Meinoud Rost van Tonningen
Encyclopedia
Meinoud Marinus Rost van Tonningen (February 19, 1894 in Surabaya
– June 6, 1945 in Scheveningen) was a Dutch
politician
of the National Socialist Movement
(NSB). During World War II
and the German occupation of the Netherlands, he collaborated extensively with the German occupation forces.
(now known as Indonesia
). He was the son of KNIL general Marinus Bernardus Rost van Tonningen
, who had distinguished himself suppressing the revolts against Dutch rule on Lombok
, Aceh
and Bali
. After high school he completed legal studies at the university of Leiden.
In the periods 1923–1928 and 1931–1936 he was representative of the League of Nations
in Vienna
. His job was to monitor the Austria
n financial policy. While stationed in Vienna, he developed strong anti-semitic and anti-communist convictions. He became close friends with Engelbert Dollfuss
, who became Chancellor of Austria
in 1932 and who was murdered in 1934.
in the elections that year and became the leader of his parliamentary party in the Dutch House of Representatives.
He also became editor-in-chief of the NSB party newspaper, Het Nationale Dagblad, which he made into a vessel of his own ideas to the dismay of the NSB party leadership. Rost van Tonningen was obsessed with Germany and the Greater German Idea, while Anton Mussert
, the leader of the NSB, had more affinity with the idea of Fascism
as carried out by Benito Mussolini
in Italy.
It was mainly Rost van Tonningen's influence that caused the NSB to become more openly anti-semitic; Rost van Tonningen's anti-semitism was more radical than NSB leader Anton Mussert. Because of his influence the NSB became closer to the German Nazi Party, the NSDAP.
1939 saw Rost van Tonningen establish the paramilitary
organisation - the Mussert guards. Many members of this organisation later became members of the Nederlandsche SS
. Rost van Tonningen's request to be admitted as a member of the SS regiment Westland was at first denied, because he was born in Indonesia and could not provide a valid genealogy
to prove that his family had 150 years of "pure blood". He applied for membership of the SS again in 1944 and was admitted then.
of the Netherlands, Rost van Tonningen was appointed liquidation commissar for all Marxist organisations by Arthur Seyss-Inquart
, the German administrator for the Netherlands.
This was targeted especially at the Social Democratic Workers' Party
(SDAP), the Revolutionary Socialist Party
(RSAP), and the Communist Party
(CPN). The CPN had to be liquidated, the SDAP had to be "reconstructed" based a National Socialist doctrine. This reconstruction failed because the SDAP had destroyed most of its archives and administration papers.
The SDAP leadership refused to cooperate, and during regional meetings of the SDAP it was announced that the SDAP would not collaborate with the German occupation forces. Virtually all SDAP affiliated organisations refused to cooperate with Rost van Tonningen's attempts to 'nazify' them. Most organisations (e.g., Labourers Sports Association, musical organisations) chose to dissolve themselves rather than become part of the Nazi hierarchy. On July 5, 1941, the SDAP was disbanded, together with all other remaining political parties.
of the Finance ministry and President of the Dutch National Bank, the Nederlandsche Bank
. During his tenure in these functions, the Germans held the Netherlands financially responsible for the costs of the occupation of their country. The total cost of this to the Dutch society was calculated by the Dutch government after the war as being 9,488,000,000 Reichsmark. Besides this amount, an amount of 5,750,000,000 Reichsmark of loans made by the Netherlands to Germany was never repaid, so a total amount of 14,500,000,000 Reichsmark flowed to Germany. (Comparison: France 43,250,000,000 and Belgium 11,070,000,000.)
On April 1, 1941, the currency barriers between the Netherlands and the Third Reich were removed, and on September 1, 1941, the last obstructions in the currency markets between the two countries were finally removed. This meant that the Germans could trade the gold of the Dutch National Bank for paper Reichsmarks.
The other financial heads of occupied territories were not as eager as Rost van Tonningen to remove the barriers and the Netherlands could not spend the Reichsmarks obtained in this way to pay these other countries. The other territories brought their Reichsmarks to the Netherlands to pay their foreign debt; Germany, Denmark, Hungary and Occupied France all paid their debts in this way. This and the purchase of Dutch goods for Reichsmarks by the Germans made the Dutch balance of Reichsmarks grow from 83,000,000 (March 1941) to 3,646,000,000 (September 1941). Rost van Tonningen in the meantime kept printing large amounts of Dutch money. This led to large inflation figures.
As Secretary-General for Special Economic Affairs, Rost van Tonningen was involved in the establishment of the Nederlandse Oostcompagnie (Dutch East Company), an organisation involved in the reconstruction of the Ukraine
. The efforts of this company were an abysmal failure.
(Mad Tuesday), Rost van Tonningen fled with a number of other Dutch Collaborators, fearing the rapidly advancing Allied armies. He turned up again a few days later, but was fired from his position as successor to the NSB leadership by Anton Mussert after writing an article in which he praised the members of the Dutch NSB youth organisation (Nationale Jeugdstorm, National Youth Storm) who had joined the Hitlerjugend division.
In the summer of 1944 Rost van Tonningen was trained to be an officer in the first battalion of the Landstorm Nederland, a Dutch paramilitary defense organisation. In March 1945 he left for the frontlines, which ran through the middle of the Netherlands, in the Betuwe
. On May 8, 1945 he was taken prisoner by Canadian troops, and was held in a prisoner camp in Elst
. From there he was transferred to Utrecht
and on May 24, 1945 he was moved to the prison in Scheveningen. Rost van Tonningen allegedly committed suicide there by jumping from a balcony in the prison on June 6, 1945. There have been persistent rumors, but no proof, that he did not jump by himself. He never stood trial for his actions.
continued to promote his pro-German and National Socialist views, denying the Holocaust and regretting the fall of the Third Reich and any threat to racial purity.
Surabaya
Surabaya is Indonesia's second-largest city with a population of over 2.7 million , and the capital of the province of East Java...
– June 6, 1945 in Scheveningen) was a Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
of the National Socialist Movement
National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands
The National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands was a Dutch fascist and later national socialist political party. As a parliamentary party participating in legislative elections, the NSB had some success during the 1930s...
(NSB). During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the German occupation of the Netherlands, he collaborated extensively with the German occupation forces.
Early life
Rost van Tonningen was born in the Dutch East IndiesDutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
(now known as Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
). He was the son of KNIL general Marinus Bernardus Rost van Tonningen
Marinus Bernardus Rost van Tonningen
Marinus Bernardus Rost van Tonningen was a Dutch Major General in the Dutch Army and the Royal Dutch East Indies Army.He is famous for having commanded the Dutch intervention in Bali ....
, who had distinguished himself suppressing the revolts against Dutch rule on Lombok
Lombok
Lombok is an island in West Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It forms part of the chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with the Lombok Strait separating it from Bali to the west and the Alas Strait between it and Sumbawa to the east...
, Aceh
Aceh
Aceh is a special region of Indonesia, located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. Its full name is Daerah Istimewa Aceh , Nanggroë Aceh Darussalam and Aceh . Past spellings of its name include Acheh, Atjeh and Achin...
and Bali
Bali
Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...
. After high school he completed legal studies at the university of Leiden.
In the periods 1923–1928 and 1931–1936 he was representative of the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. His job was to monitor the Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n financial policy. While stationed in Vienna, he developed strong anti-semitic and anti-communist convictions. He became close friends with Engelbert Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuss was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman. Serving previously as Minister for Forest and Agriculture, he ascended to Federal Chancellor in 1932 in the midst of a crisis for the conservative government...
, who became Chancellor of Austria
Chancellor of Austria
The Federal Chancellor is the head of government in Austria. Its deputy is the Vice-Chancellor. Before 1918, the equivalent office was the Minister-President of Austria. The Federal Chancellor is considered to be the most powerful political position in Austrian politics.-Appointment:The...
in 1932 and who was murdered in 1934.
NSB period
He became a member of the NSB on August 7, 1936 after returning from Austria. He won a seat in ParliamentStates-General of the Netherlands
The States-General of the Netherlands is the bicameral legislature of the Netherlands, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The parliament meets in at the Binnenhof in The Hague. The archaic Dutch word "staten" originally related to the feudal classes in which medieval...
in the elections that year and became the leader of his parliamentary party in the Dutch House of Representatives.
He also became editor-in-chief of the NSB party newspaper, Het Nationale Dagblad, which he made into a vessel of his own ideas to the dismay of the NSB party leadership. Rost van Tonningen was obsessed with Germany and the Greater German Idea, while Anton Mussert
Anton Mussert
Anton Adriaan Mussert was one of the founders of the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands and its de jure leader. As such, he was the most prominent national socialist in the Netherlands before and during the Second World War...
, the leader of the NSB, had more affinity with the idea of Fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
as carried out by Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
in Italy.
It was mainly Rost van Tonningen's influence that caused the NSB to become more openly anti-semitic; Rost van Tonningen's anti-semitism was more radical than NSB leader Anton Mussert. Because of his influence the NSB became closer to the German Nazi Party, the NSDAP.
1939 saw Rost van Tonningen establish the paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
organisation - the Mussert guards. Many members of this organisation later became members of the Nederlandsche SS
Nederlandsche SS
The Nederlandsche SS was formed on September 11, 1940. On November 1, 1942 the name was changed to Germaansche SS in Nederland . The Nederlandsche SS in total counted circa 7,000 members and was primarily a political formation. In addition it served as a reservoir for the Waffen-SS...
. Rost van Tonningen's request to be admitted as a member of the SS regiment Westland was at first denied, because he was born in Indonesia and could not provide a valid genealogy
Genealogy
Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
to prove that his family had 150 years of "pure blood". He applied for membership of the SS again in 1944 and was admitted then.
German occupation of the Netherlands
During the German occupationThe Netherlands in World War II
The history of the Netherlands from 1939 to 1945 covers the events in the Netherlands that took place under the German occupation that started on May 10, 1940 with the Battle of the Netherlands. The Netherlands hoped to stay neutral when World War II broke out in 1939 but this failed to happen when...
of the Netherlands, Rost van Tonningen was appointed liquidation commissar for all Marxist organisations by Arthur Seyss-Inquart
Arthur Seyss-Inquart
Arthur Seyss-Inquart was a Chancellor of Austria, lawyer and later Nazi official in pre-Anschluss Austria, the Third Reich and for wartime Germany in Poland and the Netherlands...
, the German administrator for the Netherlands.
This was targeted especially at the Social Democratic Workers' Party
Social Democratic Workers' Party (Netherlands)
The Social Democratic Workers' Party was a Dutch socialist political party and a predecessor of the social-democratic PvdA.-1893-1904:...
(SDAP), the Revolutionary Socialist Party
Revolutionary Socialist Party (Netherlands)
The Revolutionary Socialist Party was a Dutch socialist political party.-Predecessors:The oldest predecessor of the Revolutionary Socialist Party is the Revolutionary Socialist Union , a group of dissidents from the Communist Party Holland led by Henk Sneevliet...
(RSAP), and the Communist Party
Communist Party of the Netherlands
The Communist Party of the Netherlands was a Dutch communist political party. The CPN is one of the predecessors of the GreenLeft.- Foundation :...
(CPN). The CPN had to be liquidated, the SDAP had to be "reconstructed" based a National Socialist doctrine. This reconstruction failed because the SDAP had destroyed most of its archives and administration papers.
The SDAP leadership refused to cooperate, and during regional meetings of the SDAP it was announced that the SDAP would not collaborate with the German occupation forces. Virtually all SDAP affiliated organisations refused to cooperate with Rost van Tonningen's attempts to 'nazify' them. Most organisations (e.g., Labourers Sports Association, musical organisations) chose to dissolve themselves rather than become part of the Nazi hierarchy. On July 5, 1941, the SDAP was disbanded, together with all other remaining political parties.
Financial administrator
On March 26, 1941, Rost van Tonningen was appointed to the posts of Secretary-GeneralSecretary-General
-International intergovernmental organizations:-International nongovernmental organizations:-Sports governing bodies:...
of the Finance ministry and President of the Dutch National Bank, the Nederlandsche Bank
De Nederlandsche Bank
De Nederlandsche Bank is the central bank of the Netherlands. It is part of the European System of Central Banks .-History:...
. During his tenure in these functions, the Germans held the Netherlands financially responsible for the costs of the occupation of their country. The total cost of this to the Dutch society was calculated by the Dutch government after the war as being 9,488,000,000 Reichsmark. Besides this amount, an amount of 5,750,000,000 Reichsmark of loans made by the Netherlands to Germany was never repaid, so a total amount of 14,500,000,000 Reichsmark flowed to Germany. (Comparison: France 43,250,000,000 and Belgium 11,070,000,000.)
On April 1, 1941, the currency barriers between the Netherlands and the Third Reich were removed, and on September 1, 1941, the last obstructions in the currency markets between the two countries were finally removed. This meant that the Germans could trade the gold of the Dutch National Bank for paper Reichsmarks.
The other financial heads of occupied territories were not as eager as Rost van Tonningen to remove the barriers and the Netherlands could not spend the Reichsmarks obtained in this way to pay these other countries. The other territories brought their Reichsmarks to the Netherlands to pay their foreign debt; Germany, Denmark, Hungary and Occupied France all paid their debts in this way. This and the purchase of Dutch goods for Reichsmarks by the Germans made the Dutch balance of Reichsmarks grow from 83,000,000 (March 1941) to 3,646,000,000 (September 1941). Rost van Tonningen in the meantime kept printing large amounts of Dutch money. This led to large inflation figures.
As Secretary-General for Special Economic Affairs, Rost van Tonningen was involved in the establishment of the Nederlandse Oostcompagnie (Dutch East Company), an organisation involved in the reconstruction of the Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. The efforts of this company were an abysmal failure.
Death
On September 5, 1944, Dolle DinsdagDolle Dinsdag
Dolle Dinsdag is a Dutch name for Tuesday 5 September 1944. On this day many rumours were spreading in the occupied Netherlands that the liberation by Allied forces was at hand...
(Mad Tuesday), Rost van Tonningen fled with a number of other Dutch Collaborators, fearing the rapidly advancing Allied armies. He turned up again a few days later, but was fired from his position as successor to the NSB leadership by Anton Mussert after writing an article in which he praised the members of the Dutch NSB youth organisation (Nationale Jeugdstorm, National Youth Storm) who had joined the Hitlerjugend division.
In the summer of 1944 Rost van Tonningen was trained to be an officer in the first battalion of the Landstorm Nederland, a Dutch paramilitary defense organisation. In March 1945 he left for the frontlines, which ran through the middle of the Netherlands, in the Betuwe
Betuwe
The Betuwe is an area in the Netherlands in the province of Gelderland...
. On May 8, 1945 he was taken prisoner by Canadian troops, and was held in a prisoner camp in Elst
Elst
Elst is the name of a number of towns:*Elst; a village and former municipality, now part of Overbetuwe, in Gelderland*Elst; a village in the municipality of Rhenen, in the province of Utrecht*Elst; a village in the municipality of Maasdonk, in North Brabant...
. From there he was transferred to Utrecht
Utrecht (city)
Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...
and on May 24, 1945 he was moved to the prison in Scheveningen. Rost van Tonningen allegedly committed suicide there by jumping from a balcony in the prison on June 6, 1945. There have been persistent rumors, but no proof, that he did not jump by himself. He never stood trial for his actions.
Widow
His second wife, Florentine Rost van TonningenFlorentine Rost van Tonningen
Florentine Rost van Tonningen was the wife of Meinoud Rost van Tonningen, 2nd leader of the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands and President of the National Bank during the German occupation...
continued to promote his pro-German and National Socialist views, denying the Holocaust and regretting the fall of the Third Reich and any threat to racial purity.