Frits Slomp

Bust of Frits Slomp in Hardenberg

Fredrik "Frits" Slomp (born March 5, 1898 in Ruinerwold , † December 13, 1978 in Vaassen ) was a Dutch pastor and resistance fighter against the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II .

biography

Apprenticeship and first years of employment

Frits Slomp was born in Drenthe as the second of three sons to a farming family that was closely connected to the Dutch Reformed Church . He decided to study theology "to shake people up". In 1926 he finished his studies at the Free University of Amsterdam and the following year he married the daughter of a local school director; the couple had a son and a daughter.

In 1927 Slomp became the first reformed pastor in Nieuwlande , where he met the later resistance fighter Johannes Post , with whom he worked in the resistance. Three years later he went to Heemse , a current district of Hardenberg . Due to the proximity of the border with Germany, Germans were also among his churchgoers, who kept him up to date on political developments in their home country. He himself read the writings of Hitler as well as Rosenberg and National Socialist newspapers. He recognized the dangers of the Nazi ideology and tried to influence his community members and warn them. He also preached in the Evangelical Old Reformed Church in Bentheim, Germany, and continued to do so even after the authorities had banned Dutch pastors in Germany from preaching in 1937.

Frits Slomp was a practical and socially committed pastor. In 1935, as chairman of a commission to combat youth unemployment, he went with a delegation to The Hague to protest against the futility of an unemployment project. He also opposed a decision by the Dutch government of May 10, 1938, according to which unemployed Dutch people should be sent to Germany for employment. He saw it as an attack on intellectual freedom, as in his opinion those affected would not return "undamaged". With the help of the church council, Slomp persuaded the peasants in his village to hire another servant each time to reduce the number of unemployed, and he himself hired additional preachers.

In resistance

When the influx of German Jews grew stronger from November 1938, Slomp organized hiding places for the people, and from 1941 also for " Reichsdeutsche " who wanted to evade service in the Wehrmacht . "Slomp was always niet anti-Duits, maar anti-Nazi", writes the biographical Woordenboek van Nederland (Eng. = "Slomp was definitely not anti-German, but anti-Nazi."). He called in a number of ways to resist the Germans who occupied the Netherlands in May 1940 . After he gave a sermon on July 12, 1942, calling for a boycott of the Nederlandse Arbeidsdienst , the Gestapo wanted to arrest him, but he was able to go into hiding before he was arrested.

In late November at a sermon in 1942 learned Slomp Winterswijk the board member of the Gereformeerde Vrouwenvereeniging in Nederland , Helena Kuipers-Rietberg , who helped the submerged under the code name "Tante Riek" people. At their request, he initiated the establishment of a national network, the Landelijke Organizatie voor Hulp aan Onderduikers (LO). Under his code name Frits de Zwerver (dt. = Frits the Streuner ) he cycled through the Netherlands to get in touch with existing resistance groups and to initiate the establishment of new groups. As Ouderling Van Zanten uit Dordrecht , he continued to preach, mostly unannounced. The Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland writes: “Hoewel hij op het eerste gezicht door zijn small figures weinig indruk maakte, bezat hij een grote overtuigingskracht, the voortkwam uit zijn principiële levensbeschouwing. Daarbij hielpen hem zijn mensenkennis en empathie, alsmede zijn spontaniteit, gevoeligheid, vrijmoedigheid en onafhankelijkheid. "(Dt. =" Although he made little impression at first glance because of his small stature, he possessed a great power of persuasion, which arose from a worldview with principles His knowledge of human nature and empathy as well as his spontaneity, sensitivity, frankness and independence helped him . ")

Frits Slomp was freed from the Koepelgevangenis in Arnhem (here a photo from 1999) in 1944.

In October 1943, the SD Frits Slomp, one of the most famous resistance fighters in the Netherlands, was so close on his heels that he - against his declared will - had to resign from the chairmanship of the LO, which he had held up until then. From then on he limited himself to local activities in his community. However, his restlessness and stubbornness constantly put him in new danger and his friends in despair. On May 1, 1944, he was accidentally arrested by two police officers near Ruurlo because they thought he was a Jew, and he was taken to Koepelgevangenis in Arnhem . From there he was freed by ten armed members of the Landelijke Knokploegen (LKP) on May 11, before the Germans found out his identity. He and his family remained in hiding until April 11, 1945, the day Overijssel was liberated .

After 1945

Slomp's further life was determined by his war experiences. After the end of the war, he initially looked after the widows and orphans of around 1,700 men killed in the resistance. Between June 1945 and March 1946, he and a representative of the Catholic Church gave lectures on the subject of De geestelijke achtergrond van het verzet (German = the spiritual background of the resistance ). In it he particularly emphasized the role of women who had taken on a variety of tasks in the resistance, including his own. He also looked after former members of the National Socialist Movement and the Dutch SS who were troubled by conscience.

In January 1948 Frits Slomp traveled to the Dutch East Indies to look after the former resistance fighters there. At the beginning of February 1949 he drove his jeep to a land mine. He survived but retained hearing damage. During his stay there, he changed his earlier, rather positive attitude towards Dutch colonial policy. In 1950 he returned to the Netherlands and started working in Hoorn , but went into early retirement in 1962 because the congregation there tried to prevent him from looking after lower-class families in particular and from holding services for them. Until 1966 he was involved in evangelism in the predominantly socialist community of Noordwolde and held weekly sermons until shortly before his death.

In 1965 Slomp, unlike many Dutch members of the resistance, spoke out in favor of a wedding between Crown Princess Beatrix and the German diplomat Claus von Amsberg and was also able to convince others of his position. In 1972 he also pleaded for the release of three German war criminals, the so-called Three von Breda , from prison.

Commemoration

In 1995 a bust in memory of Frits Slomp was unveiled in Hardenberg.

In 1976 the journalist Jan Hof published the book Frits de Zwerver. Twaalf jaar strijd tegen de naziterreur , with a foreword by Prince Bernhard . The eighth, revised edition of the book was published in 2013 in collaboration with Slomp's son Jan. Anne de Vries had started work on a novel about Frits Slomp, but his drafts remained unworked as a result of his untimely death in 1964.

literature

• Jan Hof: Frits de Zwerver. Twaalf jaar strijd tegen de naziterreur . Uitgeverij Omniboek, Utrecht, 8th edition 2013, ISBN 978-90-5977-938-9 .
• Dick Kaajan: Kampen: one point of the tour over geestelijk verzet . In: Kamper Almanak , vol. 2003, pp. 176-195 ( online ).

Web links

• Ad van Liempt: Heleen Kuipers-Rietberg. Aunt Riek (1893-1944). Historically Nieuwsblad, 2011, accessed January 4, 2015 (Dutch). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} H.J.Ph.G. Kaajan: Slomp, Fredrik (1898–1978) . In: Klaas van Berkel (Red.): Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland , Vol. 6, Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, 's-Gravenhage 2008, ISBN 978-90-5216-163-1 ( online ).
2. ↑ Bevrijding Frits Slomp uit Koepelgevangenis, 11 May 1944. (No longer available online.) Wo2-verzet.nl, archived from the original on March 7, 2016 ; Retrieved January 4, 2015 (Dutch). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ David Izelaar: Frits de Zwerver - Twaalf jaar strijd tegen de naziterreur. Go2War2.nl, October 25, 2013, accessed January 4, 2015 (Dutch). 
4. ↑ Dick Kaajan: Kampen: einpunt van tournee over geestelijk verzet . In: Kamper Almanak , vol. 2003, pp. 176-195, here. P. 195.