Learning from a Quisling in the Netherlands

I was just skimming through the excellent Nazi Rule and Dutch Collaboration: The Netherlands under German Occupation, 1940-45 by Gerhard Hirschfeld and found an interesting discussion about German policy towards the native fascist movements after the occupation of the Netherlands. (266-8)

Apparently, the Germans concluded that the Quisling coup d’etat just before Norway’s capitulation actually increased Norwegian military opposition to German troops. Having “learnt a lesson” from the Quisling debacle, Hitler’s instructions to Seyss-Inquart in the Netherlands included no orders to include local fascist NSB party inclusion in the occupied government and he apparently had no interest in native fascist movements in the Netherlands. Thus for some time in the early stages at least, it was an uphill battle for the Dutch fascists (and in some ways this mirrored the Norwegian case) to carve out a position of power in the new occupied environment, which they eventually did.

As for a comparison of military enlistment, it looks like in total, between 22,000 and 25,000 Dutchmen volunteered for the various formations of the Waffen-SS (around 40% were NSB members), which if I remember correctly is more than the about 15,000 volunteers for German units in the much less populated Norway. (288) Fortunately, a German plan to conscript 300,000 Dutch troops was eventually dismissed by Hitler who did not want to depend too much on the NSB leader Mussert. (303-4)

Related Posts:
Tale of a Norwegian Soldier
Primary Materials on Norway During WWII