Pieter Geyl - Wartime Experiences

Wartime Experiences

In 1940, Geyl wrote an article on how historians view Napoleon. It was due to be published in June 1940, but after the German occupation in May 1940, the publishers declined to publish Geyl's article out of the fear that comparisons could be made between Napoleon and Adolf Hitler. In September 1940, Geyl used his article for the basis of series of lectures at the Rotterdam School of Economics. In October 1940 the SD (Security Service) of the SS took Geyl hostage in retaliation for what the Germans alleged to be maltreatment of Germans interned in the Dutch East Indies. Geyl spent thirteen months at the Buchenwald concentration camp. Even after his release from Buchenwald, Geyl continued to be held by the Germans at a Dutch prison until he was finally released for medical reasons in February 1944.

In 1945 Geyl became the chair of history at the University of Utrecht. In his opening address, he called for his students to disprove political and cultural myths that could lead to movements like National Socialism. Geyl was a critic of the Sonderweg interpretation of German history that argued that Nazi Germany was the inevitable result of the way German history developed. In particular, Geyl defended the German historian Leopold von Ranke against the charge of being a proto-Nazi.