Visions of Empire in the Nazi-Occupied Netherlands

Abstract

This book explores how the experiences of World War II shaped and transformed Dutch perceptions of their centuries-old empire. Focusing on the work of leading anti-Nazi resisters, Jennifer L. Foray examines how the war forced a rethinking of colonial practices and relationships. As Dutch resisters planned for a postwar world bearing little resemblance to that of 1940, they envisioned a wide range of possibilities for their empire and its territories, anticipating a newly harmonious relationship between the Netherlands and its most prized colony in the East Indies. Though most of the underground writers and thinkers discussed in this book ultimately supported the idea of a Dutch commonwealth, this structure wouldn't come to pass in the postwar period. The Netherlands instead embarked on a violent decolonization process brought about by wartime conditions in the Netherlands and the East Indies.

Conceptions and Practices of International Fascism in Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, 1930–40

“…The imperial perspective loomed large in NSB rhetoric -Dutch security depended above all on the coloniesbut in practice the metropolitan NSB's relationship to the colonial branch was as strikingly unidirectional as it was conservative; there was to be no opposition to the established administration. 50 When the NSB organisational leader in the Indies called for a greater role for Indies fascists, Mussert fired him and publicly reaffirmed 'that for N.S.B.-members in the Indies there is principally but one task regarding the N.S.B. and this is: providing moral and material support to the N.S.B.…”

“This is the Soul of Aruba Speaking”

“…Cooper 2008:168; see alsoBonilla 2013 andCollins 2013; Cooper 2014a and b;Daily 2014;Finch-Boyer 2013;Foray 2014;Mawby 2012;Wilder 2005 and.Downloaded from Brill.com 05/24/2024 04:18:50AM via Open Access. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) License.…”