Hubertus van Mook

Hubertus van Mook (1942)

Hubertus Johannes (Huib) van Mook (born May 30, 1894 in Semarang in the Dutch East Indies ; † May 10, 1965 in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue , France ) was a Dutch colonial official and minister. Since 1945 he endeavored to restore Dutch power in the Dutch East Indies as Luitenant-Gouverneur-Generaal and head of the colonial administration.

Life until 1918

After attending school in Surabaja in 1912, Huib van Mook went to the Netherlands, where he studied chemistry at the University of Amsterdam in 1912/13 and from 1913 at the Delft University of Technology . In 1914 he signed up as a volunteer in the army and finally studied Indology at the University of Leiden from 1916 , where he received his diploma in 1918. In his studies he was strongly influenced by the progressive Leiden School of Indology.

Work in the Dutch East Indies

Van Mook informed journalists in July 1947 about the start of the first "police action" in the War of Independence

After graduating, van Mook returned to the colony and worked in Semarang as an inspector. Later he became, among other things, assistant resident of the police in Batavia , editor and diplomat. A study leave in the Netherlands, where he wanted to do his doctorate in 1925, came to nothing.

In Gerbrandy's cabinet in exile in London he had been Colonial Minister since November 20, 1941, but remained in the colony. From January 1, 1942, he also served as Governor General of the Dutch East Indies. When Japan conquered the colony in the Pacific War in 1942 , he moved to Australia .

After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Van Mook tried to restore Dutch power in the archipelago. The Indonesian War of Independence , however, meant that the Netherlands had to transfer sovereignty to the Indonesian Republic in December 1949.

Life after the colonial war

From 1949 to 1951 van Mook taught as a politics professor at Berkeley, then he entered the service of the United Nations as a development expert. Since 1960 he lived in France, but still taught regularly at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague.

Honors

• In October 1940 the Batavian Law School awarded van Mook an honorary doctorate in economics.
• On September 4th, 1947 van Mook received the Ridder grootkruis in de Orde van Oranje-Nassau .

Web links

• Dr. HJ van Mook , Parlement & Politiek

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Author: HW van der Dunk. Biography, Dutch . Last update: March 13, 2008. Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis . Retrieved July 27, 2010