Hendrik Seyffardt

Hendrik Alexander Seyffardt
Born	(1872-11-01)November 1, 1872 Breda, Netherlands
Died	February 6, 1943(1943-02-06) (aged 70) Breda, Netherlands
Allegiance	Dutch Army
Years of service	1887-1934 1941-1943
Rank	General
Commands held	Dutch SS Volunteer Legion
Relations	Louis William Seyffardt August (Father) Catharina Louisa de Hollander (Mother)

Hendrik Alexander Seyffardt (1872–1943) was a Dutch general, who during World War II collaborated with Nazi Germany during the occupation of Netherlands, ost notably as a figurehead of the Dutch Legion, a unit of the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front.

Seijffardt was the son of August William Louis Seyffardt, Minister of War in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Gijsbert van Tienhoven, and his wife Catharina Louisa de Hollander. Like his father, he chose a career as a professional soldier, and so at the age of fifteen he became a cadet at the Royal Military Academy in Breda, and in 1900 he became a teacher there. He was promoted to Chief of the General Staff (1929-1934), and then the Central Intelligence (CI), part of GS III. He retired in May 1934.

In the build-up to WW2, he began to give lectures for the conservative Alliance for National Recovery. In 1937, Seyffardt became a member of the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging (NSB), but after a year and a half he resigned his membership. In October 1940 he attended a meeting of a Fascist group organised around the magazine De Waag. In July 1941 he was appointed Lieutenant-General out of service by Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who asked him to serve as a figurehead for Dutch volunteers willing to form a unit to serve on the Eastern Front to fight against Bolshevism, following Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. Seyffardt, a nationalist and fiercely anti-communist, saw his immediate political and power gain. The 23rd SS Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division Nederland had formed in February 1941, and after training in Hamburg, in November 1941 was ordered to the Eastern Front near Leningrad, under the overall command of Army Group North. The division served with honour alongside their Nazi allies, but suffered large losses.

However, Seyffardt saw too much later that he was in fact towing the ardent SS line. Although nominal commander of the Dutch Volunteer Legion, his input and contribution was systematically ignored by the German SS authorities. In March 1942 he submitted his resignation to Hanns Rauter and Seyss-Inquart, but was persuaded to stay.

On February 1, 1943 Anton Mussert suggested to Seyffardt that he join the proposed new Dutch shadow cabinet, "Gemachtigden van den Leider". The Dutch government in exile feared that this was the beginning of a cabinet-Mussert, with Seyffardt as Minister of War. Resultantly on the evening of Friday 5 February 1943, after answering a knock at his front door Seyffardt was shot by Gerrit Willem Kastein and Jan Verleun, two members of the Dutch resistance group CS-6. A day later he succumbed to his injuries.

In his honor, a unit of Dutch volunteers on the Eastern Front was renamed 48. Freiwilligen SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment General Seyffardt. Seyffardt's death was also one of the reasons for the massive Nazi Germany reprisals in occupied Netherlands from 1943, Operation Silbertanne.