PAGE SIX
P TO THE YEAR 1940, Hollanders were building
a sturdy and prosperous nation on 13,500
square miles of land. With an amazing system of
dykes and reclamation projects and 4,500 miles of
canals, eight and one-half million people had <on-
verted their country into an engineering landmark and
given it a unique and respected position among the
nations of the world. Holland was a country of small
farms, of famous flower nurseries, of dairy products,
of chemical and shipbuilding industries. Living under
a constitutional hereditary monarchy, the Dutch, to-
gether with their rich empire in the East and West
Indies, had spent their income on social legislation,
raising their own standard of living. Into this peace-
ful country, against a people who wanted to be friend-
ly, without warning, Germans hurled the full fury of
their blitzkrieg on the morning of May 10, 1940.
4
PEACE-TIME Holland was mixture of old and
new. With their country literally built on the sea,
Dutchmen have always found fishing profitable.
DUTCH cities and villages have been famous since the Middle Ages for clean,
. well-planned streets and homes. The Royal Palace in Amsterdam, with well-kept
square, symbolized Holland’s orderly civilization, before the Nazi invaders came.
GERMANS had respect for neither neatness nor order. Even after formal capitula- ON DAY of German invasion, Hollanders rushed to MIDDELBURG’S Town Hall was center of
tion of the Dutch army the Luftwaffe bombed defenseless Rotterdam, killing and mobilize. But Germans had more tanks, planes, and city’s democracy for centuries. Thus, to German
wounding tens of thousands of civilians. This was, Hitler said, “a lesson in total war.” troops—and many Dutch soldiers never returned. army leaders it became a “military objective.”
ACKED BY A TREMENDOUS air armada and
the usual Nazi trickeries, German invaders over-
whelmed Dutch opposition and occupied Holland in
five days. Even after formal capitulation, German
bombers sowed a train of death and destruction
through one of Holland’s principal cities. The object
was to break Dutch resistance once and for all.
Now two years have passed since the German in-
vasion. Finance and business have been incorporated
into the needs of the German Reich. All papers are
Nazi-controlled; all schools teach Nazi racial theories
and German interpretations of history; religion is
treated as something that can be done without;
workers are being geared to Hitler's war machine.
This is the “New Order.” But also after two years,
the Dutch have remained solidly behind their Queen
Wilhelmina. Less than one per cent of the entire popu-
lation has joined the so-called Dutch Nazi party. All
German promises and collaboration efforts have met
with nation-wide passive and open resistance. Dutch-
men at home or fighting with their Allies, have borne
out the conviction of one of their leading statesmen,
E. N. Van Kleffens, who said: “A nation which for
centuries has been used to free institutions, never
loses the taste of them.”
HOLLANDERS, like these pedaling homewards after
a day’s work in Amsterdam, were content, industrious
and religious. Dutch had not seen a war since 1814.
with the Allied Fleet off England, in
NEW Dutch destroyers are cooperating ® &
the Mediterranean and in the Far East.
WAR came suddenly, and with it indiscriminate bomb-
- ing. Century-old churches crumpled in seconds. To-
day Catholics and Protestants are united vs. Nazis.
NAZI bombers were not unopposed. A small Dutch air- FOR DAYS AND NIGHTS the city of Rotterdam was swept by aa inferno of fire, smoke, TWO and one-half millic: tend wf
force fought bravely, often recklessly, and many Ger- ruin and death. But even as Germans marched into Holland’s cities, Dutch soldiers were armed Dutch merchar’ shin. ave are
man planes crashed on cities they meant to bomb. assembling in Britain, and naval craft were entering British ports to renew the struggle. CRT RR RL i Ly YL