Hendrikus (Hendrik) Colijn (22 June 1869 –
18 September 1944) was a successful Dutch soldier,
businessman and politician. He was born in 1869 in the Haarlemmermeer to Antonie Colijn
and Anna Verkuil, who had emigrated to the Haarlemmermeer polder from Heusden en Altena for
religious reasons. At the age of 16, he went to a Military Academy in Kampen for officer
training, where he graduated as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1892. In 1893, he married Helena Groenenberg and was sent to the
Dutch East Indies. During his 16 years in the Dutch East Indies, he spent ten years in
the Colonial Army, serving in the Aceh War as
the lieuteant of J. B. van Heutsz, and six further years in the Colonial
administration, having the same role towards van Heutsz when the latter became Governor General in 1904.
Colijn's letters to his wife from that period reveal his participation in appaling acts of brutality which by modern standards
would be considered severe war crimes:
" I have seen a mother carrying a child of about 6 months old on her left arm, with a long lance in her right hand, who was
running in our direction. One of our bullets killed the mother as well as the child. From now on we couldn't give any mercy, it
was over. I did give orders to gather a group of 9 women and 3 children who asked for mercy and they were shot all together. It
was not a pleasant job, but something else was impossible. Our soldiers tacked them with pleasure with their bayonets. It was
horrible. I will stop reporting now."[1]
His wife wrote in the margin : " How terrible !!"
After his return to the Netherlands in 1909, he became elected as an Anti
Revolutionary Party Member of Parliament for the district Sneek. (Before 1918, the Dutch voting system was the same as the
British)
In 1911 he was appointed Minister of War and revised the Dutch Selective
Service System. From 1914 to 1922 he served as CEO for the Bataafse Petroleum Maatschappij
(BPM). In 1925, he also became CEO of Royal Dutch Shell.
In May 1918 he acted as an intermediary between the English and Kaiser Wilhelm
II of Germany to arrange an armistice, resulting in the Kaiser getting refuge in The Netherlands.
In 1922 he accepted the political leadership of the Anti Revolutionary Party (Calvinist) from Dr. Abraham Kuyper. Between 1925-1926 and 1933-1939 he served five times as Prime Minister. During the 1930s
his government faced the effects of the Great Depression, which took
a heavy toll on the Netherlands. Colijn's government responded to the economic crisis with a very strict fiscal policy, which may
have further weakened the Dutch economy. Colijn's decision to adhere to the Gold Standard
until 1937, long after most of the trading partners of the Netherlands had dropped it, also played a role in lengthening the
economic crisis. In 1939, his latest cabinet, with Protestant and liberal ministers but without catholic ministers, served only
three days before a government crisis. From 1927-1929 he also was head of the Dutch delegation to the League of Nations in
Geneva.
After the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, he published an essay entitled “On the Border of Two Worlds”
(Op de grens van twee werelden) in which he called for accepting German leadership in Europe.
This was immediately after the Royal House had fled to England leaving him behind. His view was influenced by the tremendous show
of the German blitzkrieg and the relative weakness of the British. Soon thereafter, he tried to organize political resistance but
was arrested in June 1941 and taken to Berlin for interrogation. The Germans tried to have him confess that he had conspired with
the British to invade the Netherlands to serve as an excuse for the Germans invasion [2]. Late in the war after the tide
had turned against the Germans, Himmler wanted to keep Colijn available as a possible intermediary with the British as he had
done earlier for the Kaiser [1]. In March 1943 he was put under house arrest in a remote mountain hotel in
Ilmenau (Thuringen), Germany, where he died on September 18, 1944.
Footnotes
- ^ Aad Engelfriet (Arcengel) "Introduction to the History of the Dutch East
Indies" [1]
- ^ Personal communication from Hendrik Colijn (grandson of
Hendrikus). Hendrikus Colijn reported this information during a visit by Hendrik in June 1943. The very fact that the Gestapo
allowed the visit in Ilmenau suggests that Himmler was already making contingency plans in case of a Nazi loss.
|
Dutch Colonial Ministers, 1848–1945 |
Julius Constantijn
Rijk | Guillaume Louis Baud | Engelbertus Batavus van
den Bosch | Charles Ferdinand Pahud | Pieter
Mijer | Jan Jacob Rochussen | Johannes Servaas
Lotsy* | Jean Pierre Cornets de Groot van Kraaijenburg | James Loudon | Gerhard Hendrik Uhlenbeck | Gerardus Henri Betz* | Isaäc Dignus Fransen van de Putte |
Pieter Mijer | Nicolaas Trakranen | Johannes Jerphaas Hasselman | Engelbertus de Waal | Lodewijk Gerard Brocx | Pieter Philip van Bosse | Isaäc Dignus Fransen van de Putte | Willem van Goltstein van
Oldenaller | Fokko Alting Mees | Pieter Philip van
Bosse | Hendrikus Octavius Wichers | Otto van
Rees | Willem van Goltstein van Oldenaller | Willem
Maurits de Brauw | Willem Frederik van Erp Taalman Kip* | Franciscus Gerard van Bloemen Waanders | August Willem Philip
Weitzel* | Jacobus Petrus Sprenger van Eyk | Levinus
Wilhelmus Christiaan Keuchenius | Æneas Mackay d. J. | Willem Karel van Dedem | Jacob Hendrik Bergsma | Jacob Theodoor Cremer | Titus van Asch van
Wijck | Johannes Willem Bergansius* | Alexander Willem
Frederik Idenburg | Dirk Fock | Theodorus
Heemskerk* | Alexander Willem Frederik Idenburg | Jan
Hendrik de Waal Malefijt | Thomas Bastiaan Pleyte | Jean Jacques Rambonnet | Alexander Willem Frederik Idenburg |
Charles Ruijs de Beerenbrouck* | Simon de
Graaff | Hendrikus Colijn* | Charles
Welter | Jacob Christiaan Koningsberger | Simon de
Graaff | Hendrikus Colijn | Charles
Welter | Cornelis van den Bussche | Charles
Welter | Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy | Hubertus van Mook
*denotes interim |
|
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