Historical story

Coffee with your NSB neighbor

The recently graduated historian Josje Damsma came to a striking conclusion in her dissertation:the Dutch did not necessarily hate NSB members as a person. This conclusion sparked heated reactions in the press and on various forums. Is the time ripe for the cozy NSB neighbor? Her reaction.

“The judgment of the environment depended on the behavior of the person concerned. This meant a field of tension between the opinion of the group – the NSB was hated – and the individual. According to bystanders, he only became a 'typical NSB'er', according to bystanders, and people emphatically turned away from him. The NSB member therefore still had room to maintain ties and other identities.”

Your dissertation generated emotional commentary and rejection of your conclusions. What is your reaction to this?

“The commentary was less intense than I expected actually. I also notice that everyone gets what they want out of it. One says that I think black and white about the NSB, and others are just about the normal social interaction of NSB members and non-NSB members. What is the truth? In my opinion it was indeed black and white, as far as the NSB as an organization is concerned. The Dutch hated that club, but this does not mean that there was no personal contact with NSB members themselves. They were also just people going to work and neighborhood parties. After the war, the image arose that all NSB members were hated. And now the NSB is still a frequently used swear word."

Is it still too soon after the war to be able to say that not everyone hated NSB members?

“I think the time is right now for these kinds of topics. The sources are slowly becoming public and the public interest is there. More and more people who are interested in the subject no longer have an emotional connection with the war. They did not experience the war and the acquaintances or family that do have become increasingly scarce or no longer exist at all.”

Why has this not been investigated before?

“The National Archive contains more than 500,000 files from post-war lawsuits against Dutch people who had collaborated with the occupying forces. These kilometers of archive have only been made available to a limited extent for a few years now. That is, only for scientific research and on request. For this, only relatives of the convicted were allowed to view the official reports, in connection with the privacy of the still living NSB members. In the meantime, many NSB members have died, so that permission from the family is no longer required to view their files. And in about 15 years it will be completely easy because then the files will be public for everyone. I studied over 300 files and I was allowed to read everything from them. But that was not possible before I started my PhD research.”

The witness statements examined by Damsma showed that the active NSB member was hated, but not the NSB neighbor who was not bothered by anyone. He shouldn't have gone to jail, as far as the neighbors were concerned. There were even neighbors who sent positive letters to the judiciary to exonerate NSB members.

You are not yet thirty and you are therefore far removed from the war in terms of age. What effect did this have on your research?

“I think this was necessary to be able to look at NSB members from a distance. I have no emotion about the subject and that often played a role in previous studies. The NSB and their members were often investigated by people with a connection, for example children of NSB members, because only they had access to the archives. These earlier studies often had a purpose and I had none other than my interest. I didn't have to paint a certain picture of the NSB that I was looking for evidence from or anything like that."

In 2010, Josje Damsma and Erik Schumacher published the public book Here lives an NSB member, about the NSB in Amsterdam. For this they studied personal stories, police reports and diary fragments. The book provided an image of a movement in which conviviality played an important role. At the same time, many NSB members were convinced National Socialists and participated in the persecution of the Jews. However, their political choice did not always mean the end of their friendships and family ties.

To what extent is this thesis a supplement to the book Here lives an NSB member ?

“The book was only about Amsterdam and in the dissertation I also look at NSB members from other cities. The dissertation is also broader in scope:in three micro-studies at street level, I look at the attitude of Amsterdammers towards their NSB neighbors in three specific streets, where many Jews also lived and were taken away during the war. (The Kromme Mijdrechtstraat, the Zacharias Jansestraat and the Hudsonstraat.) The public book is more the general story.”

Is your conclusion now different than in the book?

“I had studied 40 NSB members for the book and more than 300 for my dissertation. The conclusion in the book was 'greater':some people had some sympathy for the NSB. However, after the extensive investigation, I have to adjust that image:the NSB was generally hated, there was no half-hearted sympathy for the NSB. But for NSB members personally. People thought about the NSB in very black and white, that was wrong, and on a personal level people often thought 'grey'. For example, about that friendly NSB neighbor, who didn't bother them at all.”

After Mad Tuesday on September 5, 1944, half of the NSB members fled to Germany. The remaining men had to register for the Dutch Landwacht by the occupying forces. Land guards checked identity cards, acted against black trade and tracked down people in hiding. These Landwachters became the most hated group of NSB members because of their public violence in the last year of the war.

How do the hated Landwachters in '44 and '45 relate to your conclusion of cozy NSB members in the street? Or was that only true for the early war years?

“The male NSB members who stayed here indeed had to commit themselves to the Landwacht. But not everyone signed up. And for those who did, the location where they were stationed was very important. Amsterdam NSB members who were placed in Hoorn, for example, dedicate themselves to the Landwacht out of sight of their neighbors. The reactions of the neighbors to these NSB members were a lot more positive than reactions to NSB members who started working in their own neighbourhood."

According to your research, the average divorce rate among NSB members was 5 times higher than among non-NSB members. Your explanation is that NSB members more often made non-conformist choices. Isn't it more logical that partners did not want to be married to an NSB member?

“That does indeed make more sense, if the divorces had taken place during the war. But these data are about NSB members who were already divorced before their membership, in the 1920s and 1930s. It also turned out that a large number of these already divorced NSB members also came from broken families. Interesting discoveries, which I happened upon during my research.”

Will there be a follow-up study into these social ties within NSB families?

“Not by me, but I did transfer all my archival research and data to the Heritage of Collaboration project, of which my dissertation is a part. And during the final phase of my dissertation, I had an intern who was very enthusiastic about this topic and continues to write papers on it as well. So hopefully there will be a follow-up study!”

Josje Damsma (1984) started her PhD research in September 2008. Halfway through, she published the popular science book Here lives an NSB member. At the end of her research, she participated in the National Think Tank for Social Solutions. It was here that she got the idea to give freelancers as a gift. Good for employment among freelancers and handy to get. Josje converted this idea into the company JOCadeau, which she has devoted herself completely to since her promotion in July 2013.

- Josje Damsma, Nazis in the Netherlands. A social history of National Socialist collaborators 1940-1945 (Amsterdam 2013)- Josje Damsma and Erik Schumacher, An NSB member lives here (Amsterdam 2010)- CABR in the Nationaal Archief- Dissertation discussed in the Parool- Discussions on forums after publication in the press, such as on Nu.nl and Forum.fok.nl

Read more on Kennislink about National Socialism and WWII