The Dutch underground press was part of the resistance to German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.
After the occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940, the Germans quickly took control over the existing Dutch press and enforced censorship and publication of Nazi propaganda. Independent Dutch citizens organized themselves into publishing their own illegal papers. These papers were cherished by the population, and were better trusted than the official papers (even though one might argue that they were equally slanted). Issues were distributed and passed on, even though there were heavy penalties (including the death penalty) for those involved with illegal anti-Nazi publications.
Some of today's main paper and magazine titles (Trouw, Het Parool, Vrij Nederland) originate from this period.
A collection is maintained in The British Library.
Famous quotes containing the words dutch, underground and/or press:
“Too nice is neighbor’s fool.”
—Common Dutch saying, trans by Johanna C. Prins.
“An underground grower, blind and a common brown;
Got a misshapen look, it’s nudged where it could;
Simple as soil yet crowded as earth with all.”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)
“Every expansion of government in business means that government in order to protect itself from the political consequences of its errors and wrongs is driven irresistibly without peace to greater and greater control of the nation’s press and platform. Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce die.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)