Historian Bas Kromhout became fascinated by the Dutch SS man Henk Feldmeijer and his almost religious belief in National Socialism. Kromhout wrote a biography about 'De Voorman', on which he recently obtained his PhD at the University of Groningen. “Feldmeijer was one of the few Dutch Nazis who was willing to kill and die for his ideal.”
Anton Mussert, Meinoud Rost van Tonningen, Kees van Geelkerken; Biographies have now been published of many Dutch people who sided with the Germans during the Second World War. One was still missing:Henk Feldmeijer.
Feldmeijer (originally called Veldmeijer, but his father changed the family name to Feldmeijer shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, possibly out of German sympathies), as a member of the NSB and a fanatical supporter of the Greater Germanic ideology, the Germans gave the order to set up a Dutch branch of the SS as 'Foreman', as part of the Allgemeine SS.
According to Kromhout, Feldmeijer was a very fanatical National Socialist. As a 'righteous SS man' he fought on the Eastern Front against the Russians. The defeat of the German army at Stalingrad made him realize that his ideal of a Greater German Empire was an "all or nothing battle". Upon his return, he began to kill fellow countrymen and in a desperate attempt to stop the Allied advance drove to his own death.
On the cover of Historisch Nieuwsblad, the magazine of which you are editor, Feldmeijer was called 'the worst Dutchman of all time'. How did you come up with the idea to write a biography about this man?
“The story about Feldmeijer stems from the first book I wrote. Born Wrong was about children of parents who collaborated in the war. One of the people I interviewed for this was Ekke, the son of Henk Feldmeijer. When I started to read more about Feldmeijer I discovered that he was only 29 years old when he became Foreman of the Dutch SS. I noticed that because I was also 29 at the time. His completely different life path immediately amazed me.”
“He also didn't really fit into the image I had of NSB members, who were often portrayed as a poor imitation of the German National Socialists. That certainly did not apply to Feldmeijer. He was radical and very straight-forward. His son once said:'My father did not collaborate with the occupying forces, he was the occupying forces.' That seemed like a rewarding subject for a biography, I wanted to find out how Feldmeijer had become so radical."
In this biography you write that he actually played a greater role within the NSB than that other well-known Dutch national socialist, Meinout Rost van Tonningen. How about that?
“During the occupation years, there was a major ideological struggle within the NSB between two directions. On the one hand, there were people like Mussert who wanted to make the Netherlands a National Socialist state, but independent of Germany. On the other hand, you had more radical elements such as Rost van Tonningen and Feldmeijer. Who preferred to see the Netherlands united together with other 'Germanic peoples' in a large Germanic Empire. That was also what Hitler and Himmler had in mind.”
“The fact that the Netherlands would become independent again, as Mussert wanted, was therefore never an option for the Germans. According to many historians, they had put their cards on Rost to win the Netherlands over to National Socialism. But Feldmeijer is always forgotten. In my opinion, it was not Rost but Feldmeijer who was their man to Nazify the Netherlands.
“Feldmeijer was asked by Heinrich Himmler to set up a Dutch SS. Not that Rost didn't have good contact with Himmler, but some high-ranking Nazis suspected him of having Indian blood. The transition to National Socialism should be organized entirely by the SS. For the Germans, Feldmeijer was the one who had to do that, not Rost.”
Was Feldmeijer actually involved in the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands?
“He, and the SS men he directed, were in any case involved in tracking down and deporting Jews. Whether he also knew what happened to these people at the 'end station' I cannot say for sure. In any case, in lectures he showed a very strong anti-Semitism.”
“In speeches, for example, he said that the 'Jew problem' was only solved when the last Jew disappeared from the Netherlands. Whether he also knew that 'disappearing' meant as much as 'gassing' is not entirely clear. In any case, it shows that he was behind the policy of arrest and deportation. The grand plan behind the Final Solution will not have been officially communicated to him, his rank within the SS was too low for that. Much was kept secret. But it may well have come to his ears informally. In any case, I have not been able to find any hard evidence for it.”
Feldmeijer was an intelligent boy. Before joining the NSB, he studied physics at university. How come he was so attracted to National Socialism?
“Father Feldmeijer was a sergeant in the Dutch army and belonged to the lower middle class. With the gradual emancipation of the working class, great insecurity arose in precisely this group. Many people felt that the traditional right-wing parties were doing too little to protect the middle class. That alone made the Feldmeijers part of the 'natural electorate' of a party like the NSB."
“Feldmeijer had a great talent for mathematics and physics and went to study at the University of Groningen with a government grant. That was an elitist world, and Feldmeijer found no connection with, for example, the corps. He was an only child and used to being placed on a pedestal by his parents, but in Groningen he did not belong because of his low background. That was when resentment arose. Feldmeijer thought he was better than that elitist mess and deserved better.”
“Despite his talent for mathematics, Feldmeijer was also a romantic. That is also why National Socialism was attractive to him. After all, that is based on ideas such as masculinity, struggle, heroism.
All reasons why Feldmeijer eventually chose to discontinue his studies, in the hope of being able to play a pioneering role in a new future. He joined the fledgling NSB and became a full-time activist, although it yielded nothing materially for him."
“You could perhaps say that out of disgust at his exclusion by the Groningen student elite, he decided to set up his own 'corps' in the form of the SS:camaraderie, initiation rituals and of course a lot of drinking together. In the end, he bites into it so much that he is willing to die and kill for his ideal.”
Did Feldmeijer also kill people outside the front?
“Feldmeijer was one of the initiators of 'Aktion Silbertanne', coordinated assassination attempts on members of the resistance. When Feldmeijer returned bitter after his time on the Eastern Front and was reinstated as Foreman of the Dutch SS, he urged Hanns Albin Rauter, the highest-ranking SS officer in the Netherlands, to take urgent measures against the resistance.”
“Rauter ordered him to select men from his own ranks who were willing to kill resistance fighters. The group became known as 'Sonderkommando Feldmeijer'. Mussert turned against it. Killing compatriots in this way was the pinnacle of Feldmeijer's radicalization. In particular, 'the lesson from the front' has been very important. It hardened and strengthened him in the idea that his struggle for a Greater German Empire had become an 'all or nothing' struggle.”
“When the Allies had already penetrated far into Belgium, many NSB and SS men fled. Rost van Tonningen tried desperately to make peace by mediating between Himmler and the Allies. Not Feldmeier. He even begged Rauter to assemble a battalion to fight the Canadians. In his 'belief', which National Socialism had increasingly become, there was a struggle going on between the Germanic race and the Jewish race, which used Bolshevism on the one hand and capitalism on the other."
“In that struggle it was about destroy or be destroyed. For Feldmeijer it was the latter. On his way to the front, his car passed a German convoy that had just come under fire from an American fighter pilot. He was accidentally hit and died in a hospital in the village of Raalte, not far from the front.”