An Old Empire in a New Order: The Global Designs of the Dutch Nazi Party, 1931–1942

Abstract

This article explores the imperial plans and policies advanced by the Dutch Nazi Party (NSB) and its leader, Anton Mussert, from the party’s inception in 1931 to the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies in early 1942. Drawing upon recent discussions concerning ‘generic fascism’ and the fascist ‘ideal type’, I argue that the Dutch Nazis consistently advanced an imperial agenda that was simultaneously defensive and expansionist. Before the war, Mussert sought to reunify all members of the Dutch ‘tribe’ presently scattered around the globe, even in those territories presently held by other imperial powers. Under German occupation, Mussert modified but hardly abandoned his Greater Netherlands worldview. If Hitler and the German National Socialists intended to forge a new European empire founded on the principles of racial purity, the Dutch Nazi leader envisioned a fascist world order led by Hitler but nonetheless rooted in more traditional imperial practices. Mussert’s imperial designs reveal both the powerful tensions inherent in Dutch National Socialism and the vexed wartime relationship between Mussert and the nation’s German occupiers.