Hendrikus "Hendrik" Colijn (22 June 1869 – 18 September 1944) was a Dutch politician of the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP; now defunct and merged into the

Christian Democratic Appeal The Christian Democratic Appeal ( nl, Christen-Democratisch Appèl, ; CDA) is a Christian-democratic political party in the Netherlands. It was originally formed in 1977 from a confederation of the Catholic People's Party, the Anti-Revolution ...

or CDA). He served as

Prime Minister of the Netherlands The prime minister of the Netherlands ( nl, Minister-president van Nederland) is the head of the executive branch of the Government of the Netherlands. Although the monarch is the ''de jure'' head of government, the prime minister ''de facto'' ...

from 4 August 1925 until 8 March 1926, and from 26 May 1933 until 10 August 1939.

Early life

He was born on 22 June 1869 in the

Haarlemmermeer Haarlemmermeer () is a municipality in the west of the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Haarlemmermeer is a polder, consisting of land reclaimed from water. The name Haarlemmermeer means 'Haarlem's lake', referring to the body of wate ...

to Antonie Colijn and Anna Verkuijl, who had migrated to the newly created Haarlemmermeer polder from the

Land of Heusden and Altena RMSDeltaNorth

The Land of Heusden and Altena ( nl, Land van Heusden en A ...

for religious reasons. He was the first of six children, all born in Haarlemmermeer. Colijn grew up in the

Land of Altena The Land of Altena ( nl, Land van Altena) is a historical region and former fiefdom of the Lords of Altena, historically part of the County of Holland, but since 1815 located in the Dutch province of North Brabant. The Land of Altena lies on a ...

Military service

At the age of 16, he went to a military academy in Kampen for officer training, where he graduated as a 2nd lieutenant in 1892. On 18 September 1893, he married Helena Groenenberg (23 September 1867 – 14 February 1947) and was sent to the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, whic ...

. During his 16 years in the Dutch East Indies, he spent ten years in the

Colonial Army Colonial troops or colonial army refers to various military units recruited from, or used as garrison troops in, colonial territories. Colonial background Such colonies may lie overseas or in areas dominated by neighbouring land powers such ...

, serving in the Aceh War as the lieutenant of J. B. van Heutsz, and six further years in the Colonial administration, having the same role towards van Heutsz when the latter became Governor General in 1904. Colijn's letters to his wife from his period on Lombok reveal his participation in acts of brutality which by modern standards would be considered severe war crimes:

I have seen a mother carrying a child of about 6 months old on her left arm, with a long lance in her right hand, who was running in our direction. One of our bullets killed the mother as well as the child. From now on we couldn't give any mercy, it was over. I did give orders to gather a group of 9 women and 3 children who asked for mercy and they were shot all together. It was not a pleasant job, but something else was impossible. Our soldiers tacked them with pleasure with their bayonets. It was horrible. I will stop reporting now.

Political life

After his return to the Netherlands in 1909, he was elected as an Anti-Revolutionary Party Member of Parliament for the district of Sneek (before 1918, the Dutch voting system was the same as the British). In 1911, he was appointed Minister of War and revised the Dutch Selective Service System. In May 1918 he acted as an intermediary between the British and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to arrange an armistice, resulting in the Kaiser getting refuge in the Netherlands.

Business life

In 1910, the Holland Dakota Landbouw Compagnie was established with Hendrikus Colijn and his brother :nl:Arie Colijn as the primary share holders. From 1914 to 1922 he served as CEO for the

Bataafse Petroleum Maatschappij Bataafse Petroleum Maatschappij or Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij (colloquially known as BPM), Dutch for ''Batavian Oil Company'', was the Dutch East Indies and later Indonesian subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell oil company established in 1907. ...

(BPM). In 1925, he also became CEO of

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New ...

Prime minister

In 1922 he accepted the political leadership of the Anti-Revolutionary Party (Calvinist) from

Abraham Kuyper Abraham Kuyper (; ; 29 October 1837 – 8 November 1920) was the Prime Minister of the Netherlands between 1901 and 1905, an influential neo-Calvinist theologian and a journalist. He established the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, which u ...

. Already one year later he succeeded resigning minister Dirk Jan de Geer as

Minister of Finance A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", ...

. In 1925 Colijn also became prime minister, but a year later had to step down when the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

accepted a resolution by Gerrit Hendrik Kersten of the Protestant

Reformed Political Party The Reformed Political Party ( nl, Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij, SGP) is a conservative CalvinistThese sources describe the SGP as a Calvinist political party: * * * * * political party in the Netherlands. The term ''Reformed'' is not a refere ...

which called for diplomatic ties with the Vatican to be broken. This was unacceptable to the Roman Catholic State Party then in government. Colijn then returned to the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

, and from 1927 to 1929, he served as head of the Dutch delegation to the

League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference th ...

in Geneva. At the election of 1929 he was elected for the House of Representatives, and immediately became

Parliamentary leader A parliamentary leader is a political title or a descriptive term used in various countries to designate the person leading a parliamentary group or caucus in a legislative body, whether it be a national or sub-national legislature. They are their ...

of his party. This proved to be a success: at the election of 1933 the ARP gained two seats, and Colijn became Prime Minister again. From 1933 to 1939 he served four more times as prime minister. During the 1930s his government faced the effects of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, which took a heavy toll on the Netherlands. Colijn's government responded to the economic crisis with a strict protectionist policy, which continued to weaken the Dutch economy. Colijn's decision to adhere to the

Gold Standard A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from th ...

until 1936, long after most of the trading partners of the Netherlands had dropped it, was very unpopular with those in favor of government fiat money. In 1939, his latest cabinet, with Protestant and liberal ministers but without Catholic ministers, lasted only three days before a government crisis. He resigned as Prime Minister on 10 August, only three weeks before the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

World War II and death

After the Dutch defeat in the

Battle of the Netherlands The German invasion of the Netherlands ( nl, Duitse aanval op Nederland), otherwise known as the Battle of the Netherlands ( nl, Slag om Nederland), was a military campaign part of Case Yellow (german: Fall Gelb), the Nazi German invasion of ...

in 1940, he published an essay entitled "On the Border of Two Worlds" (''Op de Grens van Twee Werelden''), in which he called for accepting German leadership in Europe, immediately after the Royal House had fled to England, leaving him behind. His view was influenced by the tremendous show of force the German blitzkrieg had shown and the relative weakness of the Allied forces. Soon thereafter he tried to organize political resistance, but was arrested in June 1941 and taken to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

for interrogation. The Germans tried to have him confess that he had conspired with the British to invade the Netherlands to serve as an excuse for the German invasion. Late in the war, after the tide had turned against the Germans, according to a grandson,

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...

wanted to keep Colijn available as a possible intermediary with the British, as he had done earlier for

Wilhelm II , house = Hohenzollern , father = Frederick III, German Emperor , mother = Victoria, Princess Royal , religion = Lutheranism (Prussian United) , signature = Wilhelm II, German Emperor Signature-.svg Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor ...

. The very fact that the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...

allowed the visit suggests that Himmler was already making contingency plans in case of a German loss. In March 1943 Colijn was put under house arrest in a remote mountain hotel in Ilmenau, where he died on 18 September 1944.Oral History Hendrik "Henk" Colijn

Decorations

References

External links