Dutch officials cooperated closely with German occupiers during WWII

Dutch civil servants cooperated closely with the German occupier during the Second World War, according to Historian Gert Jan van Setten, who received his Ph.D. from the VU University Amsterdam on Friday. During his doctorate studies, he found that a “staggering” number of administrative measures implemented by the Germans remained in force in the Netherlands after the war ended, many of which still impact the Netherlands today, NRC reports.

During WWII, the German occupier established a “civil government” in the Netherlands, in which Reich Commissioner Seyss-Inquart fulfilled the role of head of state, the council of ministers, and parliament. Under that government, Dutch civil servants became the new legislators under the eye of German “supervisors.” And their cooperation was very close, Van Setten concluded.

“The general trend was: let’s make the best of it in the interest of the population. That was also the Dutch government’s assignment to the civil service. Each ministry was assigned several dozen German supervisors. You couldn’t do anything without their initials. But they were usually highly qualified professionals to work with. They were doing well in the Netherlands and wanted to stay, especially when Germany was being bombed more heavily. They appreciated the professional knowledge of the Dutch civil servants. Together, they also kept pushy and incompetent NSB members out,” Van Setten said to the newspaper.

After the war, the Dutch government made three lists of administrative measures taken during the occupation - measures that were so contrary to Dutch law that they never should have been taken, measures that lost their validity once the occupation ended, and measures that would be maintained for a time. Van Setten found that the latter category contained a staggering amount of administrative regulations, many of which still impact the Netherlands today.

“I was surprised at how many there were,” Van Setten said. “In 1951, 399 occupation measures were still in force. In the 20 years that followed, most were converted into Dutch law,” he said. “Under German pressure, progressive income tax and profit tax were introduced. Social legislation was also a German showpiece. Accident insurance, old-age insurance, and unemployment benefits were introduced or better regulated. Tenancy protection, hitherto hampered by freedom of contract and property rights, also had its origins in the occupation period, as did general health insurance.”

Van Setten stressed that he did not look into accusations that the Dutch civil service facilitated the persecution of Jews. “But the regulations that survived after the war show how a criminal regime could coexist with an ordinary official system. The paradox of official symbiosis that arose in the Netherlands parallel to the persecution of the Jews gave a more or less reasonable face to the criminal regime.”