Prosper Joannes Gerardus Antonius Ego (17 July 1927 – 23 January 2015) was the founder of the

Oud-Strijders Legioen The Oud-Strijders Legioen (OSL; "Former Warriors' Legion") was a Dutch right-wing veterans' organization that was active after 1958 and which still maintains a web presence. Though never a big organization or a political party, the OSL exerted con ...

(“Former Warriors Legion”). Ego was born into a

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family at

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

. At the age of 17, during the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

German occupation of the

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, he was arrested and deported to Germany as a forced labourer. On his return he worked in the administration of the

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. Ego was sent as a conscript to the

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(now Indonesia) in 1947 where he was stationed in the Dutch army garrison at Makassar, Sulawesi as a hygienist. On Ego’s return to the Netherlands in 1950 he worked for some time at the Red Cross, and afterwards as an insurance agent. He was active in the Katholiek Nationale Partij (Catholic National Party) and participated in the founding of the Veteranen Legioen Nederland (Veteran’s League of the Netherlands). At the end of 1955, partly under pressure from the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, the Katholiek Nationale Partij was absorbed by the Katholieke Volkspartij (Catholic People’s Party). Some KNP members, particularly in the Hague, opposed this, and in early 1956 the Nationale Unie (National Unity) party was formed. Ego stood as a candidate for the NU in the parliamentary elections of that year, but failed to get elected. After the Hungarian uprising in 1956 conflicts arose within the Veteranen Legioen Nederland. Partly because of these conflicts, Ego set up the Oud-Strijders Legioen for those who served in the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

in 1958, and became its chairman. He was the Nationale Unie’s candidate for the Hague in municipal elections in 1958, but was not elected. In 1960 some members of the Nationale Unie left and joined the newly formed Liberale Staatspartij (Liberal Party). Ego became vice-chairman, and stood as a candidate in the parliamentary elections of 1963, but the party failed to win a single seat. Ego supported

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

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, and was one of the founders of the Stichting Nederlands Zuid-Afrikaanse Werkgemeenschap ( Netherlands-South Africa Friendship Association). He was also involved with the Stichting Nederland-Verenigde Staten van Amerika ( Netherlands-USA Association). During the 1970s the OSL was opened to non-veterans. Ego used the OSL’s magazine ''Sta Vast'' to publish pro-Nato and pro-American articles. The OSL flew airplanes over peace demonstrations with banners carrying the slogans “Rather a rocket in the garden than a Russian in the kitchen” and “Stop the SS20 rocket”. In 1995 Ego was fined 5000

guilder Guilder is the English translation of the Dutch and German ''gulden'', originally shortened from Middle High German ''guldin pfenninc'' (" gold penny"). This was the term that became current in the southern and western parts of the Holy Rom ...

s (2270 euros) after being found guilty of inciting

xenophobia Xenophobia (from (), 'strange, foreign, or alien', and (), 'fear') is the fear or dislike of anything that is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression that is based on the perception that a conflict exists between an in-gr ...

. The charges related to articles published in ''Sta Vast'' in 1992, in which ethnic minorities were called "profiteers" and "

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

s". Although the articles were not written by Ego, as editor he was held responsible for their publication. In an interview in 2004 Ego stated that since the conviction articles were carefully scrutinised before being sent to the printer. In the September 2009 issue of ''Sta Vast'' Ego announced his intention to quit as

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and chief. It was also announced that the Sta-Vast van de Stichtingen voor Vrijheid en Veiligheid would be wound up. The two main reasons were Ego's age (82) and the decline in readership, which had fallen from a high of 14,000 in the 1980s to 2,500. In 2010 the Oud-Strijders Legioen closed. Some OSL board members started a website, OSL-Actueel ( OSL-News). Ego wrote for this

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

. He died in

Breda Breda ( , , , ) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the southern part of the Netherlands, located in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant. ...

in 2015.

Biography

* Vincent Dumas, ''Een man van Sta Vast: Prosper Ego, De inzet voor Vrijheid en Veiligheid'', Uitgeverij Contour, 2008,

External links

'Ophangen dat zooitje'
''De Groene Amsterdammer'' (22 March 1995).

critical biography produced by the

Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of real ...

in the

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* Interview with Prosper Ego in BN/De Stem (June 2004) {{DEFAULTSORT:Ego, Prosper 1927 births 2015 deaths 20th-century Roman Catholics 21st-century Roman Catholics Dutch anti-communist propagandists Dutch military personnel of the Indonesian National Revolution Dutch nationalists Dutch activists Dutch politicians convicted of crimes Dutch Roman Catholics Far-right politics in the Netherlands People convicted of racial hatred offences Politicians from The Hague