Posters Artwork Documents

"Who is the true Netherlander ?"

Unknown authorship.

Propaganda image aimed at the Dutch subjects of the Nazi empire, contrasting the muscular, determined image of a Dutch Waffen-SS volunteer with that of an effete, dissipated supporter of the democratic Royal Netherlands government-in-exile (note the large Netherlands Royal Lion on the necktie of the latter). The Nazi message, while popular among a minority, was not generally well-received in the Netherlands, a "branch of the Germanic tree" (in the words of Dutch would-be fuhrer, Mussert) not very well understood by the Nazis. The Dutch people, for the most part, retained a strong traditional respect for their royal family, whose ancestors had fought hard over centuries to obtain and secure the independence of their country (by and large, I think they still do). Also, the Nazi approach to incorporating the Netherlands into their greater polity presented itself as increasingly disrespectful, based as it was on a particularly extreme cultural imperialism (actually wanting to turn the Dutch into "Deutsch"), against which Mussert's attempts to present his Netherlands Naziism as a respectable course for the Netherlands within the Nazi empire appeared increasingly hapless. Also, they often got significant details wrong. While disrespect for the Royal Government in exile was natural on the part of the Germans, the disparagement for the Royal Lion shown in this image would not have been appreciated by many of the target audience. Mind you, one wonders why the Germans ever thought that the Dutch - one of the surviving Low German linguistic cultures (apart from the English) most remote from Germany, were particularly suited to become a culturally colonized province of the "New Germany" anyway. Linguistic differences were sufficiently great (and, by the Dutch, appreciated) that the Dutch Resistance tended to use correct pronunciation of the ample supply of difficult Dutch words as a means of identifying Gestapo infiltrators. Not, perhaps, the most successful means - but indicative of a very meaningful attitude in the Netherlands. Best regards, JR.