Postwar Roles
After the war, the position of Inspector General was created for the Prince. He was made a member of the boards of supervisors of Fokker Aircraft and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and within a few years he had been invited to serve as an adviser or non-executive director of numerous corporations and institutions. There have been claims about KLM helping Nazis to leave Germany for Argentina on KLM flights while Bernhard was on its board . After a 1952 trip with Queen Juliana to the United States, Prince Bernhard was heralded by the media as a business ambassador extraordinaire for the Netherlands.
With his global contacts, Bernhard in May 1954, was a key figure in organising a meeting at the Bilderberg Hotel in the Netherlands for the business elite and intellectuals of the Western World to discuss the economic problems in the face of what they characterized as the growing threat from Communism. This first meeting was successful, and it became an annual gathering known as the Bilderberg Group. The idea for the European Union, first proposed by Robert Schuman on 9 May 1950, was encouraged at Bilderberg.
Prince Bernhard was a very outspoken person who often flouted protocol by remarking upon subjects about which he felt deeply. Almost until his last day he called for more recognition for the Polish veterans of the Second World War who had figured greatly in the liberation of the Netherlands, but only after his death did the Dutch government decide to publicly recognize the important role of the Polish army in the liberation: on 31 May 2006, at the Binnenhof in The Hague, Her Majesty Queen Beatrix conferred the Order of William, the highest Dutch military decoration, on the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade.
Read more about this topic: Prince Bernhard Of Lippe-Biesterfeld
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