Anton Mussert

Anton Mussert
Führer of the Dutch People
In office December 13, 1942 – May 7, 1945 Serving with Reichskommissar Artur Seyss-Inquart
Member of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands
In office May 1937 – December 1942
Personal details
Born	Anton Adriaan Mussert (1894-05-11)May 11, 1894 Werkendam, Netherlands
Died	May 7, 1946(1946-05-07) (aged 51) The Hague, Netherlands
Political party	National Socialist Movement (NSB)
Spouse	Maria Witlam
Alma mater	Delft University of Technology (M.Eng)
Occupation	Politician Civil engineer

Anton Adriaan Mussert (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɑntɔm ˈmʏsərt]) (May 11, 1894, Werkendam, North Brabant – May 7, 1946) was one of the founders of the National Socialist Movement (NSB) in the Netherlands and its de jure leader. As such, he was the most prominent national socialist in the Netherlands before and during World War II. During the war, he was able to keep this position, due to the support he received from the Germans. After the war, he was convicted and executed for high treason.

Biography

Early life

He was born in 1894 in Werkendam, in the northern part of the province of Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands. He showed from an early age talent for technical matters and he chose to study civil engineering in Delft. In the 1920s, he became active in several extreme right organizations such as the Dietsche Bond which advocated a Greater Netherlands including Flanders (Dutch-speaking Belgium).

Foundation of the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging

On 14 December 1931, he, Cornelis van Geelkerken, and ten others founded the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging (NSB) (literally, the National Socialist Movement), a Dutch counterpart to the German National Socialists, the Nazis. In its early years, the NSB boasted that its membership included several hundred Jews, until the German party directed a more antisemitic course.

Mussert's membership card in the NSB

A 1933 demonstration at Utrecht attracted only 600 protestors. A year later, however, the NSB rallied 25,000 demonstrators in Amsterdam. The NSB received 300,000 votes in the 1935 parliamentary elections, enough to alert the Netherlands to the Fascist threat. In the 1937 voting, the Fascists polled a little more than half as much. Thereafter, Mussert worked toward preventing resistance to a German invasion. A state of siege was declared by the Dutch government in April 1940 after the foreign correspondent for the New York Times, Vladimir Poliakov, broke the news that Mussert's followers were preparing to kidnap Queen Wilhelmina as part of a coup. On May 10, German troops invaded the Netherlands and Mussert was permitted to suppress all political parties other than the NSB.

Role during the war

Main article: History of the Netherlands (1939–1945)

1940

Mussert giving a speech to NSB volunteers, October 1941.

Mussert was not appointed prime minister of the occupied nation. Instead, Austrian Nazi Artur Seyss-Inquart was appointed as the Reichskommissar, while Berlin summoned Mussert to control his uncooperative countrymen. Mussert responded by working with the Gestapo in stopping resistance to the Nazi occupation. On 21 June 1940 Mussert agreed to have NSB members train with the SS-Standarte 'Westland'. On 11 September, Mussert instructed Henk Feldmeijer, to organize the Nederlandsche SS (Dutch SS) as a division of the NSB. However, Mussert had nothing to do with the raising of an all-Dutch volunteer SS unit, the SS-Freiwilligen-Legion Niederlande. Regardless, thousands of Dutch citizens were arrested.

Following years

In February 1941, Mussert agreed and oversaw the formation of the 23rd SS Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division Nederland, which trained in Hamburg. In November, 1941, the legion was ordered to the front near Leningrad, under the overall command of Army Group North. It served with honour on the Eastern front alongside their Nazi allies, but suffered large losses.

After the japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies and the deaths of almost 200,000 Dutch nationals, Mussert requested a meeting with Hitler. In 13 December 1942, Hitler declared Mussert to be "Der Leider" or "Führer of the Dutch People". To Hitler's amusement, ironically although "Leider" means "Leader" in the Dutch language, in the German language it translates as "unfortunately".

Death

Upon the surrender of Germany, Mussert was arrested at the NSB office in The Hague on May 7, 1945. He was convicted of high treason on November 28 after a two day trial, and was sentenced to death on December 12 of that year. He appealed to Queen Wilhelmina for clemency. She refused. On 7 May 1946, Mussert was executed by a firing squad on the Waalsdorpervlakte, a site near The Hague, where hundreds of Dutch citizens had been put to death by the Nazi regime.

See also

• Mussert visiting the Dutch East Indies 1935
• History of the Netherlands (1939–1945)

References

• The Patriotic Traitors: A History of Collaboration in German-Occupied Europe, 1940-45 by David Littlejohn ISBN 0-434-42725-X
• Dutch Under German Occupation: 1940-1945 by Werner Warmbrunn ISBN 0-8047-0152-0
• Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890 edited by Philip Rees, 1991, ISBN 0-13-089301-3

External links

• Anton Mussert and the Dutch Nazi Party
• Anton Adriaan Mussert
• Flags of the NSB
• Portret van Anton Adriaan Mussert at IMDb, a Paul Verhoeven directed 1968 TV documentary