Anton Mussert

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Personal

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Notable

Dutch National Socialistic Movement (NSB) leader, convicted and executed for high treason in 1946. Mussert was the son of the Catholic headmaster Joannes Leonardus Mussert (1856-1913) and the Protestant school teacher Frederika Witlam (1856). They married 5 December 1879 and his father converted 24 June 1894 to Protestantism because of his spouse. He was the head teacher of the public elementary school in Werkendam from 1879 to 1912. The Protestant people in Werkendam that sent their children to the less by the Government subsidized in 1888 founded Protestant school distrusted him and wrote anonymous letters against him in local papers as part of the Dutch "schoolstrijd". The couple got nine children of which Mussert was the fourth. Four of them died before toddler age. Mussert was an intelligent student who studied weg- en waterbouwkunde (civil engineering) from September 1912 to Juli 1918 (cum laude) at Delft University after finishing the HBS and the primary school of his father. He served in the army from 1914 till 1915. He wanted to be a sea officer, but he was dismissed because of eye problems. From 1918 to 1920 he was an engineer of Rijkswaterstaat and contributed to the design of the sluices of Ijmuiden. From 1920 to 1927 he was civil engineer of Provinciale Waterstaat of Utrecht, from 1927 till his Berufsverbot on 1 May 1934 he was head engineer of the Provincial Waterways Authority. On 4 November 1932 Anton Mussert and Cees van Geelkerken founded the "Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging in Nederland" (NSB), the equivalent of the German NSDAP founded 24 February 1920. Six hundred people visited the first "Landdag" congress on 7 January 1933 in Utrecht. That same day they started the party weekly "Volk en Vaderland" with George Kettmann as main editor. The political foundation grew fast: from 1000 members in January 1933, to 21,000 on 1 January 1934, to 33,000 on 1 January 1935 to 52,000 on 1 January 1936. During the elections of 16 April 1935 they had almost 8% of the votes. Mussert had many rich sponsors from the Dutch East Indies. He visited them July 1935. From 14 December 1931 till the German capitulation on 5 May 1945 Mussert was the leader of the NSB party. Mussert met Adolf Hitler several times. First on 16 November 1936, 20 April 1939 and during the war in September 1940, December 1941, 1942 and 1943. On 13 December 1942 Seyss-Inquart appointed him as "Leider van het Nederlandse Volk" (leader of the Dutch people). But actually his leadership was rather symbolic as Seyss-Inquart (22 July 1892, Stannern – 16 October 1946, Neurenberg) determined what happened. On 7 May 1945 Mussert was arrested in Den Haag. On 27 and 28 November 1945 he came to court at the newly established "Bijzonder Gerechtshof" at Den Haag that him on 12 December convicted to death penalty because of high treason. His appeal was on 20 March 1946 rejected. From 7 May 1945 till his execution on 7 May 1946 he spent in the prison of Scheveningen. Personal On 19 September 1917 Mussert married his aunt on mothers side Maria (Rie) Witlam (16 September 1876, Enkhuizen - 3 April 1951) in Rheden. His aunt cared for him when he had a kidney disease in 1914. They fell in love and married in spite of protests from the family, including his mother. The couple had to get consent from the authorities for the marriage. They got no children. In 1942 Mussert had a lover relation with the 19 years old Marie C. (Marietje) Mijnlieff (b. 1923), the daughter of his widowed niece Helena Mijnlieff-Verburg. Both became members of the NSB, Marietje in Febr. 1941, unlike his aunt/spouse Rie, who was not at all interested in politics. In 1942 he bought for them a villa in Bussum, where he visited them often to speak about his ideals. Later his friend Mussert was executed on 7 May 1946 6:30 at the Waalsdorpervlakte near The Hague. It was exactly a year after his imprisonment on on May 7, 1945 in Scheveningen. He was buried in an anonymous grave. Link to Wikipedia