“What did I do wrong? Sure, I acted in films in the Third Reich, entertainment films, which distracted countless people inside and outside Germany from daily life during war,” he wrote.
“Sure, I wanted to make my career and I remember well at the time how many people in the Netherlands were proud that I made a career in the huge neighboring country … But apart from my career – and the fact that, through no fault of my own, Adolf Hitler was one of the fans of my art – what have I done?”
It’s what he didn’t do.
28 November, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Oh thanks for bringing this up, RickB, I’ve been following this story. It’s been an on-again, off-again story in the Dutch press. A year ago even (scroll down in link): http://www.radionetherlands.nl/pr/071127-Dutch-press-review
Also more background from Radio Netherlands last May (just before LIberation Day commemorations):
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/region/netherlands/tswi-080503-heesters
28 November, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Thanks for the links Jay, wow, –”The mayor and town council agreed, since “He isn’t a war criminal” and they had received assurances that he was “politically naïve”.—
Yeah, that’s it he is misunderstood and enjoyed achieving fame and power under nazism while his competition were put in camps, but really he’s a nice guy, not say a raging narcissist without a principle in his body. I am reminded of Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut, but in this guys case there are no redeeming aspects he just wanted fame and didn’t mind how it occurred. Also makes me think of people in 24 and its ilk, what did they do to stop torture?
28 November, 2008 at 11:54 pm
RickB, I am recall when I was a teen ager, my parents’ landlord (a Jewish optermoterist in our NJ town) said to my Dutch dad: “You Dutiches saved us.” Indeed, my Dad said (actually my aunt – my dad’s sister – harbored a Jewish family in her attic during the war). But my dad had to tell him that not all the Dutch were so understanding.
28 November, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Oops, “optometrist.”
29 November, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Much respect to your Aunt, that is how I hope we would all act under the same circumstances.
Well not just Dutch but sympathisers, collaborators and political allies were everywhere and the speed with which we allied with nazis after the war under the guise of the cold war, well… for much of our ruling class the nazis were not so objectionable it seems. I think the military aspect of the ideology was defeated but the political aspect abided and metastasised.
30 November, 2008 at 2:34 am
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