The young historian Evertjan van Roekel conducted research into Dutch volunteers in the German Waffen-SS on the basis of original war diaries. As murky as some pages of history may be, a sensitive subject like this deserves to be examined in a nuanced way.
In January 2010, a controversial article by historian Evertjan van Roekel (1983) was published in Historisch Nieuwsblad. Diaries of Dutch people who volunteered to join the German Waffen-SS during the Second World War showed that these Dutchmen had been guilty of excesses and massacres of Jews and Communists during the battle on the Eastern Front. Although the diaries were already known to a small circle, many historians believed that Dutch SS men were mainly frontline soldiers and that the persecution of the Jews took place largely outside their field of vision. Even the NOS news devoted an item to Van Roekel's findings.
Van Roekel found the diaries in the NIOD, the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation. He researched them for his graduation thesis Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Amsterdam. His thesis resulted in the revelations in Historisch Nieuwsblad. The book Boys van Nederland is now available on the same subject. Dutch volunteers in the Waffen-SS appeared.
On the basis of these diaries, Van Roekel sketches a 'personal and human picture of those who were regarded by many as inhumane after the war'. What moved these men? Why did they join the most feared and hated killing machine Nazi Germany has spawned? And perhaps the most interesting question:with what motivation did they participate in the horrific torture, slaughter and humiliation of Jews and prisoners of war they found in Eastern Europe?
Some men sign up for ideological reasons. Admiration for Germany and Adolf Hitler, an urge to march together with 'Germanic brother nations' against the Bolshevik threat. Racial hatred or anti-Semitism apparently played a minor role. Far more often, however, much more trivial reasons were involved. A longing for brotherhood, excitement and sensation. Many men apply without knowing exactly that they had applied to the SS. They were promised 'training' in Germany with the prospect of a well-paid job within the German bureaucracy.
The Dutch volunteers ended up in the SS division “Wiking”, specially set up for Nordic fighters. This was one of the SS divisions that was deployed in June 1941 for 'Operation Barbarossa', the large-scale campaign against the communist Solvjet Union. This operation would develop into a war of annihilation of unprecedented brutality. Special Einsatzgruppen were set up for the mass execution of Jews and communists. These death squads moved behind the front to make the conquered areas 'Jew-free'.
In practice, the distinction between the Einsatzgruppen with their specific task and the Waffen-SS men at the front was less sharp. There were also Dutch SS men who took part in the criminal massacres. Van Roekel shows this more than convincingly on the basis of the diary fragments of Dutch volunteers. On July 4, 1941, so a month after the start of the Russian campaign, SS officer Frederiks wrote:
“Had a stop in a village near Tarnopol for an hour's break. In that hour a Mongolian and 2 Jews erschossen. Before having the Jews dig a hole for 3 people. They lay down in it to see if they would fit, and when it was done they were replaced and the well was full and was filled up.”
Around the same time, SS officer Wiersma wrote:
"Today I have to tell you how beautiful it was to hang a chief rabbi from the tower of his synagogue in Tarnopol and then set the synagogue on fire."
Van Roekel's book still contains many of these shocking fragments. In his introduction, Van Roekel explicitly states that no conclusions can be drawn for the Dutch SS as a group on the basis of the eight diaries examined. All the more incomprehensible is the foreword by Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Johannes Houwink ten Cate.
In his foreword – in which he praises Van Roekel's research – Houwink ten Cate writes:'This book is a new history of the more than 20,000 Dutchmen who voluntarily enlisted in the Waffen-SS.' This foreword is as incorrect as it is misleading, because it gives the impression that the eight diaries show that 'the Dutch SS man' participated en masse in war crimes and the persecution of the Jews. And that is precisely a conclusion that not may be drawn from this book.
In addition, Boys of the Netherlands according to Houwink ten Cate a 'contribution to the debate about the Dutch during the occupation, which, however you look at it, is conducted 'under the spell of right and wrong''. Although Van Roekel's book exposes cruel excesses that can without doubt be qualified as 'wrong', it is not his intention to portray the Dutch SS men involved as single or inhuman. He is looking for the nuance by pointing out the human side of these inhumans.
According to Van Roekel, the average Dutch volunteer was an 'ordinary person who ended up in extraordinary circumstances according to what was seen as correct and necessary'. Until the 1990s, Dutch SS men were simply seen by many as traitors to their country. An objective inquiry into their motivations and mindset was seen as unnecessary and excusable for their crimes.
There are still historians who want to hold on to the previously dominant black and white way of thinking. But no matter how obscure some pages of history may be, a sensitive subject such as Dutch volunteers in the Waffen-SS also deserves to be examined in a nuanced way. With Boys of the Netherlands Van Roekel offers a very readable and accessible insight into this complex and still fraught history.