De kunst van het verbergen. Een lichtzinnige naziprins en de Nederlandse monarchie (discussiedossier over Bernhard. Een verborgen geschiedenis)

Abstract

The Art of Dissimulation: A Frivolous Nazi Prince and the Dutch MonarchyAnnejet van der Zijl’s biography Bernhard. Een verborgen geschiedenis [Bernhard: A Hidden History] deftly interweaves the family history of the ‘Zur Lippe-Biesterfelders’ with the social decline of the minor German aristocracy in the period of the German Empire, World War I and the Weimar Republic. This results in a probing description of a time and a milieu in which anti-democratic, extreme right-wing forces came to full bloom. The exact consequences of Prince Bernhard’s anti-democratic attitude for the Dutch monarchy as an institution are less well examined, however. The fact that Bernhard as a person perhaps did not have character to play the role of dictator, does nothing to lessen the danger posed by the popularity he enjoyed among ‘the people’ in the extreme circumstances of World War II and, more specifically, its final phase.