Mathieu Smedts

Martin van Amerongen and Mathieu Smedts (1967)

Peter Mathijs "Mathieu" Smedts (born May 26, 1913 in Helden-Grashoek , † August 11, 1996 in Amsterdam ) was a Dutch journalist and author . From 1955 to 1969 he was editor-in-chief of the political weekly newspaper Vrij Nederland .

Life

Smedts grew up in a large family in modest circumstances. Originally from the Catholic province of Limburg , he was supposed to become a priest, but due to his stubbornness he left the seminary after a year. Smedts then studied English at the Catholic University (now Radboud University ) in Nijmegen and then trained as a journalist in London within two years . It was here that he met Joop Lücker , who would later become the editor-in-chief of de Volkskrant , with whom he remained friends until the latter's death, despite a subsequent long break. During his time in London, Smedts was a correspondent for various Limburg newspapers.

After completing his training, Smedts worked for the US news agency United Press for a short time and then for the Swiss news agency SPT. After the outbreak of World War II , Smedts was part of the resistance and helped escape Jews and Allied pilots in hiding. Betrayed in Belgium , he was arrested in November 1942 and subsequently sentenced to death. Some love poems found by Smedts to a German saved his life; he spent the following time until the end of the war in various prisons as a prisoner affected by the Night and the Fog .

After the war, Lücker brought Smedts to the newly formed editorial office of the Catholic Volkskrant , which had not appeared since 1941, and was initially editor-in-chief there. Since he had a difficult time there, he left the newspaper after a year and was briefly editor-in-chief of the Gazet van Limburg . However, Lücker brought him back as a correspondent in London, where he worked for de Volkskrant until 1955 . As a “rebellious Catholic” Smedts was not always in line with his newspaper; an episcopal pastoral letter finally led him to accept the offer of the ailing weekly Vrij Nederland to become editor-in-chief there. Smedts tied a number of journalistic greats to the paper and managed to turn around. Although Lücker initially resented the move to Vrij Nederland and Smedts broke off the friendship, he renewed the friendship after he had to submit his departure to de Volkskrant in 1964 .

1969 saw the end of Smedt's time as editor-in-chief of Vrij Nederland . Joop van Tijn , an editor of the newspaper and one of the successors of Smedts in 1991, had reported on the resignation of the editor Hora Adema through her newspaper Het Parool . Het Parool director van Norden, who was on the board of trustees of the publisher of Vrij Nederland “Weekbladpers”, then asked for an apology, which Smedts made on the front page the following week. As a result, the entire editorial staff of Vrij Nederland was terminated . This was averted after a mediation, but Smedts drew his conclusions from the incident and resigned on March 1. Smedts continued to work as a freelancer for Vrij Nederland until 1978 and provided reports from the USA for Het Vrije Volk . In 1972 he moved with his second wife to the French mountain village of Sospel , but returned to Amsterdam in 1993, where he spent the last years of his life.

Works

• Australië. Nieuw Vaderland , Het Parelsnoer, Voorhout 1955
• Geen tobacco, geen hallelujah. Het leven van de laatste mensen uit de steentijd , Foreholte, Voorhout 1955
• Den vaderland getrouwe: Een boek over oorlog en verzet , De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam 1962
• Italie: Land, Volk, Cultuur , Het Wereldvenster, Baarn 1963
• Engeland: Land, Volk, Cultuur , Het Wereldvenster, Baarn 1964
• De long night (with Cees Troost), De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam 1965
• Een weerbarstig kathiek , Ambo, Utrecht 1966
• De grote kater (mighty / onmachtig America) , Het Wereldvenster, Baarn 1971
• Leven as God in Frankrijk , Het Wereldvenster, Baarn 1972
• Waarheid en leugen in het verzet , Corrie Zelen, Maasbree 1978

swell

literature

• Jan van de Plasse: Kroniek van de Nederlandse dagblad- en opiniepers / seed gesteld by Jan van de Plasse. Red. Wim Verbei , Otto Cramwinckel Uitgever, Amsterdam 2005, ISBN 90-75727-77-1 . (Dutch; earlier edition: Jan van de Plasse, Kroniek van de Nederlandse dagbladpers , Cramwinckel, Amsterdam 1999, ISBN 90-75727-25-9 )
• Joan Hemels: De emancipatie van een dagblad. Geschiedenis van de Volkskrant. Ambo, Baarn 1981. ISBN 90-263-0537-0
• Martin Sommer: Krantebeest - JM Lücker. Triomf en tragiek van een courantier. Uitgeverij Balans, Amsterdam 1993. ISBN 90-5018-214-3
• Obituary in the daily Trouw on August 13, 1996

Web links

• International Institute of Social History (Dutch)