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Writer's pictureToon Janssen

The Split Life Of Prince Bernhard, From War Hero To Nazi Prince

Prince Consort Of The Netherlands, Prisoner Of His Own Myth



Toon Janssen, 

Amsterdam correspondent


Huizen is just another relatively small but vibrant Dutch town near Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands. What can there be special about this place, you may wonder. Huizen certainly has a long history, dating back from 1382 as a fishing village on the Zuiderzee. In those days its houses, huizen in Dutch, were made of stone instead of sod, as was popular in the area. There were also farmers around; they raised cattle on common grounds and produced high quality cheeses. Their homes were built around the Dutch Reformed Church, the oldest building on high ground. Around 1,900 rich people moved into the settlement; they found an urban but wooded and healthy environment there, on the coast and close to the road to Amsterdam. The number of inhabitants has grown to 47,000 today.

 

The Netherlands did not miss the Second World War, nor did Huizen. It was hit hard— both local Jewish and non-Jewish residents were victims of the Nazi occupiers. They are commemorated with a memorial, for all the citizens and soldiers who died in action or were murdered. The monument, from 1947, is a natural stone statue with a standing and a lying figure, fighters that were shot in front of a fusillade wall. Next to it are 98 memorial tiles for each victim, with name, date of birth and death, and place of death engraved. The list is very incomplete, of the 99 local Jews murdered for example only 5 were chiseled in granite, their lives ended brutally in Sobibor, an extermination camp in Poland.



When we zoom in on one tile we see Willy van Breukelen’s (1921-1943) name. Willy, apprentice machine mechanic, had joined a resistance group that helped Jews find hiding places, robbed a distribution office of food ration cards, and helped clear away German collaborators. Willy was betrayed and executed at the age of 22 in the dunes. His choice to take an active role in the resistance came at the cost of his life.


When we zoom out and see the bigger picture, the entire location of a square becomes visible. A square that carries the name of a former Dutch royal family member, Prince Bernhard. The prince consort was married to queen Juliana (1909-2004), who gave birth to daughter Beatrix, who in turn delivered the current king, Willem Alexander. So the name of the square we focus on is Prins Bernhardplein. Nothing wrong there in itself, any right-thinking person may suggest. Dutch cities and villages after all have countless squares, lanes, streets or public gardens, as well as drum bands, soccer and archery or horse riding clubs carrying Bernhard’s name. But with this square in particular, with the monument prominently on it, something special has been going on. It is specifically the combination Bernhard and monument that keeps the local minds busy and creates a difficult situation. To provide you, highly esteemed reader of this post, with clarity about this your DWT-correspondent has to delve into history.


Bernhard Friedrich Eberhard Leopold Julius Kurt Carl Gottfried Peter, Prinz zur Lippe-Bisterfeld and Prins der Nederlanden was born in 1911 in Jena, Germany. Researcher Annejet van Zijl unraveled in her PhD research “Bernhard, een verborgen geschiedenis” (2010) the myth surrounding principality ZurLippe-Bisterfeld’s greatness. The family did not belong to the traditional gentry of large landowners; on the contrary, money was constantly a problem and the family dangled at the bottom of its social class. The prince indeed inherited Reckenwalde estate but that was in ruins. Yet he became a member of the Lippian royal family through his mother’s side and was high in the succession to their throne.


After studying at the Berlin elite Arndt Gymnasium he did law at the famous Humboldt University where he obtained a Referendar Juris master. He then worked in Paris as an intern, doing administration at German chemical company IG Farben, which he continued until his engagement to Dutch crown princess Juliana, on September 1935. After a 7-year search for a husband, through contacts who belonged to the German Emperor Wilhelm’s entourage, Bernhard was considered ebenburtig, of equal descent. He was also a Protestant, of foreign origin and, member of a royal family that ruled until 1918, and so he was eligible. Juliana was the only child of the marriage between queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands and duke Hendrik von Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The engagement led to a wave of joy in the Dutch Lowlands, dominated by an economic crisis at the time. Bernhard had his breakthrough; from that moment he received Dutch citizenship, was in due course appointed lieutenant-at-sea in the Royal Navy, captain in the Royal Dutch and Dutch East Indies Army, and by Royal Degree became Prince of the Netherlands, being henceforth called Your Highness with a seat in the Council of State, the government’s highest advisory body.


Just before his final departure to the Netherlands on November 17, 1936 he paid Adolf Hitler a short courtesy visit. The Fuhrer then expressed objection to Bernhard presenting himself as a Dutchman and not as a German. The marriage itself finally led to a diplomatic crisis being played out to the highest level. Specifically the presence of Nazi symbols and playing the German anthem, along with the fascist propaganda Horst Wessel song, at the gala concert created excitement. The German audience and some Dutch allies even gave the Hitler salute while playing Wilhelmus, the Dutch national anthem. 


After marriage in 1937 the prince moved in with Juliana at Palace Soestdijk for a short period. When the war started, the family, with the royal kids, Beatrix and Irene, relocated first to England and then Canada. Bernhard stayed behind in London, offered his services with Secret Intelligence and made it to liaison head officer between Dutch and British armed forces. He became an important confidant of Queen Wilhelmina and served as a commander involved in the negotiations between Canadian General Foulkes and Generaloberst Blaskowitz for the Nazi capitulation. As commander of the armed forces he headed resistance groups in the occupied Netherlands; but they were overseas, divided and pretty much had no formal, cohesive command structure. His task was in practice unclear and his authority was not automatically recognized at all.

 

According to biographer Dik van der Meulen in Bernhards Oorlog (2022) the prince really enjoyed his war years in London: “It was what you call his war, which he did not so much fight but celebrated; he lacked no Wein, Weib und Gesang. He enjoyed his status, the privileges, the pleasure travels, fast cars and palaces. He had gotten his pilot’s license and begged for his own plane. He created his own image by doing what he felt like.” His nonchalance towards Juliana was experienced as shocking, while pregnant in the first year of the war, and according van der Meulen, he was already cheating— “the ladies at the palace were not safe from him.” Juliana indicated several times she wanted to divorce him and they gradually became extremely estranged. Bernhard however convinced himself he did the right thing; he was the celebrated war hero and, although enjoying life abundantly, he claimed to be on the right side of the line. “Bernhard is all excitement and boy fun, has wonderful adventures that he should tell yourself,” Wilhelmina wrote to her daughter, according to the quoted biographer.


Once back with her children from Canada, Juliana noticed that her prince received a great deal of attention. He had elevated himself as a war hero, a symbol of physical resistance, and a pillar of support next to Wilhelmina, leaving no way back for him. In his world of make believe and false appearance, right after Liberation he made a triumphal procession through the country, in an open Jeep. The people, 4 to 5 rows deep, cheered him on like a contemporary pop star, as a good German rascal who led the way in battle next to the queen, for 5 whole years. 


Marriage to Juliana certainly put an end to his financial problems; his ancestral home appeared to be in very poor condition and there were mortgage debts, but once married, Bernhard received an annual allowance of 200,000 guilders from the state treasury (nearly $2 million in today’s money), with an extra amount for repairs to his estate, plus a much wanted Maybach Zeppelin, a luxury car costing some 20,000 guilders. To the common people, he seemed distant and unreachable.


He went on to fulfill all kinds of economic missions. As a celebrated wealthy person with good connections he moved among international elites and held highly important positions, as chairman, commissioner, commander, patron or honorary member. For example, from 1954 till 1976 he was chairman and figurehead of the renowned  Bilderberg conference, and functioned as chairman of the international equestrian association FEI, was president of the World Wildlife Fund, patron of Flying Doctors, and consulted with the U.S. when it looked like New Guinea, then a Dutch colony, could cause a war with Indonesia.

 

Gradually, however, changes in his diplomatic reputation and status as a business leader came to the surface. Already in 1943 he travelled to Argentina where he met the Zorreguieta family— Queen Maxima’s family— wife of now-king Willem Alexander. Her father was minister in the government of dictator General Jorge Videla’s government, responsible for the reign of terror that led to the death of at least 30,000 Argentines. And Bernhard's ties with the trans-national business community turned out to have dark sides when, in 1976, the Lockheed scandal came to light. In exchange for the purchase of aircraft, the royal prince receive bribes from the US-based aerospace company. 


Although he shed many positions after that, he managed to maintain his national popularity, especially in the ever-shrinking circle of veterans, who continued to admire him. His reputation as bon vivant he could neutralize however; without shame he polished his image as heroic pilot— having the world as his territory— and as charmer, ‘in every town another sweetheart’ was tailor-made for him. Juliana’s husband acknowledged two illegitimate children, who according to his wish shared in the inheritance after his death, but probably there were more. The will that he changed shortly before his death put the Netherlands to shame; one of the mistresses seems to have received more than his wife Juliana. It became increasingly clear that he liked to push boundaries and felt no shame in doing so.


Bernhard decided to take a different approach by emphatically committing himself to a ‘safer’ world of nature conservation and culture. However, it could not prevent the further erosion of his reputation because, dear reader, and I am obliged to provide you some additional information, only part of the theater curtain has yet been lifted, I owe you the rest.


After the war, the prince quickly admitted to having been a member of SS-department Schutztaffel, a Hitler bodyguard organization that also was responsible for atrocities committed in the concentration camps as death squads. “But that was the case with only an unreinforced part,” he declared in interviews, “at only one minor motorcycle club.” Moreover he could then complete his studies “undisturbed.” Few were upset by these statements at the time— there were almost no questions, newspapers made no mention, there was no anger… and the government in The Hague suppressed any messages that could jeopardize his reputation. That didn’t work all that well however, when, after the war, the U.S. government announced it would publish a list of Nazi Party members. The Hague tried to convince Washington to remove Bernhard from it, but that request was emphatically refused. 


The NSDAP, National Socialist German Workers Party, which arose from the German Workers’ Party in 1920, had as political ideology national socialism, a mix of extreme nationalistic and racist ideas [not unlike America’s current MAGA movement], be it fascist and Nazi, ideas responsible for the extreme militarization and implementation of Holocaust annihilation of 6 million Jews, Roma, Sinti and others, with Adolf Hitler as figurehead of populism. In one of the 1933 elections, his party won 43.9% of the votes, and he gained governmental power and realized the Nazi dictatorship. Here’s how the Germans voted in the Nazis in just a couple of years, as the Weimar Republic disintegrated:


  • September, 1930- 18.3%

  • July, 1932- 37.3%

  • November, 1932- 33.1%

  • March, 1933- 43.9% (final free election)

  • November, 1933- 92.1%


This became more than noticeable everywhere in public life— there were all kinds of raids and boycotts, bullying; ultimately the removal of Jews and many other victims from society became commonplace. Racial laws described precisely Jewish features and all Jews were deprived of civil rights. This process combined during the Crystal Nacht in persecution and genocide. Resistance to this state of affairs quickly became life-threatening; opponents were automatically exterminated.  


Bernard was asked several times about his involvement with Hitler’s party.  “Well, I have kept myself far away from that,” he had recorded, and in that story the Netherlands lived for decades. Then in 1996 when the discovery of his NSDAP contribution card in Washington’s National Archives was mentioned, he simply denied everything. How on earth was it possible that the media didn’t catch on to this then? Why was he protected by the Dutch government? Although a contribution card at the time already came to light thanks to the Gerard Aalder’s research: “Bernhard, alles was anders,” a hint of doubt kept on lingering behind those findings. Is it all true, was it all real?  Isn’t it a fake copy? “Our prince has had so much meaning for our country, so much also for sport and commerce,” the royalist newspaper Telegraaf headlined. Bernhard himself sat back in his zone of denial mode, even in a Volkskrant in depth interview, just before his death in 2004— released posthumously— he denied NSDAP membership. “For the very last time,” and in the most pertinent way, “with my hands on the Bible I swear: I never was a Nazi. I never paid for party membership, never had a membership card.”



Thanks to historian Flip Maarschalkerweerd the discussion about Bernard’s past was definitely settled. The former director of the Dutch national archives was instructed by Queen Beatrix to make an inventory of the prince’s private Soestdijk Palace private archive. The researcher found definite proof of Bernhard’s NSDAP involvement, namely his membership card, not a fake or indefinite one taken for a copy and  surrounded by vagueness as in 1996 but the actual one. Maarschalkerweerd publicly opened the data of his findings in his book  Achterblijvers (2023). How did the card get into Bernhard’s private archive, you may wonder. Thanks to Flip we now know that it was Lucius Clay, military administrator of the American sector in Germany who soon after the war, in 1949, sent the card to the prince with the text: “I kept this in my safe for several years. When I was about to destroy it, then I thought of you having the right to destroy it yourself.”


The above-mentioned van der Zijl was really surprised Bernhard did not get rid of his membership card before, “He could have thrown it into the shredder, and there are plenty fire places at the palace. I can’t imagine anything else than Bernhard being very attached to that period in his life. He has also always remained loyal to his full-fledged Nazi friends.”  According to the researcher, he never realized how reprehensible it all was... “But he couldn’t come out with it either, because every year on May 4 he piously commemorated the numerous war victims, next to high ranking politicians and Jewish community leaders. Bernhard just stated ‘private mail’ at the top of the document, dropped it in his own archive, and there it lay untouched for 50 years.”


Now back to township Huizen again, back to the war monument on Prins Bernhardplein and back to resistance hero Willy van Breukelen. For a television documentary Hein Hoffman, the former president of the local  4 May remembrance committee ‘40-‘45, was interviewed. Hein, no longer president of the committee, was asked why he resigned. Looking for words, Hein approaches the monument, points to Willy van Breukelen’s tile and sniffs emotionally: “Willy, 22 years old, affiliated with a resistance group, looted 15,000 ration cards, provided Jews hiding addresses, but was betrayed and executed in the dunes.”  And he follows up with, “Listen, Willy’s choices for the resistance resulted in his death.


“Bernhard at the same age of 22 made the choice to become an NSDAP member, and then lied about it all his life. I have the greatest difficulty, my worst nightmare, with a square that carries the name of a Hitler’s Nazi party member. Of course, many Germans were members, the card in Bernhard’s private archive was the last straw, mainly because he lied about it. Why don’t we make it a Willy van Breukelen square. For sure Willy is a much better candidate, based on his choice.”

 

It must be emphasized once more Hein Hoffman is no longer president. He suggested another name for the monument, not necessarily Willy’s; it could have been the name of any other local war hero. But the other board members as well as the mayor and aldermen of Huizen didn’t like the proposal: “They don’t think it’s their job to remove the name of the prince. They even torpedoed some kind of leaflet with text on it about Bernhard’s; it was not their job to rewrite history, they replied to me.” And so, disappointed, Hein Hofmann ended his 12 years of loyal service.

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1 Comment


Guest
Jul 15

Wonderfully written and extremely interesting story. Sad the name of the square remains.

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