The discovery of a Nazi Party membership card in the name of the late Prince Bernhard, a German who married into the Dutch royal family in the 1930s, has sparked a national scandal in the Netherlands, reports Reuters.
Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands died in 2004Photo: SplashNews.com / Splash / Profimedia
Prince Bernhard, the grandfather of the current Dutch King Willem Alexander, died in 2004.
He consistently denied over the years that he was a member of the Nazi Party, although he did admit that he was a member of a few military units affiliated with the party led by Adolf Hitler, but claimed that this was common for German men of his age at that moment.
Although suspicions of his membership in the Nazi Party, officially called the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), hung over him until the moment of his death, “the discovery of Prince Bernhard’s original NSDAP membership card is part of a painful new chapter of of Dutch history,” the Israel Center for Information and Documentation (CIDI), the best-known Dutch NGO for combating anti-Semitism, said on Friday.
The organization called for the Dutch Institute for the Study of War, Holocaust and Genocide (NIOD) to launch an investigation into the matter.
“It’s not the fact that Bernhard was a member that shocks: most Dutch people already expected that. But the fact that he continued to deny this until his death hangs much more heavily on people,” said CIDI in a press release.
The Dutch prince denied “with his hand on the Bible” that he was a member of the Nazi Party
Bernhard denied the accusations against him including in a series of interviews given to the newspaper De Volkskrant shortly before his death:
“I can say with my hand on the Bible that I was never a Nazi,” he emphasized.
The Dutch government has so far rejected calls for an investigation, but they have confirmed the authenticity of the discovery of Prince Bernhard’s NSDAP membership card.
He was born in 1911 and was known as Bernhard von Biesterfeld before becoming a citizen of the Netherlands. During World War II he was a pilot who flew Allied combat missions against Germany.
The NSDAP membership card, which shows that Bernhard joined the Nazi Party in 1933, was discovered by historian Flip Maarschalkerweerd.
He told Dutch public broadcaster NOS that he was surprised the prince kept the notebook he denied ever having.
“He was a collector and the palaces have huge bridges and cellars. Maybe he forgot he had it,” the historian tried to explain the discovery.
Dutch king speaks of ‘painful memories’ and seeing past ‘as it was’
Dutch investigative journalists published a book as early as 1996 containing a copy of an NSDAP membership card in Bernhard’s name, which was discovered in Britain alongside letters showing that he had resigned from the party in 1936 when he became engaged with Princess Juliana, who later became Queen.
King Willem Alexander said today’s discovery, made in Bernhard’s private archive, could stir up “painful memories” of Nazi Germany’s occupation of the Netherlands in World War Two.
“I can easily imagine that this news has a big impact, which raises a lot of emotions, especially among the Jewish community,” the king told Dutch journalists on Thursday.
“We have to see the past as it was, including the less pleasant parts,” he added.
