Visions of Empire in the Nazi-Occupied Netherlands

Jennifer L. Foray

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9781107015807
• eBook ISBN:
  9781139181358
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

This book explores how the experiences of World War II shaped and transformed Dutch perceptions of their centuries-old empire. Focusing on the work of leading anti-Nazi resisters, Jennifer L. Foray examines how the war forced a rethinking of colonial practices and relationships. As Dutch resisters planned for a postwar world bearing little resemblance to that of 1940, they envisioned a wide range of possibilities for their empire and its territories, anticipating a newly harmonious relationship between the Netherlands and its most prized colony in the East Indies. Though most of the underground writers and thinkers discussed in this book ultimately supported the idea of a Dutch commonwealth, this structure wouldn't come to pass in the postwar period. The Netherlands instead embarked on a violent decolonization process brought about by wartime conditions in the Netherlands and the East Indies.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Visions of Empire in the Nazi-Occupied Netherlands
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 War Comes to the Kingdom
• 2 The Landscape of Resistance and the Clandestine Press
• 3 “Look to the East!”: Collaboration, Colonialism, and Compensatory Schemes
• 4 “Indies Lost, Disaster Born”: The Trauma of Early 1942
• 5 Mutuality, Equality, and the Commonwealth: The Queen’s Speech of December 7, 1942
• 6 Countering the Commonwealth: The Center and Right Enter the Fray
• 7 “After Our Liberation, That of Indonesia”: Preparing for Battle
• 8 Wartime Consensus and Postwar Pressures
• Conclusion: The End of an Era
• Bibliography
• Index