THE NAZIS IN HOLLAND.

Evening Star, Issue 24329, 19 October 1942, Page 2

THE NAZIS IN HOLLAND.

It was prophesied by Bismarck that Holiand would one day join Germany of her own free will. If the ways of peace had been followed 'by the Germans that might conceivably have happened, but after 1914 the Dutch people began to realise the potential dangers of close cooperation and friendship with their ambitious neighbour. It was patent that Germany was on the march. Her longrange plan of conquest was only temporarily delayed by her defeat. Holland from diplomatic motives wag spared invasion in the last but this time she has supped of its horrors to the full. After the invasion the Nazis attempted by appeasement to win over the Dutch population, but when their sham friendliness was not reciprocated they resorted to force and the employment of characteristic brutal methods. An instance of this is recorded to-day by the shooting of fifteen Dutchmen for' sabotage and the employment of further repressive measures. Recently two years of Nazi oppression were crowned by the shooting of nearly 100 Dutchmen, the imprisonment of nearly 2,000 former members of the army, and the seizing of 500 civilians as hostages. Efforts to win over the population ] having failed, it is reported that a new I and radical German policy is to be adopted, its aim being to break the resilience of the people by crippling their physical strength. and reducing them spiritually to status of a [second-rate “Germanic” clan. The basiseof this polity- is a scheme for resettling in Eastern Europe, in particular the Baltic States, a large part of the Dutch population, which now numbers 9,000.000. Reasons that are impelling the Nazis to this course are the danger of allowing the formation of a cores of anti-German resistance in the Netherlands and of permitting the Dutch

to remain in important positions on the North Sea coast, which the invaders, conscious of the importance of sea power, desire to control. After the war Holland must be part of the garden to feed the Herrenvolk, and the people that remain in the country will the directed by their taskmasters to that end. The German resettlement scheme, involving the compulsory removal of 13,000,000 people, is an assault on the physical and geographical existence of the Dutch as a nation, and if the Nazis remained in their country as conquerors there is no doubt that it would be vigorously prosecuted.