Vereniging Hendrick de Keyser in wartime. Policy and governance under German Occupation

Abstract

During the German Occupation of the Netherlands between 1940 and 1945 it was not just government departments, forced to toe the German line, that were in jeopardy. Private organizations like Vereniging Hendrick de Keyser, whose core task involved the acquisition, restoration and leasing of historically important buildings, were also vulnerable. The difficulties and perils it faced included the commandeering of houses, diminishing funds for acquisitions and restorations, and divisions within the board on what attitude to adopt vis à vis the Germans.
Differences of opinion among board members came to light quite early on, when the head of the occupying forces, Reichskommissar Seyss-Inquart, enquired about hiring the house at Herengracht 284 for a soirée. That request sparked a heated discussion among board members, which revealed that one member was pro-German (Frans Vermeulen), two were not ill-disposed towards the occupier (Jan Gratama and Jacobus Boelen) while the remaining members (G. van Lennep, Van der Feltz, Westermann) were vehemently anti-German. These differences in attitude were aired at length both before and after the soirée. Vermeulen claimed that his intention had been to get Seuss-Inquart interested in the association in the hope of attracting more funding. But it never came to that because the board maintained a discreet distance from the German occupying authorities.

During this period, membership gradually declined, prompting the board to organize activities aimed at attracting new members. Board and the executive committee members were fairly successful in this and there was even a short film clip in 1943 that focused on the association’s 25^th anniversary, modestly celebrated on 4 January 1943 with a lecture by Frans Vermeulen and a reception.

There is no evidence of any concerted effort to bar Jewish members and no question of Aryanization of the association. In addition, by keeping its distance from the German occupying authorities, the board was able to prevent its properties, which included many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century houses, from being misused for national-socialist cultural propaganda. Herengracht 170 was leased in autumn 1941 by the Bank für Westeuropaïsche Wirtschaft. Its director, Alfred Flesche, was also director of Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co, the bank notoriously used by the Germans to rob Jews of their possessions. It is unclear whether the board was aware of the dual role played by Flesche, who had moreover worked for the German Abwehr before the war. A bomb shelter was built in the garden of Herengracht 170 and, in defiance of the agreement, never removed. Permission was requested and given for a fireproof room, but of this no trace remains.

By war’s end, six of the association’s buildings had suffered war damage. Its financial situation had deteriorated considerably and there was a sizeable backlog of restoration. After the liberation, Vermeulen and Gratama were arrested because of their pro-German stance; Boelen, the wartime chairman, died in 1946. Despite all the differences of opinion among board members and the difficult circumstances, the association had weathered the storm.