Hein A. M. Klemann

Did the German Occupation (1940–1945) Ruin Dutch Industry?

Until recently Dutch historiography of the Second World War focused on subjects typical for this period: repression, resistance, the Hunger Winter of 1944–5 and, above all, the Holocaust. If anything was written about the economy, it was about exploitation resulting in impoverishment and hunger. New calculations of macroeconomic statistics for the period 1938–48 show that industrial production did not in fact decline until after the end of 1941, and that the first one and a half years of the occupation were the best in a decade. This article addresses the central question of how the Dutch economy, and especially industry, developed during the German occupation of 1940–5, especially during the first years. The development of employment suggests that economic decline and exploitation do not form the only story to be told about the economy in those years. Nevertheless, in Dutch popular publications, and in the international literature, the opinion still persists that during the occupation the economies of occupied western Europe slumped. Another problem is, therefore, how to explain the positive elements in economic development, and how it is possible that in memories and historiography it took more than fifty years before the traditional story of decline and exploitation as the sole elements of wartime economic development were even questioned.

Competition in the Rhine Delta: Waterways, Railways and Ports, 1870–1913

Rhine transport was not an absolute condition for German industrialization. Railways proved to be efficient, and in the 1840–1870 period were essential for the industrialization of the Ruhr area. The key questions addressed in this article are: why did inland navigation not disappear from the Rhine region (as it did elsewhere), even recovering after the 1870s? And why did it have an unassailable competitive advantage from the 1890s onwards? Political developments leading to the liberalization of Rhine shipping and the canalization of the river created the opportunity to increase the scale of shipping. This gave it competitive advantages when it came to bulk transport. This article uses new data on freight rates in the Rhine delta to demonstrate the course of Rhine competitiveness. Furthermore, it identifies the institutional conditions, and the technological and organizational improvements, that were the basis of this growing competitiveness. The conclusion is that the element of German international trade that went by the Rhine correlated with the cost of Rhine shipping when compared to that of railway transport. As a consequence of the recovery of Rhine shipping, the port of Rotterdam became stronger than its Belgian neighbour, Antwerp.

The Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine, 1815-1914. Nineteenth Century European Integration.

Traditionally, local rulers and towns along the Rhine taxed Rhine shipping, regulated and monopolized it, and so caused an almost prohibitive increase in costs. Only the French liberalized Rhine navigation and limited tolls and taxes on barging during the final years of the 18th century. After the fall of Napoleon, it was feared that the old approach would return. As no one thought this was a good idea, the Conference of Vienna tried to regulate navigation on international rivers in general, and on the Rhine in particular, in a liberal manner. To guarantee free navigation on the river, the Congress founded the still-existing Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine (CCNR). Rivalry between its then two most important members – Prussia and the United Netherlands – threatened this organization, but when Prussia became dominant from the 1830s onwards, liberalization was achieved. This was not, however, enough in this period, as Rhine navigation had to compete with another mode of transport, the railways. As a result, to keep barging intact, the complete normalization – the common term for canalization – of the Rhine was required. It was only after that, that the Rhine could be used for transport on a scale that made it possible to compete with rail transport. This article concerns the question of why the governments along the Rhine invested the enormous amount of money required to normalize the river and the role the CCNR played in this.

Financial and Monetary Developments in the Occupied Netherlands, 1940–45

According to a 1943 review published in a German economic journal, in occupied Europe financial and monetary procedures were just a refined requisition policy. In the highly developed western parts of the occupied continent, simply not paying would terminate production. However, Germany did not want to pay for purchases in the countries it conquered. Consequently, the occupier had to use its dominance to pay individual suppliers with money taken from the occupied countries. These countries were compensated by an administrative recognition that Germany owed them a certain sum payable in an unknown future, and even that only for non-military deliveries. For military supplies the bill was simply passed to the national treasuries. By manipulation of this mechanism, Berlin got all it wanted from these countries for free, at the same time transmitting parts of its wartime inflation to these countries. This is visible in the parallel growth of the banknote and monetary circulation (M1) in occupied Western Europe and in Germany (Table 4.1). It suggests that there was some kind of European monetary mechanism.

Economie en totale oorlog

J. Meihuizen, Noodzakelijk kwaad. De bestraffing van economische collaboratie in Nederland na de Tweede Wereldoorlog The economy and full-scale war Meihuizen concludes that the interests of the reconstruction had to take precedence over those of an honourable judicial process, as a result of which cases of economic collaboration seldom reached the courts. This essay argues that Dutch firms could not avoid manufacturing goods for the occupying forces because they were often relatively small-scale in nature and organised along the lines of a family business. If this type of firm refused to fulfil a German order and its competitor was willing to accept it, then it ran the risk of being squeezed out by the competition. This is why, in the Netherlands and elsewhere, as soon as a firm made the transition from a smallscale to a medium-sized family business it was inclined to work all-out for the occupying forces. This had nothing to do with free choice, but rather the will to survive. In addition to this, non-military production, even that which was geared towards keeping the people at home alive and healthy, supported the German war effort. In an economy where all military production is systematically maximized and manufacturing geared towards producing civilian goods is pushed back to a level where it can just about survive, all manufacturing becomes economic collaboration, thereby making the notion redundant. Consequently, the question that should have resounded throughout this study ought to have been whether a legal case could have been made against economic collaboration at all or whether this was doomed to fail from the start.