Be brave, become Stormer : an analysis of the experience of the members of the Dutch Nationale Jeugdstorm during the period of German occupation, 1940-1945

In this thesis the membership experience of the members of the Nationale Jeugdstorm (NJS) during the years of the German occupation of the Netherlands (1940-1945) is analyzed. From 1934 until the end of the Second World War the Nationale Jeugdstorm, which can be regarded a sister organization of the Nationaal Socialistische Beweging, aimed to unite and educate the Dutch youth by the fascistic model, with varying success. While the organizational history of the NJS has been analyzed by past research, the experience of the individual members has largely been left out. By means of an extensive diary analysis the ideological perceptiveness, the social relations and the willingness to use violence of the members of the Nationale Jeugdstorm is uncovered. Building upon recent research on the nuance debate on goed and fout and on the reevaluation of the isolated postilion of national socialists within the Dutch society, I argue that the membership experience of the Nationale Jeugdstorm can best be characterized by the notions of diversity and variation. On an ideological level the Nationale Jeugdstorm propagated two different worldviews: an internally oriented Dietse ideology; and a German oriented Duitse ideology. Members show difference in perceptiveness to both these ideological teachings. On a social level the isolation of national socialistic children is largely refuted. Social relations could certainly be affected by membership, but negative confrontation or isolation was not a direct result of Jeugdstorm membership. On a behavioral level, members showed several degrees on willingness to use violence. On the one hand a relatively small group of mainly older NJS kader-members chose to participate in violent action from the early war years onward. The real turning point in the militarization of the NJS occurs after Dolle Dinsdag 1944, after which many of the Jeugdstorm members are displaced and assigned military tasks. Their participation in violent action hereby doesn't necessarily represent a willingness to fight. All in all, the experience of Jeugdstorm membership did certainly have effects on the lives of the Jeugdstorm members on all three levels, but the experience of membership was generally very dissimilar. A more complete understanding of the Nationale Jeugdstorm - of which the official line of governance on the organizational level is one side, and the individual experience members is another - breaks the stigma of uniformity among the Jeugdstorm children. Masterthesis Geschiedenis, University of Amsterdam. pagina's.