CIDI wants the government to investigate Prince Bernhard’s war past, Cultural Fund thinks about its own future | Domestic

The situation surrounding Prince Bernhard and his controversial past with German National Socialist organizations ‘is now essentially different’, a spokesperson for the Prince Bernhard Cultural Fund acknowledges. “The surprising thing about all this is that we now know for sure that he lied. We are going to list what this news means for us as a Cultural Fund.”

The fund does not yet want to make any announcements about a name change. The Jewish community is now calling for an ‘in-depth’ investigation into Bernhard’s past. “It shows once again that the prince did not value the truth. Who knows what else is wrong,” sighs Ronny Naftaniel, former chairman of the Central Jewish Consultation.

Historian Flip Maarschalkerweerd reveals in his new book The Stragglers that he the original NSDAP membership card of the prince has found. The former director of the Royal House Archives said he found the map in the prince’s private archives, which he had to inventory after his death.

The Prince Bernhard Cultural Fund, founded in 1940 by Prince Bernhard, was not informed in advance about the revelations. “We have seen the media reports about the indisputable evidence regarding Prince Bernhard’s membership. We are surprised by this announcement and the existence of this document,” a spokesperson said.

The fund will continue to exist in any case, a spokesperson emphasizes. But what does it mean for the name of the fund? “We will discuss this internally in the coming period. It is far too premature to say now that we are considering changing the name of the foundation.”

In any case, the impact on the fund is significant. “It’s all still very fresh. We’ve only just found out. Are we worried about it? You can say that, yes.” It appears that the fund is slowly but surely saying goodbye to the controversial prince. This spring, the website, logo and corporate identity of the organization were overhauled, with a clearly smaller role for the founder of the well-known fund.

The Prince Bernhard Cultural Fund started in 1940 as a fighting fund. Prince Bernhard wanted to raise money to buy Spitfires for the fight against Nazi Germany. 20 million guilders were raised, good for a hundred aircraft and more war equipment, including a hospital ship. In 1950, the fund continued as a cultural fund that invests more than 35 million euros in culture and nature every year.

That money goes to about 3,500 projects throughout the Netherlands and the Caribbean part of the kingdom. The money is raised thanks to donors and partners, but also through contributions from the Friends Lottery and the Dutch Lottery. Since 1950, the fund has also awarded Silver Carnations to volunteers who are committed to culture or nature conservation.

In the meantime, the Jewish community has reacted with surprise to the new revelations. “It’s shocking and horrible. Of course there were always suspicions, but now we know that he lied about it outright,” says Ronny Naftaniel, former chairman of the Central Jewish Consultation. “I find that very intense, for a man who was the commander-in-chief of our army during the war.

Naftaniel advocates a further in-depth investigation into Prince Bernhard’s past. “Let’s see what his exact role was in the entire resistance. That does justice to the historiography. As far as I am concerned, the NIOD should dismantle all archives in Germany, the United States and the Netherlands.” The Center for Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI) welcomes such an investigation and will submit this request to outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

“We thought for some time that Bernhard had been a member, now there is proof of this,” said Mestrum. “This is another revelation that adds a new black page to a painful part of recent Dutch history. Clearly we can’t take the prince at his word. It is now very important that we get everything on the table. The Royal House can then respond from there.”

NRC reported on Wednesday about this find and the book. Prince Bernhard denied that he was a member of the Nazi party until his death in 2004. In 1996 Gerard Aalders and Coen Hilbrink published the book The Sanders affairin which they revealed that they had found a copy of Bernhard’s membership card in the US.

In a series of interviews he had with the Volkskrant the prince further stated: “I can declare with my hand on the Bible: I was never a Nazi. I never paid for party membership, I never had a membership card.”

Also in an interview with Elsevier in 1995, the prince categorically denied his ties with the NSDAP again in this week’s Elsevier. “If I had really been a member of the NSDAP, as is suggested here and there, you can believe that Hitler would have played that against me with devilish pleasure! I am much more interested in other people than in myself, or in what Jantje or Klaasje has to say about me.”

Bernhard has repeatedly stated that he was a prospective member of the SA and/or the SS for a short time. He said he did this to avoid a political exam that was necessary to continue his studies. According to experts, such an exam did not exist at all at the time of his studies.