Netherlands in World War II
in the Netherlands can be broken down into 4 periods:
- September 1939 to May 1940: After the war broke out, the Netherlands declared neutrality. The country was later invaded and occupied by Germany.
- May 1940 to June 1941: An economic boom caused by orders from Germany, combined with the "velvet glove" approach from Arthur Seyss-Inquart, resulted in a comparatively mild occupation.
- June 1941 to June 1944: As the war intensified, Germany demanded higher contributions from occupied territories, resulting in a decline of living standards in the Netherlands. Repression against the Jewish population intensified and thousands were deported to extermination camps. The "velvet glove" approach ended. Meanwhile the Netherlands's East Indies possession in Asia was invaded and occupied by Japan.
- June 1944 to May 1945: Conditions in the Netherlands deteriorated further, leading to starvation and lack of fuel. The German occupation authorities gradually lost control over the situation. Nazis wanted to make a last stand and commit acts of destruction, others tried to mitigate the situation, until the country was finally liberated by the Allies. In the East Indies, Japan continued to occupy it until its surrender months later.
German occupation lasted in some areas until the German surrender in May 1945. The occupiers deported most of the Jewish Netherlanders to Nazi concentration camps. Due to the variation in the survival rate of Jewish inhabitants among the regions in the Netherlands, scholars have questioned the validity of a single explanation at the national level. In part due to the well-organised population registers, about 70 per cent of the country's Jewish population were killed in the war—the highest rate in Western Europe, a much higher percentage than in Belgium or France, although lower than some Eastern countries like Lithuania. Declassified records revealed that the Germans paid a bounty to Dutch police and administration officials to find Jews. Hundreds of thousands of Dutch citizens were believed to be collaborators with the Germans. In early 1941, Communists in and around the city of Amsterdam organised the February strike—a general strike to protest the persecution of Jewish citizens. Active resistance, at first carried out by a minority, grew in the course of the occupation. In 1942, the East Indies colony was invaded and taken by Japan.
The Allies liberated most of the south of the Netherlands in the second half of 1944 but were unable to cross the great rivers. The rest of the country, especially the west and north, remained under German occupation and suffered from a famine at the end of 1944, known as the "Hunger Winter". On 5 May 1945, the German surrender at Lüneburg Heath led to the final liberation of the whole country, the Netherlands being one of the last nations of Europe to be liberated from Germany. This is now commemorated every year as Bevrijdingsdag. The end of the war is commemorated as National Remembrance 15 August.
Background
Its possession of colonies such as the Dutch East Indies allowed the Netherlands to be one of the top five oil producers in the world and to have the world's largest aircraft factory in the Interbellum, which aided the neutrality of the Netherlands and the success of its arms dealings in the First World War. The country was one of the richest in Europe and could easily have afforded a large and modern military. Dutch governments between 1929 and 1943 were dominated by Christian and centre-right political parties. From 1933, the Great Depression in the Netherlands, which had begun in 1929 occurred. The incumbent government of Hendrikus Colijn, in order to maintain the value of the guilder, pursued a programme of extensive cuts in public spending – which resulted in workers' riots in Amsterdam and a naval mutiny between 1933 and 1934. In 1936, the government was forced to abandon the gold standard and to devalue the currency.Numerous fascist movements emerged in the Netherlands during the Great Depression; these were inspired by Italian fascism or German Nazism, but never attracted enough members to be an effective mass movement. The National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands supported by the National Socialist German Workers' Party which took power in Germany in 1933, attempted to expand in 1935. Nazi-style racial ideology had limited appeal in the Netherlands, as did its calls to violence. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the NSB was already declining in both members and voters.
During the interwar period, the government undertook a significant increase in civil infrastructure projects and land reclamation, including the Zuiderzee Works. That resulted in the final draining of seawater from the Wieringermeer polder and the completion of the Afsluitdijk.
Neutrality
, the Dutch government, under Pieter Cort van der Linden, had managed to preserve Dutch neutrality throughout the conflict. In the Interwar Period, the Netherlands had continued to pursue its "Independence Policy" even after the rise to power of the Nazi Party in Germany in 1933. The Anti-Revolutionary Party's conservative prime minister, Hendrikus Colijn, who held power from 1933 until 1939, believed that the Netherlands could never withstand an attack by a major power. Pragmatically, the government did not spend much on the military. Although military spending was doubled between 1938 and 1939, amid rising international tensions, it constituted only 4% of national spending in 1939, in contrast to nearly 25% of Nazi Germany. The Dutch government believed it could rely on its neutrality or at least the informal support of foreign powers to defend its interests in case of war. The government began to work on plans for the defence of the country, which included the "New Dutch Waterline", an area to the east of Amsterdam that would be flooded. From 1939, fortified positions were constructed, including the Grebbe and Peel-Raam Lines, to protect the key cities of Dordrecht, Utrecht, Haarlem and Amsterdam, and creating a Vesting Holland.In late 1939, with Britain and France already at war with Germany, the German government issued a guarantee of neutrality to the Netherlands. The Dutch military was gradually mobilised from August 1939 onwards, reaching its full strength by April 1940.
German invasion
On the morning of 10 May 1940, the German Army simultaneously invaded The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg without a formal declaration of war. The attackers meant to draw Allied forces away from the Ardennes, to lure British and French forces deeper into Belgium, and to pre-empt a possible British invasion in North Holland. The Luftwaffe also sought to take over Dutch airfields on the North Sea to launch air raids against Great Britain.The armed forces of the Netherlands, with insufficient and outdated weapons and equipment, were caught largely unprepared. Much of their weaponry had not changed since the First World War. In particular, the Royal Netherlands Army did not have comparable armoured forces and could mount only a limited number of armoured cars and tankettes. The air force had only 140 aircraft, mostly outdated biplanes, 65 of which were destroyed on the first day of the campaign.
The invading forces advanced rapidly but faced significant resistance. A Wehrmacht parachute assault on The Hague aimed at capturing the Dutch government, Queen Wilhelmina, and the key airfields at Ockenburg and Ypenburg was thwarted by Dutch ground forces with heavy casualties. This allowed the royal family and top government officials to escape to London, taking the national bullion and diamond stocks, and form a Dutch government-in-exile. The Dutch also succeeded in destroying significant numbers of transport aircraft that the Germans would need for their planned invasion of Britain.
However, the German forces succeeded in crossing the Maas river in the Netherlands on the first day, which allowed the Wehrmacht to outflank the nearby Belgian Fort Ében-Émael and force the Belgian army to withdraw from the German border.
In the eastern Netherlands, the Germans succeeded in pushing the Dutch back from the Grebbe Line, but their advance was slowed by the Dutch fortifications on the narrow Afsluitdijk Causeway that linked the northeastern and the northwestern parts of the Netherlands. The German forces advanced rapidly and, by the fourth day, were in control of most of the east of the country.
The Dutch realised that neither British nor French troops could reach the Netherlands in sufficient numbers to halt the invasion, particularly with the speed of the German advance into Belgium.
Bombing of Rotterdam
Fighting in Rotterdam had taken place since the first day of the campaign, when German infantrymen in seaplanes landed on the Maas River and captured several bridges intact. The Germans hesitated to risk a tank attack on the city for fear of heavy casualties. Instead, the German commander presented an ultimatum to the Dutch commander in the city. He demanded the surrender of the Dutch garrison and threatened to destroy the city by aerial bombing if it did not accept. The ultimatum was returned on a technicality since it had not been signed by the German commander. While the corrected ultimatum was being resubmitted, Luftwaffe bombers, unaware that negotiations were ongoing, struck the city.During the Rotterdam Blitz, between 800 and 900 Dutch civilians were killed and homes were destroyed. The bombers' targets were the civilian areas of Rotterdam, rather than the town's defences. Under pressure from local officials, the garrison commander surrendered the city and his men on the evening of the 14th with the permission of Henri Winkelman, the Dutch commander-in-chief. That opened up the German advance into "Fortress Holland".