Willem Aantjes

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Wim Aantjes (1974)
Willem Aantjes (2008)

Willem "Wim" Aantjes (born January 16, 1923 in Bleskensgraaf , South Holland , † October 22, 2015 in Utrecht ) was a Dutch politician . He was group leader of the ARP and the CDA ( Christen-Democratisch Appèl ). In 1978 he resigned after his membership in the Germanic SS in the Netherlands aroused great resentment and the suspicion of belonging to the Waffen SS had been raised.

Life

Willem Aantjes was born in 1923 as the son of a post office manager in Bleskensgraaf, South Holland province, and grew up in a Reformed family. He completed his schooling in Sliedrecht and Rotterdam .

From July 1943 to October 1944 Aantjes worked as part of the labor input as a postman in Mecklenburg Güstrow . There he reported to the Germanic SS in the Netherlands, which was officially part of the NSB , but actually an independent organization, in order to be able to return to the Netherlands. When he refused to pursue a career with the Waffen SS , he was interned with other objectors in Port Natal prison in Assen , where he had to dig trenches. After the war he kept silent about his membership in the Germanic SS, beginning with his enrollment at the University of Utrecht in September 1945.

Aantjes became a member of the Second Chamber for the Protestant Anti-Revolutionaire Partij (ARP) in 1959 . In 1971 he took over the chairmanship of the parliamentary group. In 1967 he was offered the Ministry of Housing, which he turned down, officially for health reasons, but in reality because of his secretive role during the war. December 1977 Aantjes was parliamentary group leader of the CDA, the merger of the newly formed party of ARP, KVP and CHU .

His reputation was irrevocably damaged when the historian Loe de Jong stated during a live broadcast on Dutch television on November 6, 1978 that Aantjes had been a security guard in Port Natal prison and a member of the Waffen SS. He then resigned on November 7, 1978 as group leader of the CDA. His successor was Ruud Lubbers . Half a year after the affair, an investigation showed that De Jong was wrong and that the statements made by Aantjes were true.

Aantjes was married to Gisela Braun for the first time; they divorced in 1995. He later married Ineke Ludikhuize. He died in Utrecht on October 22, 2015 at the age of 92.

literature

  • Roelof Bouwman : De val van een bergredenaar: het politieke leven van Willem Aantjes . Boom, Amsterdam 2002, ISBN 90-5352-717-6 (dissertation with a summary in English).
  • Harald Fühner : Follow-up. Dutch politics and the persecution of collaborators and Nazi criminals, 1945–1989 . Waxmann, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8309-1464-4

Web links

Commons : Willem Aantjes  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CDA-prominent Willem Aantjes overleden. In: nos.nl , Nederlandse Omroep Stichting , October 22, 2015, accessed on October 22, 2015 (Dutch).
  2. ^ Roelof Bouwman: De val van een bergredenaar. Het politieke leven van Willem Aantjes. In: Google Book Search .
  3. ^ Nachspiel: Dutch politics and the persecution of collaborators and Nazi criminals. In: Google Book Search .
personal data
SURNAME Aantjes, Willem
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aantjes, Wim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch politician (ARP, CDA) and participant in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Bleskensgraaf , South Holland Province , The Netherlands
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 2015
Place of death Utrecht , Netherlands