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Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Bernhard was a member of the Nazi Party, the Sturmabteilung and a special branch of the SS called the "Reiter SS"- an equestrian sporting organisation. The Prince was not a Nazi by conviction; these memberships made life easier for an ambitious young man. People defending the Prince have stated that membership was necessary to be a student. The Prince later denied these well-documented memberships. Whatever the case, he was not politically active and although this German aristocrat was never a fierce champion of democracy, there are no accounts of him ever having made fascist or anti-semitic remarks.
[edit] Alliance with the House of Orange
In the 1930s, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Prince Bernhard's younger brother, Aschwin, publicly declared his support for the Nazi Party. Prince Bernhard was a member of the honorary German Reiter SS Corps (SS Cavalry Corps). The Prince eventually went to work for the German chemical company, IG Farben. After a period of training, he became Secretary to the Board of Directors at the Paris office in 1935. Because he was a Protestant of royal rank (the Lippes were a mediatized sovereign house), Bernhard was acceptable to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands as a suitable husband for her daughter, Princess Juliana. Bernhard's appropriateness as consort of the future Queen would later become a matter of some public debate.
Prince Bernhard's political affiliations with the Nazi regime have received much attention. Various members of his family and acquaintances were aligned with the Nazis prior to and during the war - a number of these being entertained shortly before and joining the royal wedding party, which occurred on 7 January 1937 in The Hague. Protocol demanded that the prospective Prince-Consort be invited to an audience with his head of state, the German dictator, Adolf Hitler. Hitler himself gives a rendering of the conversation he had with Bernard, in his ‘TischGespraeche’ (TableConversations). The ‘TableConversations’ contains a collection of monologues/remarks/speeches, which Hitler used to give during lunch/dinner-time to those who were invited to the table by him.
The Prince's brother, Prince Aschwin of Lippe-Biesterfeld, was an officer in the German army. Although the secret services on both sides were interested in this peculiar pair of brothers, no improper contacts or leaks of information were discovered. The Prince showed himself to be a loyal Dutch citizen and officer. He cut off relations with those members of his family who were enthusiastic Nazis. As a sign of his "Dutchness" he spoke only Dutch when negotiating the surrender of German forces in the Netherlands. The Prince was known to be very fond of smart uniforms and medals. He made a point of wearing his medals in the English "Court style". The Dutch armed forces wear their medals in the "Prussian style". The Prince's deliberate disregard of the regulations was not widely noticed but it is a clear sign of his allegiance.
The Prince's mother was no admirer of the Nazis and got into trouble for refusing to hoist a swastika flag on her country seat at Reckenwalde. The Nazi government did not take kindly to her, as the mother of an allied general.
[edit] World War II
Prince Bernhard began to make himself popular and trusted in the eyes of the Dutch people at the outset of World War II. During the German Invasion, the Prince, carrying a machine gun, organised the palace guards into a combat group and shot at German planes. The Royal Family fled the Netherlands and took refuge in England. Once safely there, Princess Juliana and the children then went on to Canada, where they remained until the end of the war.
In England, Prince Bernhard asked to work in British Intelligence but the War Admiralty, and later General Eisenhower's Allied Command offices, did not trust him sufficiently to allow him access to intelligence information. However, on the recommendation of Bernhard's ethnically-German friend and admirer, King George VI, he was later permitted to work in the war planning councils.
In 1940, flight Lieutenant Murray Payne instructed the prince to fly a Spitfire. The Prince made 1,000 flight-hours in a Spitfire with the RAF's 322 "Dutch" squadron wrecking two planes during landings. As "Wing Commander Gibbs(RAF)," Prince Bernhard flew over occupied Europe in a B-24 bomber attacking V-1 launch pads, he was in a B-25 Mitchell bomber bombing Pisa, over the Atlantic ocean bombing a submarine and in an L-5 reconnaissance plane over occupied Europe. Prince Bernhard was awarded the Dutch Flying Cross for his "ability and perseverance" (Dutch: "bekwaamheid en volharding"). (source: Interview with the Prince,1993, Henny Meyer, published in "Het Vliegerskruis" 1997)