- Summary of the Correspondence of M.M. Rost van Tonningen Volume 2 (May 1942 - May 1945)There is no extant correspondence of any leading figure from among the German occupying forces or the Dutch Nazi Party (National Socialist Movement, NSB) which can equal the scale of
that of M.M. Rost van Tonningen, one of the most prominent Dutch National Socialists. As a
result of his many activities in a number of different fields, his correspondence is of importance
both for the information it provides on the intemal history of the NSB and for the financial, economie and social history of the occupation period.This was the reason for the decision to publish the relevant documents from his correspondence.
The first volume of this publication of source material, covering the period 1921 — May
1942, was issued in 1967. The introduction to that volume contains details of the origin and
composition of the archival collections relating to Rost van Tonningen, which are kept in the
State Institute for War Documentation in Amsterdam.The present volume, the second and last, covers the period from May 1942 to May 1945.
Since there is less need for a general introduction to this second volume, it has been decided to
deal only with the general outlines in this introduction.The selection of documents for inclusion in the second volume was based on the provisional
selection which had already been made by the compiler of Volume 1. In that volume she indicated
which criteria had been adopted: ‘The publication must clarify as many aspects of the subject
as possible; it must preserve a certain balance between main and subsidiary issues; and it
must be representative of the source.’ As in Volume 1, the documents are printed in chronological
order.M.M. Rost van Tonningen was bom in Soerabaja in the former Dutch East Indies on 19
February 1894. His father was a field officer in the Dutch Indian Army. Meinout, the third and
youngest of his sons, was to remain in the Far East until his fifteenth year. After dropping out of
an engineering course, Rost van Tonningen graduated in law from the university of Leiden. He
subsequently worked from 1923 to 1936, with the exception of a three-year period, for the
League of Nations in Vienna. It was there that he feil prey to National Socialism, including the
virulent anti-Semitism that was dominant in Vienna at the time.In September 1936 Rost van Tonningen became a member of the NSB, and a month later he
was appointed editor-in-chief of the new NSB daily paper Het Nationale Dagblad. Soon afterwards
he resigned from the League of Nations. Rost van Tonningen had established good contacts
with like-minded figures in Germany, particularly H. Himmler and other members of the
SS. He therefore regarded himself as their man in Holland. Rost van Tonningen’s position within
the NSB was as a representative of the so-called pan-Germanic tendency; he considered that
in the end the Netherlands should once again become a part of the German Reich. In his opinion,
the Dutch had been mistaken to break away from the German Reich after the Peace of
Munster in 1648. His Nazi ideas, in which the notion of ‘race’ occupied a central position, were
finely attuned to the situation in Germany and were much more radical than the conventional
NSB ideology in the Netherlands. Moreover, Rost van Tonningen considered himself far more
suitable than the leader of the NSB, A.A. Mussert. His behaviour and his frequent emotional
outbursts eamed him many enemies within the NSB, who spread the rumour that he had ‘Indian
[i.e. Indonesian] blood’ . These attacks on his ‘racial purity’ were to cause him considerable
trouble during the war, as well as blocking his membership of the Dutch SS. It was partly
through the influence of Rost van Tonningen that the NSB became an anti-Semitic party in the
course of 1938.In 1937 Rost van Tonningen was elected a Member of Parliament. His appearances in the
House were often provocative; indeed, in March 1939 he was banned from Parliament for a day
after he had engaged in fisticuffs with his political opponents. Rost van Tonningen and twenty
others were intemed for security reasons on 3 May 1940 on the instructions of the Dutch
govemment, one week before the German army invaded the Netherlands. They were released by
German troops in Calais on 30 May.The German occupation meant new opportunities for the NSB and for Rost van Tonningen.
The Reich Commissioner A. Seyss-Inquart appointed him as Kommissar fur die marxistischen
Parteien on 20 July 1940, and in this position he endeavoured to link the Social Democratic
Labour Party (SDAP) with the Netherlands League of Trade Unions (NVV). In October 1940 he
was made ‘second deputy leader’ of the NSB and head of the NSB education department, but
his pan-Germanic ideology still aroused considerable opposition within the party. All Rost van
Tonningen’s attempts to outstrip Mussert ended in failure. This was one of the reasons why he
concentrated all his efforts on the socio-economic sector in The Netherlands in the spring of
1941. Seyss-Inquart designated him as president of The Netherlands Bank on 26 March 1941,
and on 22 April of the same year he was made deputy general secretary of the Department of
Finance and general secretary of the newly formed Department for Special Economic Affairs.
These non-political positions were small consolation to him.In the spring of 1942, the point at which this volume begins, Rost van Tonningen was therefore
in a difficult position. He continued his intensive activities in the party and the socio-economic
sector for the next three years. In addition, he devoted much of his attention to the Netherlands
Eastern Company (NOC), founded on 1 July with Rost van Tonningen as president. His military
contribution on the German side in March 1945 marks the beginning of the end of the third man
in the NSB.This summary will deal with the following four main topics of the present publication in
order: The NSB; The Netherlands Bank; The Netherlands Eastern Company; and The Last
Months. Rost van Tonningen’s activities in the first three of these were a failure. This is partly
due to the preceding period, and partly to the course of the war. His active participation as a soldier in March 1945 can also be regarded as his farewell to the political and socio-economic life
in which he had played a part for so long.The first document included in this volume, dating from May 1942, deals with the possibility
of Dutch economic activities in the German-occupied territories in Eastern Europe. The last
document is Rost van Tonningen’s so-called political testament, drawn up in May 1945 for
Canadian Field Security when he was a prisoner of war.Rost van Tonningen in the NSBReich Commissioner Seyss-Inquart had not concentrated exclusively on the NSB and Mussert
as potential allies during the early months of the occupation. The movement had certainly proved
itself to be a dedicated ally, but the support that it received from the population was absolutely
inadequate. One of Seyss-Inquart’s tasks was to ‘Germanize’ the Netherlands, an impossible
task without active or passive support. Many had now been given their first opportunity to
show how they could adapt to the new situation.Rost van Tonningen also tried to use this opportunity to obtain recognition from the Germans
as the leading Dutch Nazi, but his attempts to convert the Dutch workers, farmers, young people
and women outside the NSB to Naxism were a failure. Although Rost van Tonningen was ideologically closer to the occupying forces than Mussert or the majority of the Dutch Nazis were,
as well as enjoying the reputation of being Himmler’s number one man in the Netherlands,
Seyss-Inquart had no option but to support the more moderate Mussert. The leader of the NSB
swore an oath of allegiance to the Fuhrer in Berlin on 12 December 1941, and two days later it
was announced that the NSB was the only party allowed in the Netherlands. Mussert was now
rid of the competition from other parties like the National Front and the National Socialist
Dutch Workers Party (NSNAP), but he was still faced with the rivalry of the Dutch SS (christened
‘the German SS in the Netherlands’ at the end of 1942), which was still formally a section
of the NSB. This elite group expressed the pan-Germanic ideology wherever it could and tried
to secure influential positions everywhere. It would have been a logical choice for Rost van
Tonningen to have stood at the head of this SS, but he was unable to produce the requisite family
tree free of any foreign taint. The rumours that Rost van Tonningen had ‘Indian’ , i.e.
Indonesian blood had not failed to have their effect. This genealogical question was extremely
painful to Rost van Tonningen, for whom ‘race’ had a mystical significance, and he always
reacted extremely emotionally to anything connected with it. This stood in the way of Rost van
Tonningen’s becoming a member of the SS, let alone its leader. This was partly the work of J.H.
Feldmeyer, a former friend who had now become one of his many enemies among the Dutch
Nazis. In May 1943 Rost van Tonningen wrote indignant letters of protest to Himmler and
Rauter to prevent Feldmeyer from taking Mussert’s place.The SS continued to exclude Rost van Tonningen from membership. He was thus unable to
attend the solemn assembly on 17 May 1942, when 600 Dutch members of the SS swore an oath
of allegiance to Hitler as the German Fuhrer. A month later 300 NSB officers swore a similar
oath to Mussert, which Rost van Tonningen viewed with misgiving. His loyalty to Hitler (and
Himmler) took precedence over loyalty to Mussert.The eleventh anniversary of the NSB fell on 13 December 1942. Rumours were circulating
that a Mussert govemment was in the offing. Rost van Tonningen’s concern is clearly demonstrated in his letter to Himmler, two weeks before the anniversary celebrations. Fortunately for Rost van Tonningen, Mussert did not climb any higher than ‘Leader of the Dutch People’ , and the ‘Delegates of the Leader’ chosen by Mussert to form a ‘Secretariat of State’ never gained any real influence. All the same, the composition of this ‘Secretariat’ was a source of displeasure to Rost van Tonningen, because Mussert wanted to appoint F.E. Muller, whose positions included that of mayor of Rotterdam, as Delegate for Economic Affairs. Mussert had great confidence in Muller, and the latter would undoubtedly have been able to get on better with H.M. Hirschfeld, the general secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs. However, the economy had been Rost van Tonningen’ s preserve for some time, and besides his official functions (The Netherlands Bank, Finance and Special Economic Affairs) he was also leader of the
Economic Front within the NSB. He appealed on these grounds, his protests met with success,
and Mussert eventually grudgingly conceded and appointed Rost van Tonningen as his
Delegate.Rost van Tonningen continued to believe in a final victory for Germany and Nazism.
Although the Germans were still lord and master of Europe in 1942 (and 1943), however, the
German armies proved not to be invincible. Rommel’ s defeat at El Alamein in October 1942
and the defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943 seemed to have marked a real turning point. This
was particularly true of Stalingrad because the German propaganda had given so much publicity
to the claim that the German army would stand its ground there. Of course, these German defeats
had their repercussions on the members of the NSB. For instance, F.W.A. de Kock van
Leeuwen, a cousin of Rost van Tonningen, resigned membership in August 1943, after he had
handed in his resignation as commissioner of the Netherlands Eastern Company. Rost van
Tonningen took a positive view of such resignations; he referred to them in a letter to Himmler
as a purging of the ranks.The setting up of the ‘Secretariat of State’ and the appointment of Mussert’s Delegates had
led to the first liquidation by the resistance of an important traitor, general Seyffardt, commander
of the ‘Netherlands Volunteer Legion’ . Rost van Tonningen and other important members of
the NSB now received permanent security protection. The brutality of the Germans during the
strikes of April-May 1943 served to widen the gulf separThe opposition between the NSB and the SS also grew more acute. This rivalry was ventilated
in public in a vitriolic media battle between the NSB weekly Volk and Vaderland and Storm-
SS. In March 1943 Rost van Tonningen reported to Himmler that Mussert considered a personal
meeting between him and Himmler to be called for.Even in 1944 Rost van Tonningen still did not consider the possibility of defeat, although he
believed that parts of the Netherlands might be occupied by the Allies for a while. This is evident
from a lecture that he gave in Dordrecht just before the Allied landing in Normandy. A
week after the invasion he responded to a question which had been put to him in connection
with the lecture. He was not prepared to consider the possibility of a defeat, and he did not consider suicide either; he preferred to fight to the death, because ‘the comrades will be killed in the most cowardly way, without any kind of trial’ .The Bank and the EconomyIn March 1941 Rost van Tonningen succeeded L.J.A. Trip as president of The Netherlands
Bank, where the genuine power lay in the hands of A. Buhler, the German Beauftragte.
J. Robertson, a pro-German member of the NSB, was appointed as his deputy at the Bank.
Before the war The Netherlands Bank played a smaller role in socio-economic life than is now
the case, and during the war it was al most entirely at the beek and call of the Germans.One of the main objectives which Rost van Tonningen wanted to achieve was an amendment
of the Bank Statute to increase the Bank’s influence. Moreover, the introduction of the ‘leadership principle’ would enhance the power of the president. The ‘old’ directors and commissioners of the Bank managed to prevent these changes for a time.One of the consequences of the strikes of April-May 1943, which were called as a reaction to
the German announcement that Dutch soldiers would have to be made prisoners-of-war (again),
was that the amendment of the Bank Statute was now pushed through at an accelerated pace.
The director of the Zwolle branch of The Netherlands Bank was dismissed because of his attitude
during this strike, which prompted the ‘old’ directors in Amsterdam, A.M. de Jong and J.F.
de Beaufort, to tender their resignation. Rost van Tonningen informed Seyss-Inquart that the
genuine reason why they had asked to resign was the fact that the antagonism between him and
the old directors on such matters as the requisitioning of the bank staff had assumed unmanageable
proportions.Rost van Tonningen had been in favour of the abolition of the currency border in the spring of
1941 in order to bring the Dutch and German economies closer together. The flight of the
German mark to the Dutch guilder which ensued gradually became a source of concern to him,
but his proposals to take countermeasures did not receive sufficient backing on the German side.
The newly established Department for Special Economic Affairs, with Rost van Tonningen as
its general secretary, was not much of a success. Trip had resigned as general secretary of
Finance in the spring of 1941, mainly because of the question of the abolition of the currency
border. Rost van Tonningen had also taken over this position (as deputy general secretary). In
theory, Rost van Tonningen’ s double position in the Bank and the Department was a powerful
one. He tried to turn the Department into a central body which would exercise strict supervision
of the other departments. However, the other general secretaries put up as much opposition as
they could to his plans, which led Rost van Tonningen to ask Seyss-Inquart for official support
for his proposed austerity and supervisory measures in the middle of 1942. Because of the risk
of an invasion, however, the departments were moved from The Hague to the East of the
Netherlands from the beginning of 1943, a move which threatened to loosen Rost van
Tonningen’s hold. As deputy general secretary of Finance, Rost van Tonningen had agreed to
the ‘Voluntary Contribution to the War in Eastern Europe’, as it was called. In a letter to
Mussert, Rost van Tonningen wrote that the Germans were entirely unjustified in referring to
‘occupation expenses’ or Kriegsbeute. Seyss-Inquart had introduced this contribution of 50 million
Reichsmark a month on 2 May 1942, with retroactive force as from 1 July 1941, but from
the spring of 1943 onwards this sum was no longer paid in gold but in credit. By the beginning
of 1944 Rost van Tonningen had become less enthusiastic about the ‘voluntary contribution’ .
With Mussert’s approval, he protested to Seyss-Inquart against its doubling. He considered that,
by comparison with the other occupied countries, the Netherlands was subjected to an exceptionally heavy levy. Paradoxically enough, he regarded this as the result of the fact that the
Department of Finance was directed by a National Socialist.In the beginning of December 1941 the occupying forces entrusted Rost van Tonningen as
general secretary for Special Economic Affairs with the supervision of the world of insurance.
This branch had been extremely disrupted by the large amount of damage caused by the war and
by the expectations of German competition. Rost van Tonningen also wanted a large say in the
administration and management of this branch, but the foundation of the Estate Agents,
Insurance Brokers and Agents Professional Association (MAA) and of the Insurance Board was
not as important as it seemed. The number of members of the NSB within these organisations
proved to be too low for effective activity.His position in the world of banking and insurance might have enabled Rost van Tonningen to
extend his influence in this sector as well, but he made little headway in this area either; his proposals were often held up or put into cold storage as a result of the skilful delaying tactics of
‘antis’ . His conflicts with the Amsterdam stock exchange were of a purely political nature and
had no influence on the exchange itself. He did achieve some degree of success there in his
efforts to combat speculation in shares, but his attempts to topple the chairman of the exchange,
C.F. Overhoff, were unsuccessful. Overhoff's great expertise made him too valuable to the
Germans, and he retained his function as chairman even during the period when he was head of
the illegal Domestic Armed Forces in Amsterdam. It is very likely that Rost van Tonningen and
the occupying forces were unaware that he held such a position.Rost van Tonningen had been very keen on the Woltersom Committee which restructured
Dutch trade and industry, because he saw this as a way of reorganising industry along German
lines, but it failed to meet his expectations. A reorganisation did take place, and much energy
was spent on drawing new lines of demarcation, but very little actually changed. The Industrial
Board was set up in April 1942 as an umbrella organisation, consisting of the chairmen of the
six Economic Groups, the chairmen of the Chambers of Commerce and Industry of the provinces
of North and South Holland, and six members appointed by Hirschfeld. Five of its fourteen
members belonged to the NSB, but this over-representation did not reflect the actual balance of
forces. Trade and Industry tumed out to be willing to take over some of the state’ s responsibilities - one of the objectives of the new industrial organisation - but not its negative tasks, such as the closure of those companies which were not Kriegswichtig. In July 1943 Rost van
Tonningen complained to Seyss-Inquart that these industrial closures also often proved to be very unfavourable to NSB industrialists. He considered that the course followed by the
Woltersom Committee was anything but National Socialist, and at the end of 1942 he regarded
it as absolutely essential to change the composition of the boards, especially that representing
the Economic Group. He believed that their functions could be taken over by good NSB members.
His demands were not met, but in practice there would not have been enough capable NSB
members to man all the positions in the new organisation anyway: the number of functions as
chairman and deputy chairman in the Economic Groups, Sector Groups, Branch Groups,
Subsidiary Branch Groups and the corresponding Advisory Councils ran into thousands. The
NSB members outside the organisation regarded it as a capitalist arrangement, while the NSB
members who were on the Industrial Board complained that they were ineffectual because of
their minority position. Many NSB members were therefore excluded, and in May 1943 Rost
van Tonningen had to make do with a mere commitment from the German side that the NSB
had the right to object to appointments in the Branch and Subsidiary Branch Groups which it
regarded as unsuitable.The steady growth of requisitioning affected not only the world of industry and commerce,
but also the personal staffmg of the departments. Rost van Tonningen had to do all he could to
prevent his new department from being forced to relinquish too many members.
An important problem for Rost van Tonningen within the economic sphere was the fact that
he was unable to get rid of Hirschfeld, the powerful general secretary of Economic Affairs. This
extremely capable civil servant played a very important role in shaping the commercial collaboration between the Netherlands and the occupying forces. The Germans also appreciated his capacities and ‘overlooked’ his background - a half-Jewish one according to Nazi criteria.There was no question of any cooperation between Rost van Tonningen and Hirschfeld. Each of
them tried to extend his sphere of influence at the expense of the other. Hirschfeld was more
adequately equipped in this respect, and the attacks to which he was subjected by Rost van
Tonningen in the meetings of the board of general secretaries were virtually ineffectual. Joint
meetings were stopped in September 1943, followed by a lack of personal contact. All the letters
complaining about Hirschfeld which Rost van Tonningen wrote never fail to allude to his
family background. Similar allusions to other figures are a characteristic feature of his correspondence.Another of his enemies in the bureaucracy was S.L. Louwes, who was in charge of food supplies.
Rost van Tonningen regarded farmers as key figures in the new National Socialist
Netherlands. He blamed Louwes for the failure of the nazification of the farmers, which was
supposed to be brought about by the Netherlands Agricultural Estate (Landstand). Rost van
Tonningen was also aware of the incompetence and irresponsibility of the leading figures in the
Estate, E.J. Roskam and O.F.J. Damave. Rost van Tonningen believed that it would be a change
for the better if SS sympathizers like G. Dieters (and T.E. Bontkes) were to lead the Dutch farmers.
The persecution of the Jews must have been logical and defensible for Rost van Tonningen.
His own anti-Semitism emerges clearly from a letter of November 1943, in which he wrote to a
‘comrade’ that he regarded every Jew ‘as vermin’ . Rost van Tonningen was naturally also in
agreement with the ‘aryanising’ of Jewish companies. He was only alarmed by the fact that
‘aryanised’ companies generally ended up in German hands instead of being divided between
the NSB and the Germans. This was one of the few issues on which he and Mussert were in
agreement. In the middle of 1942 Seyss-Inquart received a letter from Rost van Tonningen on
what the latter regarded as an ‘unjust’ division. Later on he asked Seyss-Inquart to release material which became available through the ‘aryanising’ and industrial closures for the ‘Eastern
front’ of the Netherlands Eastern Company. Rost van Tonningen also sought the support of
Seyss-Inquart in specific cases; in May 1943 he tried to contrive that a Jewish company whichwas due for ‘aryanising’ came into the hands of a comrade in the NSBThe Netherlands Eastern CompanyThe German invasion of the Soviet Union began on 22 June 1942. In addition to the ideological
component - the destruction of Communism - it also contained a more economic component -
the conquest of Lebensraum in Eastern Europe.Five days after the attack, Seyss-Inquart gave a speech on the Amsterdam Ice Club grounds in
which he called upon the Dutch to set their sights on Eastern Europe. In the first instance the
primary need was for soldiers, but it soon transpired that there was also a shortage of agricultural
and other labourers in Eastern Europe. The German-occupied countries were therefore asked
to supply the labour force. The Germans also needed Capital and capable entrepreneurs to
exploit the conquered territories for the German war economy. With the aid of Dutch govemment
grants, agricultural labourers went to work in the conquered Russian territories for the
Ostdeutsche Landbewirtschaftungsgesellschaft or Ostland. The director of the Nederlandsche
Heide-Maatschappij, C. Staf, was in charge of the Commission for sending agricultural labourers
to Eastern Europe (Culano). The first group, comprising a hundred agricultural workers, set
out for Eastern Europe at the end of November 1941. Other groups of agricultural and building
workers followed suit, but there was no large-scale requisitioning of Dutch workers at this stage.
Rost van Tonningen had a more grandiose plan in mind, in which the Dutch were to initiate a
colonisation of the Baltic countries, the Ukraine and Ostland (the former Baltic countries and
part of North Russia) as they had done in the faraway Dutch East Indies. Now that the latter had
been lost as a result of the Japanese takeover, he believed that the Netherlands was in need of a
new Lebensraum elsewhere. It would also be in the nation’s interests, he claimed, if the Dutch
were to prove their worth to the Germans as ‘German’ pioneers, to ensure that the Netherlands
achieved a good position in the new postwar Europe. Besides, Rost van Tonningen expected
that he would soon find increased favour with the Germans if this venture was a success. These
were the considerations which led him to become both president and the driving force behind
the Netherlands Eastern Company (NOC), which was founded in June 1942.Rost van Tonningen considered that a number of preconditions had to be satisfied first: in the
Netherlands, the NOC must be given a monopoly of Eastern Europe; and Dutch industry and
commerce were expected to make a substantial contribution to this new project. Furthermore, it
called for Gleichberechtigung between the Germans and the Dutch in Eastern Europe. Later on
the so-called compensatory supplies were important: the Netherlands was to be supplied with
goods from Eastern Europe. If there was no tangible evidence in the Netherlands of the activities
in Eastern Europe, Dutch enthusiasm for the endeavour might flag. The monopoly was
granted Rost van Tonningen by German bodies, but it proved to be a dead letter. Dutch companies and German companies operating in or from the Netherlands sidetracked the NOC in their trade with Eastern Europe. The NOC had only been in existence for a month when Rost van
Tonningen lodged a protest with Seyss-Inquart. The monopoly was also broken by an NSB
industrialist who sent labourers to Eastern Europe. Representatives of the Vierjahresplan in the
Netherlands also thwarted his plans. Although in his later correspondence Rost van Tonningen
wrote that he had made an agreement with H.L. Woltersom, chairman of the Industrial Board,
on cooperation between the industrial organisations and the NOC, there is no direct evidence to
substantiate his claims. At the end of 1942 the chairman of the Supervisory Board of the NOC,
F.B.J. Gips, wrote that the negotiations which had been initiated with H.L. Woltersom had not
yet produced any positive results.The willingness of Dutch companies to cooperate with the NOC was already considerably
dampened in the month of its foundation when the Germans placed the Dutch Indian companies
in the Netherlands in trust. The industrialists were given the impression that this measure was
intended to force the Dutch companies to cooperate with the NOC. Fuel was added to the fire
when the Germans requisitioned the dockyard cranes in Amsterdam and Rotterdam to use them
elsewhere. In the meantime, the Dutch press had published enthusiastic stories of the jobs for
three million Dutch that were waiting in Eastern Europe. This raised the question of whether a
compulsory mass emigration was in the offing.The NOC became a limited company, with the participation of the state and the two harbour
cities Amsterdam and Rotterdam. D. Krantz, a member of the NSB, was appointed general
director, a position he was to hold until the end of the war, while another NSB member, P.S.
Heerema, was joint director for a time. The head office was in The Hague, where stocks and
equipment were also stored. NOC representatives were posted to Berlin, Rovno (Ukraine), Riga
(Latvia), Kauen (Kovno) and Vilna (Lithuania).Rost van Tonningen and a few others had engaged in a brief fact-finding mission to Eastern
Europe shortly before the NOC was set up. They visited the Reichkommissariat Ostland and the
Generalkommissariaten Estonia and Latvia, where he became aware that, although the Latvians
appeared to be enthusiastic in their support of Hitler, they objected to the arrival of Dutch colonists. The trip was broken off to attend the foundation of the NOC in the Netherlands on 6 June 1942. A second trip, this time to Lithuania, took place in September of the same year.Enthusiasm for Eastern Europe failed to grow, either among the investors and industrialists or
among the workers. Of course, the united Dutch press was full of praise for the NOC and its
great achievements, but Rost van Tonningen’ s reports to Mussert were still written in a minor
key. In November 1942 he wrote to Mussert that the Germans had even raised the demand that
the NOC should be entpolitisiert. The enthusiastic accounts of their travels which Rost van
Tonningen and his companions wrote often contained attractive proposals, but the NOC was
bom under a bad star. The reason for the collapse of the whole enterprise in a major fiasco is not
solely to be sought in the course of the war. There was not sufficient Dutch support, and the
planning lacked an intemal structure. It was already difficult enough in occupied Holland to find
out which German agency was responsible for what and where the various competencies lay,
but in the occupied East European territories the Verwaltung was a complete mystery. It was
virtually impossible to keep tags on the instances in the East European Reichskommissariaten
and Generalkommissariaten from Berlin (where the Ostministerium, the Organisation Todt, the
Vierjahresplan, the Wirtschafts-Stabes Ost and other bodies vied with one another). Rost van
Tonningen was completely incapable of fathoming it all, let alone being able to exert sufficient
influence. Agreements made with one party were rarely honoured by another. This was not just
due to the frequent unbusinesslike activities of various NOC officers. The various German
satraps, such as Reichskommissar E. Koch in the Ukraine, wanted Dutch Capital and labour in
their territory, but they were not prepared to tolerate NOC interference, and certainly not colonists.
The Netherlands Eastern Institute, which began as the statistical and research department of
the NOC, was supposed to occupy an important position within the Netherlands Eastern Company. Later on it was given a more ideological task. The Eastern Institute carried out research on the possible deployment of Dutch industrialists, as well as on the Mennonite colonies in Eastern Europe and Dutch trade movements in the past. The propaganda called upon Dutch citizens to report for duty as agricultural or other labourers. The Eastern Institute wanted to keep its monopoly position, and the head of the Institute asked Rost van Tonningen if Roskam could tone down his propaganda speeches on Eastern Europe a little. The archive of the Eastern Institute also contained books in Russian from the libraries which had been confiscated by the Germans. Furthermore, it was the task of the Institute to give ideological and practical training to the agricultural and other labourers who were due to be sent out and to prepare them for the colonisation. Various subsidiaries were set up by the NOC, though some of these were stillbom. They included the Netherlands Eastern Fishery, the Netherlands Eastern Dredging Company, the Netherlands Eastern Brick Company, the Netherlands Eastern Building Company, the Netherlands
Eastern Shipping Company, and the Netherlands Eastern Trading Company.After a lot of effort, in May 1943 the Netherlands Eastern Fishery managed to send a group of
fishermen and their boats by train to Lake Peipus on the border between Estonia and North
Russia. Fishing and canning were carried out under difficult conditions, all for the benefit of the
Kriegsmarine stationed there. The Netherlands Eastern Dredging Company hired dredging
equipment from two Dutch companies to carry out work for the Organisation Todv. dredging
operations on the Dnepr between Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk.The Netherlands Eastern Brick Company in formation was primarily intended to conclude
contracts with the Germans for the renting of brickyards in Eastern Europe.The Netherlands Eastern Building Company was the coordination point for all construction
activities in Eastern Europe. This company had taken over the rights and obligations of Dutch
industrialists who had been engaged in construction activities before the foundation of the NOC.
The Netherlands Eastern Building Company was first led by Heerema, but he was removed after
a lot of wrangling. Commitments were often made to German bodies which could not be kept,
since one of the major problems was still that of finding sufficient Dutch volunteers. Working
conditions and accommodation in Eastern Europe were often extremely poor, and the black
market only provided the workers with limited compensation. Besides, it soon became clear that
only a few had left for Eastern Europe from ideological motives; people often went in order to
evade being press-ganged to work in Germany.The Netherlands Eastern Shipping Company (NOR) was set up to transport commercial goods
between Eastern Europe and the Netherlands. Nevertheless, a number of NOR vessels worked
entirely for German customers, such as those transporting timber from Sweden to the Netherlands. Frantic efforts were made to obtain new vessels throughout the war. The Netherlands Eastern Shipping Company assumed that it would be able to obtain new craft through the Hansa programme (Standard freight-carrying vessels; roughly comparable to the American Liberty ships). The correspondence reveals that some German instances in the Netherlands were welldisposed to the idea, but that no priority could be accorded the Netherlands because of the scarcity of material. New vessels were therefore never provided.The Netherlands Eastern Trading Company was intended to engage in regular trade with
Eastern Europe, but numerous German obstacles hindered the execution of the commercial
plans. In the end, very little reached the Netherlands from Eastern Europe through this company.
The SS-Frontarbeitereinsatz occupied a special position. The SS-Wirtschaftshauptamt had set
up many Einsatze in Eastern Europe, two of which employed Dutch workers. Some of them had
left for Eastern Europe voluntarily, others had been requisitioned. Around 4,500 were employed
behind the front, mainly in reinforcements and constructing roads for the German army. The
label SS-Frontarbeiter caused them considerable embarrassment back in the Netherlands when
the war was over.In September 1943 Rost van Tonningen provided Seyss-Inquart with a first, detailed 187-page
report on the activities of the NOC during the previous year. This report is full of all kinds of
planned projects, but it also contains many examples of German obstruction. For instance, the
Germans had asked the NOC whether Dutch entrepreneurs could be found to act as Treubander
or managers of the numerous companies in Eastern Europe which stood empty or which had
been confiscated by the Germans. The NOC sent many specialists to Eastern Europe and also
found Dutch citizens who were prepared to act as Treuhander, but when matters had to be settled, it transpired that many companies, particularly the best and most up-to-date, were often
already in German hands. Some cases were instances of pure deceit. Was this the Gleichberechtigung that the Germans had promised?, Rost van Tonningen wondered.Almost everything that the NOC needed in Eastern Europe had to be sent from the Netherlands. Some items were even bought there on the black market. Moreover, problems were often raised by the Dutch or German authorities when the requisite export permits were to be issued.The NOC assumed responsibility for the salaries and insurances of all the agricultural and
other labourers working in Eastern Europe. This responsibility even extended to taking care of
their relatives in the Netherlands. The building workers in particular had unpleasant experiences
with the work in Eastern Europe. The Dutch companies which sent them out were more interested in the Kopfgeld that they received from the Germans than in taking proper care of the workers.The agricultural workers involved first had to follow preliminary training before they could
get down to work. A ruined castle in Rovno (Ukraine) was restored and turned into a training
centre. All the construction buildings had to be supplied from the Netherlands. The results of the
training in Rovno were disappointing, so a preliminary training course was set up in the
Netherlands in cooperation with the Netherlands Agricultural Estate. The syllabus included
Russian and Weltanschauliche Schulung as well as ‘ordinary’ subjects. An attempt was also
made to convert the Ommen concentration camp in the Eastern Netherlands into a training
camp.From the first the partisans resisted not only the German soldiers but also the Dutch colonists.
The question arose as to whether the ‘Eastern farmers’ should be armed, and if so, who was
responsible for the weapons and training in how to use them. Despite the issuing of weapons,
this question was never properly settled. Rost van Tonningen referred the matter to Himmler on
a number of occasions. A number of agricultural workers lost their lives in Eastern Europe.
The NOC was heavily propagated in the province of Drenthe, especially regarding the potential
for peat extraction. Dutch colonists in Lithuania worked as peat cutters, but they came nowhere
near achieving the planning figures of the largest company, Baltoje Voke near Vilna. Here
too the advancing Red Army threw a spanner in the works.It was understandable that the leadership of the NOC also grew alarmed when it appeared that
the Soviet army had not been defeated. Besides, the whole enterprise was just a waste of money
without providing results. Rost van Tonningen kept on repeating ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’, just as in the glorious past, but that was not enough for the shareholders. De Kock van
Leeuwen resigned as commissioner, and soon afterwards withdrew his membership of the NSB.
The mayor of Amsterdam, E.J. Voute, who was commissioner on behalf of the city council, voiced
his dissatisfaction, and Gips threatened to resign.Rost van Tonningen tried to cope with the problems by altering the structure of the NOC. It
was tumed into a company which received orders from the state and was paid by the state.
When the large-scale Russian counter-offensives began, the NOC office in Berlin had to do
all it could to deploy the retreating Dutch elsewhere before they were taken over by various
German bodies. In the Netherlands people were busily blaming one another for the failure of the
NOC. The director Krantz was the main target. F.L. Rambonnet, Rost van Tonningen’s help and
stay, used his position as chairman of the Supervisory Board of the NOC to called for Krantz’
resignation. The scapegoat put up a lengthy defence, including the statement that he had ensured
that the financial administration of the NOC was removed to safe keeping, while the Ostministerium had advised him to set fire to it all.The last monthsAt the age of 47, Rost van Tonningen had applied for membership of the Waffen-SS in
February 1941, but his request was not granted. Two weeks after the Allied landing in
Normandy, however, he was admitted to its ranks, and from 22 June to 8 August 1944 Rost van
Tonningen followed an officers training course in the Landstorm in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. The
Landstorm was a military unit within the Waffen-SS', the first battalion was in barracks in ‘s-
Hertogenbosch. On 4 August he was promoted to Untersturmfuhrer der Reserve; it was not
necessary to produce a ‘pure’ family tree for a military post. He summed up his reasons for
enlisting in a long letter to Mussert. At the same time, Fischbock was informeel that his replacement in the Netherlands Bank and in Finance was arranged. Of course, it was relatively unusual for a fifty-year old man to enter service, and Krantz issued wamings during Rost van
Tonningen’s training period against his intention of leaving for the front. After completing the
training, Rost van Tonningen retumed to his usual job, but after Crazy Tuesday (5 September
1944, when the rumour spread that Allied troops had reached the Netherlands), everything changed.
Those of his NSB colleagues who had not already fled were called up for the Landwacht,
the armed auxiliary force of the NSB. There was not much constructive work left for Rost van
Tonningen to do. This period marked a further estrangement between him and his friends. At
the end of the year there were major clashes (in writing) with Rambonnet, who was exercising a
reign of terror at the time in Overijssel as commander of a Landwacht unit.After Crazy Tuesday the NSB was in total disarray. Mussert decided that the time had come
to get rid of Rost van Tonningen. On 28 December 1944 an extremely lengthy letter from Rost
van Tonningen to Mussert and an extremely short note from Mussert to Rost van Tonningen
crossed. All it said was that he was no longer second deputy leader. The first deputy, A. van
Geelkerken, was discarded at the same time, but at least he received a letter of thanks for his
services. Rost van Tonningen’s indignant protests to Seyss-Inquart were in vain, and Himmler
failed to stand up for him either.His arch-rival in the starving West of the Netherlands, Hirschfeld, received extensive powers,
since he shared Seyss-Inquart’s eagemess to prevent chaos. Rost van Tonningen’ s protests to
Fischbock had no effect. 26 February was the day of the solemn funeral of Feldmeyer, who had
been killed a few days earlier. This was probably the last time that Mussert, Van Geelkerken
and Rost van Tonningen met.In March 1945 Rost van Tonningen left for the front in the Betuwe as SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer.
He was taken prisoner by the Canadians on 8 May, and after a short stay in a POW camp in Eist,
he was transferred to Utrecht prison. After a suicide attempt there, he was taken to hospital.
While in Utrecht he wrote a Statement in English at the request of the Canadian Field Security.
On 6 June he was transferred to Scheveningen prison, where he was confronted by security
guards with Van Geelkerken, who had been intemed earlier. Rost van Tonningen committed
suicide that same day in prison.Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (1993). Correspondentie van Mr. M. M. Rost van Tonningen: Dl. II. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 655-665 viewed at http://publications.niod.knaw.nl/publications/Rost_correspondentie_02.pdfVan: 'G. van der Heide' g.vdheide@... [evola_as_he_is]
Verzonden: donderdag 14 augustus 2014 13:35
Aan: evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.comWe wish to reproduce below the (English) statement drawn up by the Dutch National-Socialist M.M. Rost van Tonningen featured in both "Hero and Martyr of Dutch National Socialism" (1997) and a two volume work published earlier in 1993, containing his full correspondence.To provide biographical information on him we intend to follow up on it with another text. Just right now reference must be made to the article written by his wife, entitled "For Holland and for Europe: The Life and Death of Dr. M.M. Rost van Tonningen", readable at www.ihr.org/jhr/v09/v09p427_Rost.html.***Meinoud Marinus Rost van Tonningen was captured by Canadians. While he was in their hands, on 24 May 1945, he drew up this statement.
Two weeks later having been turned over to the Dutch, he was dead. Murdered in unspeakable bestial fashion in Scheveningen prison (outside The Hague) on 6 June 1945 - the first anniversary of D-Day.
No heroine, of real life or fantasy, has lived the adventure, romance, high drama, and black tragedy, through world-shattering catastrophe, that has been the fate of Florentine Sophie Rost van Tonningen-Heubel, widow of MM Rost van Tonningen and mother.Carl Hottelet
Toms River,
March 199625th of MayStatement by Meinoud Marinus Rost van Tonningen
Before dealing with the events prior and during the war, I wish to lay down the principles (Weltanschauung) which have been fundamental to all my decisions, since I joined the National Socialist Party (NSB) of Mussert These principles were developed out of the experiences in the past My parents were Protestant and liberal. As most of the liberal-protestants in the Dutch-Indies they practically never visited the Church. My education was traditionally Christian, but I could not accept the dogma's of any Christian Church. So I belonged to no church as well as many others of my compatriots (15% in 1930 and probably 20-25% at present). Nevertheless I have been profoundly religious.
My father was an officer and later on the commander in Chief of the Netherland-Indian Army. I admired him for his strict sense of duty and his courage which he showed in the three expeditions (Atjeh, Lombok, Bali). He was distinguished several times and was finally appointed as the first officer in the Indian Army at that time to be an Aide-de-Camp of the Queen of the Netherlands in extraordinary Service. When he resigned (1909) I was fifteen years old, but I had witnessed all the vain efforts made by my father to obtain from the Parliament (through the Intermediary of the Governor-General of the Dutch-Indies and through the Minister of Colonial Affairs) the credits to build up a strong army. My father came into a grave conflict with Parliament (1907 or 1908), when one of bis most gallant and courageous officers who had succeeded in crossing with a small fighting troop one of the most dangerous parts of the East Indies (the Gajoe-lands in the south of Atjeh-Northern part of Sumatra) was summoned to resign. When I wished to choose a military career my father said to me:"Don't, with this Parliament the army will never be capable of working properly i.e. to fight a foreign enemy. Your energy will be wasted." The foreign enemy was at the time already "Japan".
I won't record the many happenings have occurred since 1909 and which proved the warning of my father to be right, because these happenings are so shameful that I prefer to pass over them in silence. So I decided to become an engineer and started my study in 1912. In 1914 I became a soldier (August 1st) and obtained the rank of lieutenant in the royal Artillery in the autumn of 1915. (My father and my grandfather were also Artillery officers.) I served in the army for 41/2 years. (1st August 1914-1st March 1919).
In 1918 the revolution in Germany caused a similar movement in the Netherlands. To my horror, I witnessed an amazing lack of determination to meet the revolutionary movement Many officers and soldiers declared, mat they would not oppose a revolution. Had not Mr. Colijn (an officer of the Dutch-Indian Army who had retreated some years before the war from miletary service) and his party (the Anti-Revolutionary Party in Parliament) taken strong action then the revolution would have been carried through with success as early as 1918.
My impression of the Dutch army strenghtened my belief that only a fundamental change in the governing system of Holland could create the fighting spirit, which is indispensable to win a war. Consequently I decided to enter a political career and I studied law in Leiden. I concluded my university exams in 1921. Meanwhile the League of Nations had started its work in Geneva. I had followed the lecturing of Professor van Eysinga on International Law and on the Covenant of the League of Nations.
Being liberal by education and by school and University training I thought the League might provide an instrument for smoothing down the defects of the peace-treaties and for building up Europe. In order to prepare myself for the League work, I tried to improve my linguistic training by studies in France and England (Mrs. Sheard, Monks Orchard, East Hendred near Steventon -about 15 miles from Oxford) for about 8 weeks in 1922. This was my first visit to England. So far I had disliked the English, as the Boer-war had left a very deep impression on me. I liked life in Engand and got on with the people very well. It may be of interest that Mr. van Kleffens, the present Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, who was a University friend of mine and who worked all that time (late spring 1922) at the Royal Dutch in London, invited me for a week-end in London. In September 1922 I joined the international Labor Office in Geneva, as a volunteer. My chief was a Spaniard, his assistant was a very able Canadian Lawyer named Corbett la Match 1923 I got a paid post as an assistant of the Commissioner General of the League of Nations in Vienna, Mr. Zimmermann (formerly Mayor of Rotterdam). He had undertaken to reconstruct Austria on the basis of the Balfour-Plan of September 1922.
I collaborated with him until the 30th of June 1926 when he resigned. There after I continued work as an Agent of the Financial Committee of the League of Nations until 30th June 1928. For the first time in my life I met an anti-Semite by principle, as Mr. Zimmermann professed to be. He discussed very often the destructive mentality of the Jewish race with me, but I did not see his point at that time, though I noticed some facts which focussed my attention to highly detrimental actions by Jewish speculators (the speculation against the French Franc, its breakdown and the consequent panic on the Vienna slock exchange early in 1924).
My most prominent colleagues were the Frenchman Pierre Quesnay and two Dutchmen; van Walré de Bordes (very well known at the Bank of England at the time of Montague Norman) and Pelt (who had been released by the information Section of the Secretariat of the League of Nations temporarily to Vienna and returned there later on, as well as van Walré de Bordes). The experience in Vienna and Geneva left the following life-long impressions on me:
1. The Austrians had become in 1919 and the years thereafter a completely depressed nation. Nevertheless the ability of the financial administration of the Finance Ministry, of the Issue Bank, of the Railway-administration and of the Audit office have been praised by international Dutch, English and French experts. Later on I gathered the impression that the Austrian Army had displayed a very high skill in leading so many different nations of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the first world war. If these qualities were generally unknown the fault lay entirely with the Austrians who like to criticize and blame themselves in an impossible way. I began to like these people immensely, but I did not respect them at that time. Respect came afterwards in 1931-1936, during my second term of office in Vienna when I was impressed by the vitality of the Austrian Nazi Movement.
2. The idealism of my above mentioned friends (former fiends) and some other members of the League of Nations secretariat showed itself in an indomitable working power and superhuman perseverance. The lack of success of the League of Nations should be considered as caused by defects in its organic construction.
3. Although I had no opportunity to meet Montague Norman, the Governor of the Bank of England, I was able to learn his vision and methods of reconstructing Europe by the work itself, by the close collaboration with some of his most ultimate assistants as for instance 'Otto Niemeyer' and in the later years 'Sir Robert Kindersley'. This vision of Montague Norman would still hold good under present conditions, i.e. Great Britain cannot and can never recover unless the purchasing power of Europe is restored or increased by comprehensive action.
When I left Vienna in 1928 I still hoped that Europe might overcome the consequences of the first world war, by continued efforts. I joined in Amsterdam the old private banking house of Hope & Co as an assistant of the very able banker Mr. ter Meulen. Hope & Co. was established more than 200 years ago by a Scotchman, Henry Hope. It financed European continental State loans including Russian in the last decennia of the 18th century. It co-operated with Baring Brothers in the financing of the Southern States of the USA (Mississippi, Florida etc). Its correspondent in Wall Street was Kidder Peabody. Since 1922, the beginning of the Austrian Reconstruction, it collaborated with J.P. Morgan & Co. in Wall Street, London and Paris. Mr. ter Meulen, my chief, was the best Dutch expert on American and British stocks, Bonds and Finances. He was the Dutch delegate in the Financial Committee of the League of Nations. I was trained by this very remarkable man mainly on the American stock exchange. So I had an opportunity of getting in closer touch with that remarkable clan of puritan banking houses of which J.P. Morgan and Co. with its branches in London and Paris, and Hope and Co. in Amsterdam were such typical representatives. I mainly co-operated with the London and Paris Branches of Morgans. In these years 1928 to 1931 during which I worked in Amsterdam, one of the most dramatic struggles against Jewish domination focused my attention again on the Jewish problem. I mentioned heretofore the activity of Jewish speculators in the breakdown of the Vienna Stock Exchange in the year 1924. The main trouble had been caused by a German Jew, Mannheimer. in 1926 this man led the international European speculation against the French Franc. I got most interesting information on this subject from my former Viennese colleague, Pierre Quesnay, who was at that tune (1926) the closest collaborator of the Governor of the Banque de France and Mr. Charles Rist (managing director). During the years 1928 till 1931 Mannheimer's effors were concentrated on obtaining the complete control of the capital market of Amsterdam. My chief, Mr. ter Meulen, was opposing these efforts in every possible way.
La 1929 the New York Stock Exchange collapsed; in the spring of 1931 the greatest bank in Vienna, the Creditanstalt, closed its doors: The Banking House of Hope & Co was heavily engaged. The subsequent outlook on European and world economy was so bad that I decided in agreement with Mr. ter Meulen to follow an invitation from Geneva to report on the Austrian situation in August 1931 and to quit my work at Hope's. In September the British Pound was devaluated. Meanwhile the Hoover Moratorium was pushed through and so I witnessed with my friends the complete disaster of the prosperity theory of world-wide Credit Expansion. It would lead me too far to argue the conclusions which I came to. I could do so 'viva voce'. I may enumerate only those conclusions which led me to National Socialist Economy:
1. The so-called liberal freetrade (Manchester School) could only function properly as long as the development of new overseas territories was in ful
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