Jan de Quay

Jan de Quay, 1962

Jan Eduard de Quay (born August 26, 1901 in 's-Hertogenbosch , † July 4, 1985 in Beers, today to Cuijk ) was a Dutch politician of the Catholic People's Party . He was a co-founder of the Nederlandsche Unie collaboration movement and its co-chair until it was banned by the German occupation. From 1946 to 1959 he was royal commissioner for the province of Noord-Brabant . From 1959 to 1963 he was Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

biography

Training and doctorate

Jan de Quay was born in 's-Hertogenbosch in 1901 as the son of Lieutenant General Rudolph Balthazar Antoine Nicolas de Quay. After graduating from a Jesuit school in Katwijk, he studied psychology at the University of Utrecht , some of which he completed in the United States . In 1927 he earned his doctorate in psychology with his doctoral thesis Het aandeel der sensorische componenten in het verloop van leer-en arbeidsproces (in German: “The proportion of sensory components in the course of the learning and work process”). This was followed by a post as a lecturer at the RK Handelshoogeschool te Tilburg, today's Tilburg University , which was converted into a professorship in 1933. In 1934 he became the first technical director of the University's Economisch-Technological Institute , which was committed to promoting research on technical and economic problems. A year later this activity was extended to the whole province of Noord-Brabant.

Nederlandsche Unie

In the 1930s, de Quay showed little ambition for a political career. Instead, he was mainly involved in youth development; During this time he held the post of chief commissioner of the Catholic Scout Movement and was a member of the Dutch Scout Council. He also campaigned for an improvement in national defense readiness and for overcoming the " pillars " of Dutch society. In August 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II, he was drafted into the army as captain of the reserve.

De Quay (left) with Einthoven and Linthorst Homan

Following the surrender of the Dutch armed forces and the beginning of the German occupation, de Quay became government commissioner and later general agent for labor issues. Although he had neither sympathy for Germany nor for National Socialism , he saw the need to come to terms with the new political situation and to work with the occupying power. To this end, he founded the non-partisan collaboration movement Nederlandsche Unie on July 27, 1940 together with the politician Johannes Linthorst Homan and the lawyer Louis Einthoven . The three founders distanced themselves from the parliamentary democracy of the pre-war period, but campaigned for continued loyalty to the Dutch royal house of Orange . For many Dutch people, the Unie , initially tolerated by the occupiers , represented a more moderate alternative to the openly fascist National Socialist Movement , which is why several hundred thousand people joined it. After the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union , the leadership of the Unie did not show enough willingness to support the Germans, which is why the organization was banned shortly afterwards in December 1941. In July 1942, de Quay was arrested and held in an internment camp in Sint-Michielsgestel . There he joined a group of prisoners called Heeren Zeventien, led by politicians Willem Schermerhorn and Willem Banning , who were already making plans for the future of the Netherlands after the war.

Post-war activities and prime ministerial positions

Swearing-in of the De Quay cabinet on May 19, 1959. Jan de Quay in front in the center

After his release in the summer of 1943, de Quay went into hiding as a precaution for the rest of the war, but kept in contact with various resistance groups. Following the liberation of the southern Netherlands in the autumn of the following year, he became chairman of the College of Commissioners General for Agriculture, Trade and Industry, against initial opposition from parts of the government-in-exile in London, which are reviving economic activity in the already liberated areas should. As a member of the Roomsch-Katholieke Staatspartij , the predecessor of the Katholieke Volkspartij (KVP), he became Minister of War in the government of Prime Minister Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy in April 1945 , but because of his past in the Nederlandsche Unie, he came into conflict with social democratic members of the coalition government and had to leave his post two months later. In order to get rid of the reputation of a collaborator, de Quay, together with Einthoven and Linthorst Homan, proposed an official investigation into the activities of the Unie's management trio , which ended with the conclusion that their actions could be “generally viewed as in the interests of the Netherlands”. Thereupon he was appointed commissioner of the queen in Noord-Brabant. In this position, he mainly campaigned for the expansion of industrial production and the expansion of the cultural offerings in the province.

In the parliamentary elections of 1959 , the KVP received almost 32% of the vote, making it the strongest party. After a difficult coalition formation, De Quay became Prime Minister of the first government coalition since the end of the war in which none of the socialist parties was involved, the De Quay cabinet . His term of office was mainly determined by the question of the future of the Dutch western New Guinea , to the solution of which the government concluded the New York Agreement with Indonesia in 1962 . Domestically, de Quay's government was able to benefit from a good economic situation. Among other things, it introduced the compulsory free Saturday in most industries.

Despite the parliamentary elections in 1963 that were again successful for the CIP , de Quay did not make himself available again as Prime Minister. Instead, he held a seat in the First Chamber of Parliament from now until his retirement from politics in 1969 . In the meantime he was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport in the interim government of Prime Minister Jelle Zijlstra for a few months . Jan de Quay finally died in 1985, leaving behind his wife and nine children.

Web links

Commons : Jan de Quay  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Biography de Quays at huygens.knaw.nl (Dutch)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Peter Romijn: The long war of the Netherlands: Occupation, violence and reorientation in the forties . Wallstein, Weimar 2017, ISBN 978-3-8353-1813-7 , pp. 56-57 .
2. ↑ Tweede Kamer 12 maart 1959. In: Verkiezingsuitslagen.nl. Retrieved September 3, 2019 (Dutch). 
3. ^ Kabinet-De Quay (1959-1963). In: parlement.com. Retrieved September 3, 2019 (Dutch).