Dutch volunteers in the Waffen-SS during WW2.  We've talked a great deal about that on this  

channel. Around 25,000 Dutch men served in the  Waffen-SS. Most of them fought on the Eastern  

Front: between 4,000 to 6,000 were KIA or MIA  (21%). So what happened to the survivors? In  

this video you will learn about the fate of  the Dutch Waffen-SS Volunteers after the war.

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In the Netherlands the Germans surrended on 5 May  (although the official signing took place one day  

later). Germany surrended on 8 May 1945. Another  signing took place on 9 May. Once the war ended  

Nazis and collaborators were prosecuted  and in some cases lynched by angry mobs. 

In the days after liberation aggression by  the Dutch citizens is not directed towards  

German soldiers, but towards the collaborating  fellow country men, or alledged collaborators.  

We're talking about members of the Dutch nazi  party: the NSB. Also girls that had flirted, dated  

or slept with German soldiers were targetted.  Although these women weren't violently attacked,  

they were often pubicly humuliated, shaved  bald, and swastikas were painted on their heads. 

Dutch Waffen-SS served in the Wiking Division  (Regiment Westland) and the Dutch Volunteer  

Legion. Later in the war these units were renamed.  Then there was also Landstorm Nederland for those  

who didn't want to serve abroad and thus  stayed in the Netherlands (although some saw  

action in Belgium). Many of these were in  the country when the war came to an end.  

They were uncertain what to do. Trying to  escape or stick together? One of them wrote:

“Indeed, on the day of the capitulation, the  boys were told that anyone who thought they could  

reach their home could go. Several did so, after  providing oneself partially or fully with civilian  

clothes, but very few seem to have managed to get  home! The Dutch 'underground forces' appeared in  

public that day and arrested practically everyone  they did not know. When we received confirmation  

that we could go, I also had my doubts, but I  soon realized that this was an impossibility.  

After all, I could only have gone to Epe  where everyone knows me, and what should I  

have done there? Come crawling back home? Never.  Besides, there was no chance of that anyway,  

because long before that time I would have  been caught. And so I decided to stay.”

Perhaps that was a wise decision. Many were  caught by the Domestic Forces (Binnenlandse  

Strijdkrachten): a group of armed Dutch  resistance members who eagerly wanted  

to disarm the Germans. This was explicitly  forbidden by the Allies, basically because  

of the simple fact that lack of discipline could  lead to incidents. These incidents did happen and  

resulted in several deaths. Collaborators that  were caught often faced public humiliation.  

One volunteer and his unit  were lucky in that sense:

“We had Canadian troops on guard again. We sang  loudly. Hundreds of cursing civilians lined the  

road, and sometimes one would attack one of  us to rip off his war decorations, but then  

a few Canadians would immediately jump  off the accompanying jeeps and hit them.  

11 to 25 May housed in a tent camp  where we were well looked after.”

The Allied troops looked after them because they  were treated as POWs. Also to prevent lynchings.  

Dutch politicians feared there would be a day of  reckening in which countless of people would lose  

their lives. This however did not happen.  Although revenge murders did take place this  

did not happen widespread. What did happen where  massive arrests. Those who performed the arrests  

were mostly inspired by a statement made  by Queen Wilhelmina during the war that:

"...in a liberated Netherlands there  would be no more room for traitors".

Although these words weren't repreated in later  

broadcasts they remained in  the heads of Dutch citizens.

Let's take a look at the Dutch volunteers  that were in Germany when the war  

ended and were taken prisoner by the western  Allies. After serving time in the American  

or British POW camps Dutch Waffen-SS POWs in  Germany were extradited to the Netherlands.  

There they were put in camps together with  other people accused of collaboration. 

According to historian Peter Romijn between  120,000 and 150,000 Dutch people, accused of  

collaboration, were detained in the Netherlands  after the war. These people were interned in one  

of the 130 camps. In these camps whole families  were sometimes interned. For this former  

German camps (like Camp Westerbork, Vught and  Amersfoort) were used, as well as army barracks,  

schools, fortresses, factories and warehouses.  The prisoners were guarded by the Domestic  

Forces (Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten) who – like  said before – lacked discipline. That combined  

with their hatred for the enemy resulted  in severe abuses, assaults and even murder.  

In 63 of the 130 camps there were incidents of  severe abuses. In 60 camps there are no reports  

of abuses and in 7 camps there are reports  that the treatment of the inmates was humane. 

One notorious exception was camp  De Harskamp where around 4,000 of  

the 18,500 Dutch Waffen-SS volunteers who  survived the war ended up [In 't Veld]. The  

camp was initially guarded by the Canadians who  handed over command to the Dutch in June 1945. 

One of the inmates wrote  about the change of guard:

“June 27 we were handed over to the  BS [Domestic Forces] by the Canadians.  

From that moment on we were no longer  prisoners of war, but political prisoners.”

In the months after the Dutch guards took over  the camp wild shootings occured. Most of these  

occured at night where the guards fired  into the camp injuring or killing some  

of the inmates. Punitive exercise was a daily  occurence from now on. Guards withheld food  

which led to malnutrition and beatings  took place during interrogations.  

The new regime left eleven dead and a similar  amount of people wounded. Another eight  

died because they had to clear mines. Mid-1946  inmates were transfered or tried. Towards the  

end of the year De Harskamp ended as  a internment camp for collaborators.

“The excesses in the internment  camps are perhaps understandable  

or at least a logical consequence  of the emotions that played a role;  

one could not suppress the hatred and feelings  of revenge against the Dutch traitors. After  

five years of Nazi oppression, those who were  partly responsible for this had to be punished.” 

Translated from: Veldgrauw. Nederlanders  in de Waffen-SS (Evertjan van Roekel) 321.

Later a Parliamentary  

Committee of Inquiry (Parlementaire  enquêtecommissie) investigated the matter.

During the war the Dutch government in exile  devised a special legal system to punish traitors  

quickly and severely. This was also to  avoid kangaroo courts (volktribunalen),  

which eventually did happen but not on a large  scale. Now there are a lot of different numbers:  

numbers of arrests, numbers of charges. In  the book VELDGRAUW written by Evertjan van  

Roekel a totall of 64,482 judgements have been  passed, around 6,800 were Waffen-SS volunteers.  

Compared to other West European countries the  Netherlands punished many of its subjects.  

Van Roekel stated that at the end the special  legal system can be called unsuccessfull  

since many collaborators weren't punished. Most Waffen-SS volunteers were sentenced between  

5 to 10 years in prison for serving in foreign  military service against the Netherlands and its  

Allies. With eased circumstances this could  be brought down to 3 years. With aggravating  

circumstances – like having served in the Dutch  army before – sentences could go up to 15 years.  

Life imprisonment and the death penalty  were rare. The countless cases had to be  

proceded in a short amount of time, it came  across as assembly line work. From 1948  

large-scale pardons were given. According to  historian Evertjan van Roekel instead of fast,  

strict and fair (snel, streng en rechtvaardig)  the post-war prosecutions can be described as:  

rushed, too strict and quite random (gehaast, te  streng en vrij willekeurig). At the end the hatred  

against the collaborators subsided and they were  

re-adopted in society. Decorated volunteer Gerard  Mooyman was sentenced to six years in prison.  

He was released in 1949 and he established  himself as an entrepreneur in Groningen.  

Mooyman avoided publicity and lived a nondescript  life. That changed for a while in 1967 when he had  

himself interviewed in the magazine Revu. Mooyman  distanced himself from his past in strong terms:  

'I regard everything I experienced in the German  period as a great personal tragedy. As a youthful  

National Socialist and a fanatic fighter for  this ideal, I later came to the conclusion that  

I had fought and suffered for a criminal cause.'  In 1987 Mooyman died in a traffic accident.

Not all former Waffen-SS volunteers serving on  the Eastern Front returned to the Netherlands.  

A certain number were POWed by the Soviets  and these were shipped off to Siberia.  

In the mid-1950s several of them, most  likely 200, returned to the Netherlands.  

This is all I know. If anyone  has more on Dutch in the Gulag,  

lemme know! A number of 6,000 remained in  Germany, fearing for what would await them  

in the Netherlands. Some later escaped  the Dutch prison and made it to Germany,  

such as Herbertus Bikker (nicknamed The Butcher  of Ommen (Dutch: De Beul van Ommen)), Auke Pattist  

(who later went to Spain) and Toon Soetebier. Some of those sentenced to prison later  

served in Indonesia and Korea.  That is a story for another time.