Politics of the Netherlands
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Elections
The National Socialist Dutch Workers Party (Dutch Nationaal-Socialistische Nederlandsche Arbeiderspartij or NSNAP ) was a minor Dutch national socialist party founded in 1931 and led by Ernst Herman van Rappard. Seeking to copy the fascism of others, notably Adolf Hitler, the group failed to achieve success and was accused by rivals such as the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (NSB) and the General Dutch Fascist League of being too moderate for a fascist movement.
The group looked to the National Socialist German Workers Party for its inspiration, setting up its own Storm Trooper battalion in imitation of the Sturmabteilung and its own Holland Youth like the Hitler Youth, as well as copying the black swastika in a white circle on a red background as its emblem. Unlike its far right counterparts, who claimed to endorse Dutch patriotism, the NSNAP sought full incorporation of the Netherlands into the Third Reich, a policy which won it little support as the 998 votes which the party captured in the 1937 election demonstrated. Unlike the NSB, the NSNAP focused on anti-semitism, and denounced the NSB as a Jewish-dominated, pseudo-National Socialist organisation.
Van Rappard was unable to hold the party together and before long three separate group were claiming the NSNAP name, one under Major Cornelis Jacobus Aart Kruyt and the other under Albert van Waterland (who had dropped his real surname of de Joode as it meant 'the Jew'). This factionalism in what was already a small party ensured that Alfred Rosenberg, who had considered the possibility of supporting the group with German money, lost interest and so the three NSNAPs faded from significance.
The NSNAP did not gain from the German invasion of 1940 as the German authorities chose Anton Mussert of the rival NSB as their main beneficiary and Major Kruyt's version of the party merged into Mussert's movement in late 1940. The NSNAP finally disappeared altogether on December 14, 1941 when Arthur Seyss-Inquart banned all parties except the NSB. With van Rappard on active service with the Waffen-SS most of the remaining NSNAP members accepted the decision and switched their support to Mussert.
Famous quotes containing the words national, socialist, dutch, workers and/or party:
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“In former times and in less complex societies, children could find their way into the adult world by watching workers and perhaps giving them a hand; by lingering at the general store long enough to chat with, and overhear conversations of, adults...; by sharing and participating in the tasks of family and community that were necessary to survival. They were in, and of, the adult world while yet sensing themselves apart as children.”
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“There was an old party of Lyme
Who married three wives at one time.”
—Edward Lear (1812–1888)