From a paper presented to the
Ninth International Revisionist Conference.
Florence S. Rost van Tonningen
What is the
point of speaking about the past? Why take another look at the worldview of my
late husband, who was a National Socialist? Is there any point in speaking
about such things in the liberal democratic era in which we live today?
My answer is that there most
certainly is, for it is only through an open-mindedness toward the past that we
can understand the road to the future. An understanding of history guides us on
that road.
My husband, Meinoud Marinus
van Tonningen, was born on February 19, 1894 in Surabaja, Dutch East Indies, to
a well-respected Dutch family, many of whose members had held positions of
great national importance. My husband was brought up a patriot, and at the age
of 15 he decided on a military career.
His father had also chosen
that path, and had been decorated more than once for his loyal military
service. At the zenith of his career, my husband's father was appointed
commander-in-chief of the Royal Dutch Army in the Eastern Colonies, that is,
for the area now known as Indonesia. He led the three famous Bali, Lombok, and
Atjeh expeditions, for which he was appointed an Adjutant-General to the Queen.
He resigned in 1909, however, as a result of the parsimonious attitude of the
Dutch parliament toward the armed forces.
When the youthful Rost van
Tonningen told his father of his military ambitions, the latter discouraged him
with the words: "Don't, my boy. This parliament will never recognize the
needs of our army and will prevent it from properly carrying out its mission,
which is, above all, to withstand any foreign aggression. Believe me, my son,
all your efforts would be in vain." It was not until years later that my
husband came to understand the wisdom and farsightedness of his fathers advice,
which proved to be not only correct for my husband, but prophetic for his
country and for Europe as a whole.
In 1912 my husband decided to
become an engineer. But the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 intervened,
and he served instead in the army as an officer in the Royal Artillery. He
learned a great deal by closely following the intense political controversy
within the Dutch army during this period. He came to believe that only a
thorough reform of the entire economic and political system could prevent the
downfall of Europe. And out of that realization grew his interest in politics.
Despite his father's protests, he did not resume his engineering studies after
the end of the war in 1918, but instead registered as a law student at the
University of Leiden.
The revolution which shook
Germany and the immense economic crisis which loomed over Europe in the
aftermath of the World War further strengthened Rost van Tonningen's
determination to devote himself to an idealistic career in politics. In 1921 he
was awarded his doctorate by the University of Leiden. His dissertation, on
international law, dealt with possibilities of alleviating the economic and
political distress in Central Europe, much of it in consequence of the imposed
peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain. At that time still a liberal by
education and training, Rost van Tonningen believed that Central Europe could
be rescued through the intervention of the League of Nations.
Eager to work for the League,
Dr. Rost van Tonningen worked hard to improve his fluency in French, English,
and German, so that he could deal with political and economic issues on a truly
European basis. His understanding of international law and his close study of
the operations and problems of the League of Nations made him a welcome
volunteer at the League's headquarters in Geneva in 1922.
In the following year Rost van
Tonningen was appointed assistant to the Commissioner General of the League of
Nations in Vienna, Dr. Zimmerman, the former mayor of Rotterdam, who was
attempting to revive the economy of the shriveled Austrian state on the basis
of the Balfour Plan of 1922. Dr. Zimmerman, the first man of pronounced
anti-Semitic opinions whom Rost van Tonningen had met, attributed a portion of
postwar Austria's economic woes to the activities of Jewish speculators, many
of whom had flocked to Vienna after 1918. Although Rost van Tonningen was not
completely won over to the Commissioner General's standpoint, he became aware
for the first time of the Jewish question in Central Europe.
In 1928 Rost van Tonningen
left Vienna and the League to work as a banker at Hope & Co. in Amsterdam
and New York, but the world economic crisis of 1931, which followed the New
York Stock Exchange crash of 1929, led him to return to his work for the League
of Nations in Vienna. The collapse of the Credit-Anstalt, Vienna's biggest bank
in the spring of 1931 had been followed by financial disaster in Austria and
Germany, and Great Britain's departure from the gold standard in September.
Dr. Rost van Tonningen became
the representative of the Council of the League of Nations in Vienna, with a
mandate to promote Austria's economic reconstruction. During the next five
years he tried to work closely with the Austrian government in expanding
Austrian productivity and trade with neighboring nations.
During that period Austria was
beset by political as well as economic miseries. The Christian Socialists,
strongly clerical and authoritarian, banned both the Marxist Social Democrats
and the National Socialists, setting up a one-party state under the dictatorial
rule of Engelbert Dollfuss (until his assassination in an unsuccessful National
Socialist putsch in 1934) and Kurt Schuschnigg.
Rost van Tonningen, who at
first worked closely with Dollfuss and opposed the National Socialists, grew
horrified at Dollfuss' repression of his political enemies. At the same time,
Dollfuss grew to oppose a union of Austria with Germany, which seemed to Rost
van Tonningen to offer the only solution to Austria's economic problems.
Dr. Rost van Tonningen had
meanwhile concluded that economic liberalism and free trade were no longer
suited to Austria or to a politically balkanized Europe of small, independent
states. He had come to believe that only the formation of a controlled economy,
based on the just needs of a racial community occupying a large area (Grossraum),
could enable the Europeans to compete, in the long run, with such vast entities
as the Soviet Union, the British Empire, and the United States. His idea was
one of the first expressions of the need for a European economic community.
In 1935 and 1936 most European
countries devalued their gold currencies and went off the gold standard,
threatening monetary chaos. My husband, now a convinced National Socialist, saw
that the usefulness of the League to Austria and the rest of Europe was at an
end. Accordingly, Rost van Tonningen resigned his position in Vienna, resolved
to return to the Netherlands to devote himself to his country's National
Socialist movement.
Before his return, my husband
arranged through Germany's ambassador to Austria, Franz von Papen, to meet
Hitler at his mountain chalet in Berchtesgaden. They discussed the Führer's
policy toward England and the Germanic nations of the Continent; Rost van
Tonningen learned that Hitler favored a united European economy, and that he
believed that world prosperity would only be returned with the restoration of
the purchasing power of Europe, a block of over 300 million people with a high
standard of living.
In the Netherlands, Anton
Mussert, leader of the Dutch National Socialist movement
(Nationaal-Socialistisch Beweging), appointed Rost van Tonningen editor of the
movement newspaper, Het Nationale Dagblad (The National Daily). The
following year my husband was elected to the Dutch parliament, where he was
able to observe first-hand how the party politicians obstructed their own
experts, and those of the other parties, in solving the nations problems.
Within the Dutch National
Socialist Movement, the N.S.B., there was at first no general agreement about
the importance of large-scale economic thinking, or of racial unity. For
example, Jews had been members of the N.S.B. since its founding in 1931. Before
long, however, Dutch Jews organized a concerted campaign against the N.S.B.,
and it became impossible to ignore the Jewish question any longer. Mussert and
my husband met to discuss this issue, and they agreed that it had to be solved
in an orderly and peaceful way. They were convinced that the only solution
would have to be an independent Jewish state.
Palestine was considered, but
ultimately rejected as too small. Surinam, a Dutch colony in South America, was
decided upon instead. Our party presented this plan to the Dutch parliament,
where it was rejected by our political adversaries.
Meanwhile, Dr. Rost van
Tonningen had been sent by Mussert to Germany to promote discussion of this
"Mussert Plan" in the German press. Through Heinrich Himmler's
intervention, my husband was able to meet and discuss the resettlement plan
with Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. After some hesitation, the
foreign minister agreed to its publication. The permission of Dr. Goebbels'
propaganda ministry for press treatment of the issue was also obtained, but in
the end there was little mention made of the Mussert Plan. In 1937 my husband
spoke privately for the first time with Heinrich Himmler, the
"ReichsFührer SS," and soon became a member of his inner circle.
Himmler held my husband in high esteem, and introduced him to leading German
National Socialist figures in the fields of economics, sociology, and science.
Next to Hitler, Himmler was the most significant personality in the Reich's
leadership. His basic views can be summarized as follows:
· Unification of all Germans in
a greater German Reich;
· cultivation of close ties
between all Germanic people;
· unshakable faith in the
greatness and abilities of the Nordic race;
· conviction that racial mixing,
if carried too far, is disastrous.
From early 1940 rumors spread
that Hitler planned to attack our country. My husband believed that a German
invasion would make the task of the Dutch National Socialists impossible.
Accordingly, he traveled to Berlin that spring to discuss his and Mussert's
feelings with Himmler. Rost van Tonningen was unsuccessful in seeing the
ReichsFührer, but was able to speak with his chief of staff, Obergruppenführer
Wolff. Despite their understanding for the dilemma of the Dutch National
Socialists, it was clear that the Germans mistrusted Great Britain and France,
and believed (not without cause) that the government of the Netherlands was
secretly pro-Allied.
A week before Germany
attacked, Rost van Tonningen was arrested by the Dutch government, and accused
of high treason over the national radio. Dutch authorities shifted him from
place to place, fleeing before the German blitzkrieg. My husband was taken as
far south as Calais, from where the Dutch government planned to carry him
across the Channel to England, but was freed when the Germans captured the
city.
Rost van Tonningen returned to
the Netherlands at the start of June 1940. Since not only Queen Wilhelmina but
the Dutch government as well had fled to England, General Winkelman,
commander-in-chief of the Dutch land and sea forces, surrendered not only the
army and navy but also the Dutch civil administration to the Germans. Hitler
appointed the Austrian Arthur von Seyss-Inquart as Reichskommissar; the
delicate situation which Rost van Tonningen feared had come to pass.
For a year Rost van Tonningen
devoted himself to working politically with the German authorities. He was
entrusted with closing down the Marxist parties, including the Communists and
the Social Democrats, and building up a new organization, The Workers' Front
(Arbeitsfront) for labor. Rost van Tonningen assumed control of the Het Volk
(The People), the Social-Democratic daily; as long as the paper refrained from
criticizing the occupation, Rost van Tonningen did not intervene in its
workings.
Several parties were tolerated
under the German occupation, including Mussert's National Socialists; "De
Nederlandsche Unie" (Dutch Union), made up of members of several prewar
parties; and the NSNAP (National Socialist Dutch Workers Party), which
advocated the total incorporation of the Netherlands into the German Reich.
When it became clear to my husband, a Dutch patriot, that the initial German
policy of free development of political parties (not hostile to the occupation)
had been abandoned, he ceased his political work. With war against the Soviet
Union looming, Rost van Tonningen volunteered for service in the Waffen SS.
To Rost van Tonnigen's
surprise Seyss-Inquart opposed his plans; the Reichskommissar prevailed on
Himmler to reject Rost van Tonningen's application. Together with Anton
Mussert, Himmler and Seyss-Inquart convinced my husband to accept the post of
President of the Netherlands and Secretary-General of Finance. Rost van
Tonningen's mission was a difficult one. Customs duties had been abolished
between Germany and the Netherlands in January 1941; the resignation of Rost
van Tonnigen's predecessor, Dr. Trip, had been prompted by the abolition of the
foreign exchange barrier between the two countries on April 1, 1941. Although
my husband was assured that these two steps had been taken with the ultimate
aim of setting up a continental free trading community, this never came to pass.
Rost van Tonningen represented
Dutch interests within the German-dominated wartime continental economy to the
best of his ability. Although Hitler and Himmler were broadly sympathetic to
the Dutch desire for autonomy, my husband's efforts met with much resistance in
administrative and business circles.
After the Dutch capitulation
the Netherlands Bank had become virtually a branch office of the Reichsbank.
Various occupying authorities made big demands on the Dutch treasury: Göring
wanted 500 million RM per month, and so forth. In early 194Z Dr. Fischböck,
Seyss-Inquart's economic adviser, reached an agreement with Count Schwerin von
Krosigk, Reichminister of Finance, obligating the Netherlands to contribute 50
million RM per month, retroactive to July 1, 1941, to the fight against
Bolshevism. Despite these challenges, my husband was able to institute a
thorough reform of the Dutch banking system. He defended the interests of Dutch
business and workingmen alike. He devoted considerable energy to building up the
Netherlands East Company, which joined in German reconstruction and development
in the occupied Eastern territories in summer 1942.
Capture and Murder
M.M. Rost van Tonningen and I
were married on December 21, 1940. ReichsFührer-SS Heinrich Himmler was best
man. Our matrimonial vow echoed the SS oath: "Our honor is loyalty."
Before the end came for the
German Reich, my husband and I were given the chance to escape to Brazil. He
refused, determined to see things through to the end and ready to take responsibility
for his acts. Finally granted his wish, he took up arms as a member of the
Dutch Waffen SS.
Although my husband had let me
decide for myself whether I should flee with our: two children to South
America, naturally I declined. With the birth of my third child imminent, I
made a perilous escape from advancing Polish troops across lands which the
Germans had largely flooded to hinder the Allies' progress. A German ship then
brought me to the island of Terschelling, in West Frisia, far from the front.
There, in a small room,
unaided and alone, I brought my third child into the world, hale and hardy. My
husband was never to learn of the birth of this son.
Soon the people of the village
knew, however. My child's arrival was entered into the local register of births
and, following the local custom, the town crier, after blowing on his great
horn, proclaimed that the new-born child was the son of Rost van Tonningen. At
virtually the same time the islanders learned of He official announcement of
their country's liberation by the Allies, and the streets blossomed with little
Dutch flags.
My husband was well known; his
name adorned every Dutch bank note. The frenzied crowds, discovering that the
wife of a notorious "collaborator" was in their midst, dragged my children
and me from our room and would surely have lynched us in their wild hysteria
had not the ship's doctor of the German vessel which brought me to the island
happened by in his car just then. Driving into the crowd, he pulled us into the
car and drove off at high speed.
Since the Kriegsmarine had
capitulated, there was no chance of escaping on the ship which had brought me
to Terschelling; like the rest of the German warships in the harbor, it was
under embargo. Even my brave rescuer believed there was no hope for me; he
offered me a poison capsule.
There was, however, one German
vessel at anchor there which hadn't been seized, for it wasn't a warship. I
begged the captain to help my children and me escape. Without wasting any words
he weighed anchor and we sailed off into the North Sea, negotiating dangerous
minefields until we reached Cuxhafen, at the mouth of the Elbe. I was eager to
reach Germany because I believed, following the death of Adolf Hitler on April
30, that the Allies might cease hostilities against the Reich and march,
together with the remaining Waffen SS formations, against the Red Army. Himmler
had transmitted just such a proposal, through Count Bernadotte, to the British
and Americans, and my husband, close to the Reichsführer's circle, had gotten
wind of it. Like my children, I was half-dead with hunger and fatigue, but I
still hoped that I would meet my husband somewhere in Germany. That was not to
be, however. As I was to learn later, M.M. Rost van Tonningen died brutally at
the hands of his captors.
Shortly after arriving at
Cuxhaven, where my children and I were admitted to the hospital, I learned that
I was about to be arrested and extradited by the British. With the help of a
nurse I escaped and, fleeing by foot with my children along country roads, made
my way to Goslar in the Harz, where I was reunited with my family. After a few
days, however, I was arrested by the British and returned to the Netherlands.
It was only after returning that I learned something of my husband's fate.
At first I was kept prisoner
in the subterranean dungeons of Ft. Honswijk, where I endured terrible
treatment from the embittered and vengeful so-called Dutch
"democrats." After my release, I was able to locate and regain
custody of my three sons. but all our property had been confiscated.
My Fight for the Truth
I was then forced to make a
living for my family and myself, not an easy thing for the widow of a prominent
National-Socialist sympathizer in postwar Holland. Before the war I had studied
biology under the great ethologist Konrad Lorenz, and my studies had brought me
to China and the Dutch East Indies. Like other "collaborators."
however, I was excluded from work in my own field.
At first I tried to support my
sons by painting lampshades. No sooner had my persecutors learned of this than
the rumor was spread that the lampshades were made of human skin (the same lie
that was spread about Ilse Koch). I had to give up that enterprise. Thereafter
I started an electrical equipment business. Trained as a biologist, I made
myself into a businesswoman and technical expert. Beginning with 100 florins,
over the course of 34 years I built up my business to a factory employing 25
men.
Since my release from prison I
have worked tirelessly to establish the truth about my husband's death, of
which I learned in my captivity. Due to the refusal of the allegedly
"humane" and "democratic" regime which the Allies restored
in the Netherlands. I have so far been able to learn very little.
In April 1945 M.M. Rost van
Tonningen was captured by Canadian troops during the Allied invasion of the
Netheriands. At first he was held, together with other Dutch SS officers, at a
concentration camp in Elst. Following a visit by Prince Bernhard, consort of
Queen Wilhelmina, my husband was transferred to Utrecht and then, on May 24, to
a jail in Scheveningen, near The Hague. Thirteen days later he was murdered by
his captors in Scheveningen.
I never received official
notice of my husband's death, which authorities later claimed was a suicide.
They have never produced any evidence to support this claim: the records
pertaining to my husband have been sealed until the year 2069.
I was presented, however, with
a bill from the municipal sanitation service of The Hague, for on June 6, 1945,
the day of my husband's death, his remains were transferred, first from the
prison to a hospital and then to a cemetery, in a garbage truck. It was given
to me by a policeman named Gross, who carried a dossier with gruesome details
of my husband's mistreatment.
When I visited the hospital to
which my husband had been taken, the physician-in-charge was badly rattled when
he learned who I was. When I asked him about my husbands death, he stammered,
"No, no, Mrs. Rost van Tonningen, I can't talk about it." Then he
took of his white coat and led me out of the hospital, where he hailed a taxi
and directed me to the Witte-Brug Cemetery.
When I arrived there, it was
the same story. The director was frightened, for he had been told to say
nothing regarding my husband. He simply pointed to a row of portfolios, labeled
"Secret," on a shelf, and told me that one of them told the story of
my husband's death, of which he could say nothing more. Then he showed me the
grave, a mass-grave set aside for paupers, into which my husband's body,
without coffin, had been tossed.
Although I tried for years to
obtain permission to reinter my husband in our family plot, I was unsuccessful.
My request was taken under consideration by the Council of State, which
procrastinated for some time before informing me that the grave had been
cleared.
In 1950, which had been
proclaimed a Holy Year by Pope Pius XII, I visited the Pope in Rome. He was
aware of the mistreatment and murder of my husband, and he promised to help me.
On my return to Holland, I visited the papal nuncio in order to obtain a
document concerning my husband's death. I was unsuccessful, however, since the
Minister of Justice, a Catholic who was cooperating with the nuncio, was
suddenly transferred to the West Indies, where he had been appointed governor.
His successor, who was Jewish, was not friendly to my case. My attempts to
present my case to the International Court of Justice at The Hague were
similarly frustrated.
When I reached seventy years
of age, I fell ill, and required two operations. My sons were not interested in
taking over the running of my factory, and during my convalescence some of my
enemies, allegedly former members of the resistance, were able through various
tricks, to gain control of my business.
During the past five years I
have received over one hundred bomb threats, and my windows have been smashed
many times. My brake cables have been cut. For my opponents, everything is
allowed.
The press has stepped up its
campaign against me as well. Since my husband had been a member of the Dutch
parliament, I am entitled by law to a small pension. In 1984 a Dutch magazine
discovered this, and the professional "anti- Nazis" succeeded in pressuring
parliament to hold a hearing on whether my pension should be cancelled. So far
they have been unsuccessful.
Nevertheless, I have become
something of a judicial "muscle-meter," called "the Black
Widow," on whom litigants and lawyers can try their strength. After my
periodical Manuscripten published a picture of an unknown woman in the
costume of a fisherman's wife, I was astounded to receive a letter from a
lawyer demanding 50,000 florins for his client, an actress. Since we had (quite
unawares) used her picture without obtaining permission, I was eventually
forced to pay her 2,500 florins, as well as assume the costs of the lawsuit, an
additional 10,000 florins.
My home has been twice
searched by police looking for allegedly anti-Jewish literature. On their first
search the police found a brochure which questioned the factuality of the
Holocaust. The court found that to challenge the Holocaust was anti-Jewish, and
I received a three-month suspended sentence. The second search resulted in the
police confiscating Hitler's Mein Kampf and the Great Holocaust Trial.
My trial for possession of these books will begin on March 9, 1989 [Mrs. Rost
van Tonningen was subsequently convicted of possessing these forbidden books,
each available from the IHR. -- Ed.].
I hope that I have been able
to communicate successfully to an American audience something of my husband's
life and the ideals for which we both struggled. My husband refused to abdicate
his responsibilities or abandon his people. He stayed and fought honorably, only
to be butchered. Why? I believe not merely because Rost van Tonningen was a
Dutch National Socialist, but because he knew too much about those of his
countrymen who cooperated with the Germans in the beginning, then went over to
the Allies as Dutch patriots, "heroes of the resistance," and the
like. Had my husband stood trial, his defense might have proved embarrassing
for many Dutchmen in high places.
In my life I have experienced
many high points, as well as low points. I have tried to be equal to each
situation, always attempting to live in accordance with the spiritual basis of
life, the mission that is given each of us to carry out on the earthly plane.
The life of each of us is merely a thread in the larger fabric or plan.
I still count our meetings
with Adolf Hitler as highlights in my life. For us he was a leader who
dedicated, and sacrificed, himself for his people, one who eminently fulfilled
his life's mission. He united his countrymen, of all classes and stations, from
the aristocracy to the farmers and laborers, as had no man before him. His
soldiers fought heroically to the last, particularly the men of the Waffen SS,
not only Germans but from across Europe. Like my beloved brother, who died in
combat in the ranks of the SS, and my husband, I think of Adolf Hitler as the
first European.
I shall close with the words
of Rudolf Hess, the martyr who earned, but was never awarded, the Nobel Prize
for Peace. After being sentenced to life imprisonment at Nuremberg despite his
flight for peace, he told the court:
If I were standing once again
at the beginning, I would act again as I acted, even though I knew at the end I
would burn at the stake. No matter what people may do, one day I shall stand
before the judgment seat of God Eternal. I will justify myself to Him and I
know that He will absolve me.
Source: Reprinted from The Journal of
Historical Review, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 427-438.
