Allegiance To The House of Orange
The Prince eventually went to work for the German chemical giant IG Farben, then the world’s fourth-largest company (which survives today as BASF, AGFA, and Bayer). After training, he became secretary to the board of directors at the Paris office in 1935. Because he was a Protestant of royal rank (the Lippe-Biesterfelds were a sovereign house in the German Empire), 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, and a number of them joined the royal wedding party on 7 January 1937 in The Hague. Protocol demanded that the prospective prince-consort be invited to an audience with his head of state, who at the time was Adolf Hitler. Hitler himself gives a rendering of the conversation he had with Bernhard in his Tisch Gespräche (Table Conversations). Table Conversations was a collection of monologues, remarks, and speeches Hitler gave during lunch or dinner to those invited to the table by him. Bernhard himself called Hitler a tyrant in a public speech on the BBC on 25 June 1940 after France fell to Germany.
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 the 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, even though members of the Dutch armed forces wear their medals in the Prussian style.
The Prince’s mother was no admirer of the Nazis and got into trouble for refusing to hoist the swastika flag on her country seat at Reckenwalde.
Read more about this topic: Prince Bernhard Of Lippe-Biesterfeld
Famous quotes containing the words allegiance to, allegiance, house and/or orange:
“For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and transient forays only, and my patriotism and allegiance to the state into whose territories I seem to retreat are those of a moss-trooper.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The only human beings I have thoroughly admired and respected in the world have been those who carried the load of the world with a smile, and who, in the face of anxieties that would have knocked me clean out, never showed a tremor. Such men and women end by owning us, soul and body, and our allegiance can never be shaken. We are only too glad to be owned. Religion is nothing but this.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Behold now this vast city; a city of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with his protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and hands there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“Give not this rotten orange to your friend;
She’s but the sign and semblance of her honor.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)