Elisabeth Middendorp the lady that wore the Jewish star; was a member of the LO Dutch Resistance. The LO made counterfeit coupons; it also obtained authentic coupons from loyal Netherlands citizens in the employ of the Dutch Nazis. Other groups conducted raids and robberies to steal...
  
  
• Hendrik Middendorp
• Allard Oosterhuis
  Allard Oosterhuis
  Allard Lambertus Oosterhuis was a Dutch resistance hero during World War II.In 1922, Oosterhuis went to Amsterdam to study medicine and after his study he became a doctor in Delfzijl...
  
  
• Mona Louise Parsons
  Mona Louise Parsons
  Mona Louise Parsons actress, nurse, member of Dutch resistance. Mona Parsons was a member of the Dutch resistance and became the only Canadian woman to be imprisoned by the Nazis...
  
  
• Jaap Penraat
  Jaap Penraat
  Jaap Penraat was a Dutch resistance fighter during the Second World War.Penraat was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. As a child, he helped Jewish neighbors by switching lights for them on Shabbat, which they were forbidden to do...
  
  
• Henri Pieck
  Henri Pieck
  Henri Christiaan Pieck was a Dutch architect, painter and graphic artist.Pieck married twice. On 12 July 1922, he married Geziena van Gelder, with whom he had one son. This union was dissolved on 14 May 1928. His second wife, Bernharda Hugona Johanna van Lier, whom he married on 25 May 1928 in St...
  
  
• Johannes Post and his brother Marinus Post
• Hannie Schaft
  Hannie Schaft
  Jannetje Johanna Schaft , was a Dutch communist resistance fighter during World War II. She became known as the girl with the red hair...
  
  , "the girl with the red hair"
• Pierre Schunck
  Pierre Schunck
  Peter Joseph Arnold Schunck ,also known as Paul Simmons, was a member of the prosperous Schunck family who owned a department store at Heerlen in the Netherlands...
  
   of the Valkenburg resistance
  Valkenburg resistance
  The Valkenburg Resistance was the resistance movement in Valkenburg, Limburg, Netherlands, during World War II. Most of the activities were related to helping people who had gone into hiding for various reasons. Going into hiding was dangerous, but so was keeping people in hiding...
  
  
• Henk Sneevliet
  Henk Sneevliet
  Hendricus Josephus Franciscus Marie Sneevliet, known as Henk Sneevliet or the pseudonym Maring , was a Dutch Communist, who was active in both the Netherlands and the Dutch East-Indies...
  
  
• Han Stijkel
  Han Stijkel
  Johan Aaldrik Stijkel was a Dutch Resistance activist.-The Stijkel Group:Han Stijkel was the leader of the Stijkel Group. He commanded the group until their betrayal in 1942. He was the first of the group to be executed in Berlin.-See also:* The Stijkel Group...
  
  
• Bram van der Stok
  Bram van der Stok
  Bram van der Stok, MBE , also referred to as Bob van der Stok, was the most decorated aviator in Dutch history, as well as one of the three men to escape to freedom in "the Great Escape" from German POW camp Stalag Luft III....
  
  
• Gerrit van der Veen
  Gerrit van der Veen
  Gerrit van der Veen was a Dutch sculptor. He was a member of the Dutch underground, which resisted the German occupation of Amsterdam during World War II...
  
  
• Koos Vorrink
  Koos Vorrink
  Jacobus Jan Vorrink, better known as Koos Vorrink , was a charismatic socialist leader in the Netherlands.- Early life :Koos Vorrink was born on June 7, 1891 in Vlaardingen, in the Dutch province of Zuid-Holland....
  
  
• Gerben Wagenaar
  Gerben Wagenaar
  Gerben Wagenaar was a Dutch politician.He was a member of the Communist Party of the Netherlands .When the Nazis conquered the Netherlands, he soon became a member of the Dutch resistance....
  
  

See also

• Dutch underground press
  Dutch underground press
  The Dutch underground press was part of the resistance to German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.After the occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940, the Germans quickly took control over the existing Dutch press and enforced censorship and publication of Nazi propaganda. Independent...
  
  
• Military history of the Netherlands during World War II
  Military history of the Netherlands during World War II
  The Netherlands entered World War II on May 10, 1940, when invading German forces quickly overran it. On December 7, 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Netherlands government in exile also declared war on Japan...
  
  
• The Netherlands in World War II
  The Netherlands in World War II
  The history of the Netherlands from 1939 to 1945 covers the events in the Netherlands that took place under the German occupation that started on May 10, 1940 with the Battle of the Netherlands. The Netherlands hoped to stay neutral when World War II broke out in 1939 but this failed to happen when...
  
  
• Valkenburg resistance
  Valkenburg resistance
  The Valkenburg Resistance was the resistance movement in Valkenburg, Limburg, Netherlands, during World War II. Most of the activities were related to helping people who had gone into hiding for various reasons. Going into hiding was dangerous, but so was keeping people in hiding...
  
  
• Anti-fascism
  Anti-fascism
  Anti-fascism is the opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals, such as that of the resistance movements during World War II. The related term antifa derives from Antifaschismus, which is German for anti-fascism; it refers to individuals and groups on the left of the political...
  
  
• Resistance during World War II
  Resistance during World War II
  Resistance movements during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda to hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns...
  
  
• History of the Jews in the Netherlands
  History of the Jews in the Netherlands
  Most history of the Jews in the Netherlands was generated between the end of the 16th century and World War II.The area now known as the Netherlands was once part of the Spanish Empire but in 1581, the northern Dutch provinces declared independence...
  
  

External links

• CIA paper on the Dutch resistance and the OSS
• Homepage of the Dutch Resistance Museum in Amsterdam
• Dutch Resistance Museum - history and practical information.
• Discussion of the Netherlands under Nazi occupation
• On war atrocities in Holland, some in revenge for resistance activities
• "A true story of a Scout in times of War, by Piet J Kroonenberg"
• Jan de Hartog's speech given at Weber State College - his personal account of his participation in non-violent Dutch Resistance as an author.
• Vergeten verzet in Nederlands-Indië - an account (in Dutch) of the 'forgotten' resistance to the Japanese occupation of the East Indies.