In this film I will take you back to the
beginning of World War II when the Germans launched a vicious attack on the
Netherlands in May 1940 The film focuses on the eventful days
whereby the country prepares for war Rotterdam is bombed to the ground the
Dutch government capitulates and the Germans take over the control of the
country In the course of 1939 it became apparent
that the Netherlands would most likely not be able to stay neutral in a
potential new world war like it did during World War One
Preparations were therefore made to defend the country
Here we see a train being prepared to become an army Hospital train [Music] The Dutch population is informed how to
protect themselves against Air Raids Important buildings are protected with
sandbags [Music]
Shelters are dug out for the population to find refuge in case of enemy attacks
[Music] [Music]
On the 28th of August 1939 the general mobilization was announced by the Dutch
government Women take over the jobs of the
recruited men [Music]
[Applause] [Music] A food rationing card system is set up
[Music] Ships are requisitioned for troup and
military goods transport [Music] Dutch harbours are being carefully watched
by the military [Music] and the Navy actively patrols the
Dutch Coast [Music] The Dutch forces are on full alert
[....] [Music]
[....] [Music] [Music] [....]
[Music] [Music]
On the 10th of May 1940 the German Army crossed the border with the Netherlands
For five days the ill-equipped and undermand Dutch Army attempted to resist
the onslaught [Dutch soldiers gave hard resistance everywhere, but were no match for the German onslaught] [Music] Queen Wilhelmina was persuaded by Army general Winkelman to flee to England in order to escape from
being captured and imprisoned by the Germans On the 12th of May the royal
family, comprising of Queen Wilhelmina her daughter Juliana with husband Prince
Bernard and the two children Beatrix and Irene left the harbor of IJmuiden
the HMS hereward (G93) to Harwich It is claimed that Wilhemina was not aware
of the fact that the ship was heading for England [Music] Some Dutch people criticized the Queen and called her cowardly, but during the
German occupation the queen grew into an important symbol of the fight against
Nazi Germany Her broadcast via Radio Orange from London
contributed to keeping morale high among the Dutch population
Till this day part of the Dutch population still considers Wilhelmina to
have acted in a cowardly fashion by choosing to flee [Music] In the early afternoon of the 14th of
May 1940 around 13:27h, the German air force bombed Rotterdam 90 heinkel 111 bombers of the Kampf Geschwade 54 Tottenkopf Squadron participated in the attack
Between 800 and 1400 residents of Rotterdam perished and about 80 percent
of the old city center was totally destroyed No less than 78 000 people
became homeless [Music] In the evening of that terrible day many
buildings were still ablazed like the "Plan-C" building seen here
The city burnt for days on end [....] [Music] After Germany threatened to also bomb other major
Dutch cities like Utrecht and Amsterdam and posed an ultimatum, the Dutch
government capitulated a day later [Music] General Henry winkelmann signed the
Declaration of Capitulation in the presence of German General George Von
Küchler as highest ranking officer [Music]
In the days after the people of Rotterdam started to clear the rubble
Sadly the city council decided to build an entire new city center
and thus many buildings there were only slightly damaged and could have been
saved were demolished as well [Music]
What remained was a Barren landscape as can be seen here
The only building more or less Still Standing was the Laurens Kerk
[Music] on May the 30th 1940 there was a sober
Memorial gathering at Crooswijk Cemetery for the Dutch and German soldiers who
had fallen in the battle for Rotterdam There were no more commemorations
after that Representatives of the various branches
of the Dutch Army were present, together with the Rotterdam Municipal executive
Colonel Peter Scharoo, garrison command of Rotterdam, was the first to address the
delegations. Ober Leutnant Ranneft represented the German Army which was
present with a detachment The graves were marked with simple white
Wooden Crosses bearing the name and army unit of the deceased. The Joint Memorial
by both armies is remarkable to say the least A memorial was erected at Crooswijk cemetary
as can be seen here Here we see the NSKK, the
Nationalsozialistische Kraftfahrkorps parading through respectively the Hague, Amsterdam
and Haarlem. The NSKK was a paramilitary unit within the NSDAP, the German
National Socialist laborers party The NSKK consisted of various
so-called "Motor gruppen", motor corpses that largely performed logistical and
other tasks for the Wehrmacht [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] On the 29th of May 1940 the government
of the Netherlands was officially transferred from the Wehrmacht to the military
commander of Belgium and the Netherlands General Alexander von Falkenhausen to
the Austrian-born Arthur Seys Inquart Originally he was a lawyer and a
Nazi politician Here we witnessed part of the ceremony
in the Ridderzaal at The Hague where he is instated as Reichskommissar. [On behalf of the Führer and highest Wehmacht commanders, ] [I now, as the German Wehrmacht commander in the Netherlands, transfer my] [military and civilian powers to Reichs Minister Seys Inquart [As Reichs Kommissar of the occupied territories in the Netherlands] [According to the wish of the Führer power is trasfered from General Frankenhausen to me] [...to be translated...] [....] [....] [....] On the 15th of July 1940 the so-called Orderdienst began its task of
redeveloping the country This service had a military structure
and was led by a Dutch Army Major Here he is seen speaking to his
Orderdienst troops [....] [....] [....] As early as October 1940 the Reichskommissar
Seys Inquart decided to reduce and gradually close the Orderdienst
to transform it into the Dutch Labor Social life starts to pick up as well as
the Dutch population tries to regain the typical Dutch coziness called "Gezelligheid"
typical for the pre-war era. In view of the curfew [....] At the beginning of World War II the
Dutch national socialist movement NSB a kind of "Netherlands first" party
established in 1931 joined forces with the German occupiers as a collaboration party
Its leader engineer Anon Mussert was in the assumption that he could politically
run the country as part of the new Third Reich during World War II
Around 1943 of 101 000 people were a member of this authoritarian anti-democratic
movement [Music]
In the course of World War II the NSB became more radical, fascist and
anti-Semitic For decades the stigma of NSB members
having been in the wrong, in Dutch "Fout", during the war persisted [Music] This is interesting footage of an NSB
WWeerbaarheids Afdeling (WA) parade marching on the Damrak and the Dam in
Amsterdam on the 9th of November 1940. It is rather astonishing to see the
number of Spectators lining the route and making the NSB "Houzee" salute
the WA was the militarized entity of the NSB better designated as "riff raff in uniform"
They were called The Zwarthemden, black shirts, and were extremely violent
to Jews On the 1st of May 1941 Anton Mussert held
this speech: "It is our firm conviction that the 1st of May will be a Day of Unity in the whole of Europe (etc.) [Music] [Music] Part one of our series about the
Netherlands in Wartime ends here in In subsequent episodes I will dig deeper
into this period in the Netherlands history You will have noticed a much higher quality
of video enhancement and especially the colorization. This is the result of a new
colonization method where by an AI is fed with manually colorized reference frames
The AI then tries to keep track of the objects in the reference frames
Here is a slideshow of nearly all the manually created colorized reference frames
Thanks for watching!
