Zur harm reduction in Deutschland und den Niederlanden (German Edition)
A substantial part of the money for buying heroin is obtained through criminal activities, such as robbery or drug dealing. Naloxone is a drug used to counter an overdose from the effect of opioids ; for example, a heroin or morphine overdose. Simply put, naloxone displaces the opioid molecules from the brain's receptors and reverses the respiratory depression caused by an overdose within two to eight minutes. Formal programs in which the opioid inverse agonist drug naloxone is distributed have been trialled and implemented.
Established programs distribute naloxone, as per WHO's minimum standards, to drug users and their peers, family members, police, prisons, and others. Officers in Quincy, Massachusetts , US began carrying the nasal spray form of the drug in October , following the completion of a Department of Public Health pilot program, in which naloxone was distributed to friends and families of opiate users, in Quincy officers have administered the drug times and reversed overdoses since the commencement of the initiative.
Quincy mayor Thomas Koch explained in early But when you put a name and a face and a family to that, then it's a different story. Some people who go down this road will never come back, but if we can bring them back, there's always hope. Following the use of the nasal spray device by police officers on Staten Island in New York, an additional 20, police officers will begin carrying naloxone in mid Some Harm Reduction Programs distribute Naloxone kits to people who use opioids and their friends and families to prevent overdose deaths.
The distribution of Naloxone and public education by harm reduction programs has been shown to increase the survival rate for opioid users that experience an overdose. During the week beginning March 3, , 19 workshops had been completed by HRV and drug users had been provided with naloxone, paid for by community health agencies. Specific harms associated with cannabis include increased accident-rate while driving under intoxication , dependence , psychosis , detrimental psychosocial outcomes for adolescent users and respiratory disease.
The fact that cannabis possession carries prison sentences in most developed countries is also pointed out as a problem by European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction EMCDDA , as the consequences of a conviction for otherwise law-abiding users arguably is more harmful than any harm from the drug itself. For example, by adversely affecting employment opportunities, impacting civil rights, [92] and straining personal relationships.
The way the laws concerning cannabis are enforced is also very selective, even discriminatory. Statistics show that the socially disadvantaged, immigrants and ethnic minorities have significantly higher arrest rates. In the last few years certain strains of the cannabis plant with higher concentrations of THC and drug tourism have challenged the former policy in the Netherlands and led to a more restrictive approach; for example, a ban on selling cannabis to tourists in coffeeshops suggested to start late Traditionally, homeless shelters ban alcohol.
In , as the result of an inquest into the deaths of two homeless alcoholics two years earlier, Toronto 's Seaton House became the first homeless shelter in Canada to operate a "wet shelter" on a "managed alcohol" principle in which clients are served a glass of wine once an hour unless staff determine that they are too inebriated to continue. The programme has been duplicated in other Canadian cities, and a study of Ottawa 's "wet shelter" found that emergency room visit and police encounters by clients were cut by half.
Researchers found that programme participants cut their alcohol use from an average of 46 drinks a day when they entered the programme to an average of 8 drinks and that their visits to emergency rooms dropped from University of Washington researchers, partnering with DESC, found that providing housing and support services for homeless alcoholics costs taxpayers less than leaving them on the street, where taxpayer money goes towards police and emergency health care.
Further, despite the fact residents are not required to be abstinent or in treatment for alcohol use, stable housing also results in reduced drinking among homeless alcoholics. Many cities have free-ride-home programmes during holidays involving high alcohol abuse, and some bars and clubs will provide a visibly drunk patron with a free cab ride. In New South Wales groups of licensees have formed local liquor accords and collectively developed, implemented and promoted a range of harm minimisation programmes including the aforementioned 'designated driver' and 'late night patron transport' schemes.
Many of the transport schemes are free of charge to patrons, to encourage them to avoid drink-driving and at the same time reduce the impact of noisy patrons loitering around late night venues. Moderation Management is a programme which helps drinkers to cut back on their consumption of alcohol by encouraging safe drinking behaviour.
The HAMS Harm Reduction Network is a programme which encourages any positive change with regard to the use of alcohol or other mood altering substances. HAMS encourages goals of safer drinking, reduced drinking, moderate drinking, or abstinence. The choice of the goal is up to the individual. Harm reduction in alcohol dependency could be instituted by use of naltrexone. Tobacco harm reduction describes actions taken to lower the health risks associated with using tobacco, especially combustible forms, without abstaining completely from tobacco and nicotine.
Some of these measures include switching to safer lower tar cigarettes, switching to snus or dipping tobacco , or using a non-tobacco nicotine delivery systems. In recent years, the growing use of electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation , whose long-term safety remains uncertain, has sparked an ongoing controversy among medical and public health between those who seek to restrict and discourage all use until more is known and those who see them as a useful approach for harm reduction, whose risks are most unlikely to equal those of smoking tobacco.
It is widely acknowledged that discontinuation of all tobacco products confers the greatest lowering of risk. However, there is a considerable population of inveterate smokers who are unable or unwilling to achieve abstinence. Harm reduction may be of substantial benefit to these individuals. The Zendo Project conducted by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies uses principles from psychedelic therapy to provide safe places and emotional support for people having difficult experiences on psychedelic drugs at select festivals such as Burning Man , Boom Festival , and Lightning in a Bottle without medical or law enforcement intervention.
Drugs such as MDMA commonly sold by the slang names "ecstasy" and "molly" are often adulterated. One harm reduction approach is drug checking , where people intending to use drugs can have their substances tested for content and purity so that they can then make more informed decisions about safer consumption. European organisations have offered drug checking services since and these services now operate in over twenty countries. As an example, the nonprofit organization DanceSafe offers on-site testing of the contents of pills and powders at various electronic music events around the US.
They also sell kits for users to test the contents of drugs themselves. This runs contrary to abstinence -only sex education, which teaches that educating children about sex can encourage them to engage in it. These programmes have been found to decrease risky sexual behaviour and prevent sexually transmitted diseases. However, in most countries the practice is prohibited. Gathering accurate statistics on prostitution and human trafficking is extremely difficult. This has resulted in proponents of legalization claiming that it reduces organized crime rates while opponents claim exactly the converse.
The Dutch prostitution policy , which is one of the most liberal in the world, has gone back and forth on the issue several times. In the period leading up to up to a third of officially sanctioned work places had been closed down again after reports of human trafficking. Prostitutes themselves are generally opposed to what they see as "theft of their livelihood" [].
The threat of criminal repercussions drives sex-workers and injecting drug users to the margins of society, often resulting in high-risk behaviour, increasing the rate of overdose, infectious disease transmission, and violence. This enables other harm-reduction strategies to be employed, which results in a lower incidence of HIV infection.
With the growing concern about psychiatric medication adverse effects and long-term dependency, peer-run mental health groups Freedom Center and The Icarus Project published the Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs. The self-help guide provides patients with information to help assess risks and benefits, and to prepare to come off, reduce, or continue medications when their physicians are unfamiliar with or unable to provide this guidance. The guide is in circulation among mental health consumer groups and has been translated into ten languages.
Critics, such as Drug Free America Foundation and other members of network International Task Force on Strategic Drug Policy , state that a risk posed by harm reduction is by creating the perception that certain behaviours can be partaken of safely, such as illicit drug use, that it may lead to an increase in that behaviour by people who would otherwise be deterred. We oppose so-called 'harm reduction' strategies as endpoints that promote the false notion that there are safe or responsible ways to use drugs. That is, strategies in which the primary goal is to enable drug users to maintain addictive, destructive, and compulsive behavior by misleading users about some drug risks while ignoring others.
This undermines the international efforts to limit the supply of and demand for drugs. However, in Switzerland the incidence of heroin abuse has declined sharply since the introduction of heroin assisted treatment. As a study published in The Lancet concluded:. The harm reduction policy of Switzerland and its emphasis on the medicalisation of the heroin problem seems to have contributed to the image of heroin as unattractive for young people. Critics furthermore reject harm reduction measures for allegedly trying to establish certain forms of drug use as acceptable in society:.
Harm reduction has come to represent a philosophy in which illicit substance use is seen as largely unpreventable, and increasingly, as a feasible and acceptable lifestyle as long as use is not 'problematic'. At its root of this philosophy lay an acceptance of drug use into the mainstream of society. We reject this philosophy as fatalistic and faulty at its core. The idea that we can safely use drugs is a dangerous one. It is in fact an unsafe choice that brings great harm to individuals, families, and communities across.
And it sends the wrong message to the most valuable yet vulnerable group of Canadians — our children and youth. Even though the world is against drug abuse, some organizations and local governments actively advocate the legalization of drugs and promote policies such as 'harm reduction' that accept drug use and do not help drug users to become free from drug abuse. We support the INCB statement that 'harm reduction' programmes are not substitutes for demand reduction programmes and should not be carried out at the expense of other important activities to reduce the demand for illicit drugs, such as drug prevention activities.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The German occupiers implemented a policy of Gleichschaltung "enforced conformity" , and systematically eliminated non-Nazi organizations. In , the German regime more or less immediately outlawed all Socialist and Communist parties; in , it forbade all parties, except for the Dutch National Socialist party NSB.
Gleichschaltung was an enormous shock to the Dutch, who had traditionally had separate institutions for all main religious groups, particularly Catholic and Protestant, because of decades of pillarisation. The process was opposed by the Catholic Church in the Netherlands , and, in , all Roman Catholics were urged by Dutch bishops to leave associations that had been Nazified.
Initially, Seyss-Inquart applied the 'velvet glove' approach; by appeasing the population he tried to win them for the national-socialist ideology. It meant that he kept repression and economic extraction as low as possible, and tried to cooperate with the elite and government officials in the country.
Battle of the Netherlands
There was also a realistic reason behind this: The German market went open and Dutch companies benefited greatly from export to Germany, even if this might be seen as collaboration in case of goods which might be used for German war efforts. In any case, despite the British victory in the Battle of Britain , many considered a German victory a realistic possibility and it would therefore be wise to side with the winner.
As a result, and due to the ban on other political parties, the NSB grew rapidly. Although gasoline pumps were already sealed in , the occupation seemed tolerable. This rosy picture ended with Operation Barbarossa in June and the subsequent German defeats at Moscow and Stalingrad. Germany was now fighting a mighty enemy in the East, and in order to defeat it, occupied territory had to make its contribution. Economic extraction increased, production was limited mostly to sectors relevant for the war effort as it was simply impossible to produce guns and butter.
Repression increased, especially against the Jewish population. After the Allied invastion of June , due to the railroad strike and the frontline running through the Netherlands, the Randstad was cut off from food and fuel. This resulted in actute need and starvation: The German authorities lost more and more control over the situation as the population tried to keep what little they had away from German confiscations and were less inclined to cooperate now that it was clear that Germany would lose the war.
Fanatical Nazi's prepared to make a last stand against the Allied troops, followed Berlins Nerobefehl and destroyed goods and property battle for Groningen , destructions of the Amsterdam and Rotterdam ports, inundations. Others tried to mediate the situation. Eventually, in April and May , the Netherlands was liberated by the Canadian troops. The Luftwaffe was especially interested in the Netherlands, as the country was designated to become the main area for the air force bases from which to attack the United Kingdom.
Each of these was intended to have at least 2 or 3 hard surface runways, a dedicated railway connection, major built-up and heated repair and overhaul facilities, extensive indoor and outdoor storage spaces, and most had housing and facilities for to men. Each Fliegerhorst also had an auxiliary and often a decoy airfield, complete with mock-up planes made from plywood.
The construction work was performed by Dutch contractors and Dutch workers on a totally voluntary basis. Adjacent to Deelen, the large central air control bunker for Belgium and the Netherlands, Diogenes, was set up. Within a year, the attack strategy had to be altered to a defensive operation. The ensuing air war over the Netherlands cost almost 20, airmen Allied and German their lives and 6, planes went down over the country - an average of 3 per day during the five years of the war.
The Netherlands turned into the first line of western air defense for Germany and its industrial heartland of the Ruhrgebiet , complete with extensive flak , sound detection installations and later radar. The first German night-hunter squadron started its operations from the Netherlands. Some 30, Luftwaffe men and women were involved in the Netherlands throughout the war. The Arbeitseinsatz — the drafting of civilians for forced labour — was imposed on the Netherlands.
This obliged every man between 18 and 45 to work in German factories, which were bombed regularly by the western Allies. Those who refused were forced into hiding. As food and many other goods were taken out of the Netherlands, rationing increased with ration books. At times, the resistance would raid distribution centres to obtain ration cards to be distributed to those in hiding. For the resistance to succeed, it was sometimes necessary for its members to feign collaboration with the Germans.
After the war, this led to difficulties for those who pretended to collaborate when they could not prove they had been in the resistance — something that was difficult because it was in the nature of the job to keep it a secret. The Atlantic Wall , a gigantic coastal defense line built by the Germans along the entire European coast from southwestern France to Denmark and Norway , included the coastline of the Netherlands. Some towns, such as Scheveningen , were evacuated because of this. In The Hague alone, 3, houses were demolished and 2, were dismantled.
The Arbeitseinsatz also included forcing the Dutch to work on these projects, but a form of passive resistance took place here with people working slowly or poorly. Shortly after it was established, the military regime began to persecute the Jews of the Netherlands. In , there were no deportations and only small measures were taken against the Jews. The Dutch reacted with the February strike , a nationwide protest against the deportations, unique in the history of Nazi-occupied Europe.
Although the strike did not accomplish much—its leaders were executed—it was an initial setback for Seyss-Inquart. He had intended both to deport the Jews and to win the Dutch over to the Nazi cause. Independent Jewish organizations, such as the Committee for Jewish Refugees — founded by Asscher and Cohen in — were closed. In May , Jews were ordered to wear the Star of David badges. Around the same time the Catholic Church of the Netherlands publicly condemned the government's action in a letter read at all Sunday parish services.
Thereafter, the Nazi government treated the Dutch more harshly: Later in the war, Catholic priests, including Titus Brandsma , were deported to concentration camps. In , the Germans established a transit camp Durchgangslager was established at Westerbork. It converted the pre-war camp opened by the Committee for Jewish Refugees.
Concentration camps were built at Vught and Amersfoort as well. Eventually, with the assistance of Dutch police and civil service, the majority of the Dutch Jews were deported to concentration camps. Germany was particularly effective in deporting and killing Jews during its occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. Of the , Jews in , inclusive both of Dutch Jews and the refugees ensnared by the German invasion of , about 38, survived at war's end in Historians have offered several hypotheses about why the survival rate was much lower in the Netherlands than in the other western European countries; including the possibility that the German occupiers in the Netherlands were particularly vigorous in comparison to other occupied countries.
The Netherlands included religion in its national records, which reduced the opportunity for Jews to mask their ethnic and religious identity. How much did the cooperation of the Dutch authorities and the Dutch people contribute? Did the absence of forests in the Netherlands deprive the Jews of hiding places?
Marnix Croes and Peter Tammes have examined these hypotheses by looking at the variations in survival between the different regions of the Netherlands. They conclude that most of these hypotheses do not explain the data. They suggest that a more likely explanation was the varying "ferocity" with which the Germans and their Dutch collaborators hunted Jews in hiding in the different regions. Nederlandse premiejagers op zoek naar joden, Bounty: Dutch bounty hunters in search of Jews, It was published in English as Hitler's Bounty Hunters: The Betrayal of the Jews He had found in newly declassified records that the Germans paid a bounty to police and other collaborators, as in the Colonnie Henneicke group, for tracking down Jews.
A publication, De Not all Dutch offered active or passive resistance against the German occupation. Some Dutch men and women chose or were forced to collaborate with the German regime or joined the German army which usually would mean being placed in the Waffen-SS. Others, like members of the Henneicke Column , were actively involved in capturing hiding Jews for a price and delivering them to the German occupiers.
It is estimated that the Henneicke Column captured around 8,, Dutch Jews who were ultimately sent to their death in the German death camps. The Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging NSB was the only legal political party in the Netherlands from and was actively involved in collaboration with the German occupiers. In , when Germany still seemed certain to win the war, about three percent of the adult male population belonged to the NSB. In May , after the German invasion, 10, NSB members and sympathizers were put in custody by the Dutch government.
Soon after the Dutch defeat, on 14 May , they were set free by German troops. In , the German regime had outlawed all socialist and communist parties; in , it forbade all parties, except for the NSB. The NSB openly collaborated with the occupation forces. Its membership grew to about , The newcomers meikevers were shunned by many existing members, who accused them of opportunist behavior. The NSB played an important role in lower government and civil service; every new mayor appointed by the German occupation government was a member of the NSB.
However, for most higher functions, the Germans preferred to leave the existing elite in place, knowing that the NSB neither offered enough suitable candidates nor enjoyed enough popular support. Mussert was arrested the following day. Many of the members of the NSB were arrested, but few were convicted; those who were included Mussert, who was executed on 7 May There were no attempts to continue the organization illegally.
It was the equivalent to the Allgemeine SS in Germany. The Nederland brigade participated in fighting on the Eastern Front during the Battle of Narva , with several soldiers receiving the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, Nazi Germany's highest award for bravery. Another form of corruption was providing goods and services essential to the German war efforts.
Especially in and , when a German victory was still a possibility, Dutch companies were willing to provide such goods to the greedily purchasing Germans. Strategic supplies fell in German hands, and in May German officers placed their first orders with Dutch shipyards.
This cooperation with the German industry was facilitated by the fact that due to the occupation the German market 'opened' and due to facilitating behavior from the side of the party pro-German elite. Many directors justified their behavior with the argument that otherwise the Germans would have closed down their company or would have replaced them with NSB members - in this way they could still exercise some, albeit limited, imited influence. After the war, no heavy sentences were dealt to high officials and company directors. The Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation during World War II developed relatively slowly, but its counter-intelligence, domestic sabotage, and communications networks provided key support to Allied forces beginning in and through the liberation of the country.
Discovery by the Germans of involvement in the resistance meant an immediate death sentence. The country's terrain, lack of wilderness and dense population made it difficult to conceal any illicit activities, and it was bordered by German-controlled territory, offering no escape route, except by sea.
Resistance in the Netherlands took the form of small-scale, decentralized cells engaged in independent activities. The communist CPN, however, organized resistance from the start of the war. So did the circle of liberal democratic resisters who were linked through Professor Dr.
This was one of the largest resistance groups, numbering around active participants; it was also heavily targeted by Nazi intelligence for destruction due to its links with England. Some small groups had absolutely no links to others. These groups produced forged ration cards and counterfeit money, collected intelligence, published underground newspapers , sabotaged phone lines and railways, prepared maps, and distributed food and goods. Some contact was established with the government in London. In the North, the Wons Position formed a bridgehead at the eastern end of the Enclosure Dike; it had a long perimeter of about nine kilometres to envelop enough land to receive a large number of retreating troops without making them too vulnerable to air attack.
This was exploited by the first German unit to arrive, the single bicycle battalion of 1. At noon it quickly penetrated the line in a concentrated attack, forcing the defenders to withdraw to the Enclosure Dike. For some the German advance cut off their escape route by land; they sailed away from the small port of Makkum , taking the last remaining vessels on the eastern side of Lake IJssel.
This denied the Germans any craft for a crossing attempt, which plan was now abandoned. In the afternoon General Winkelman received information about armoured forces advancing in the Langstraat region, on the road between 's-Hertogenbosch and the Moerdijk bridges. He still fostered hopes that those forces were French, but the announcement by Radio Bremen at He ordered the artillery batteries in the Hoekse Waard to try to destroy the Moerdijk bridges and sent a special engineering team to Rotterdam to blow up the Willemsbrug.
Pessimistic about the general situation at this point, he also ordered the vast strategic oil reserves of Royal Dutch Shell at Pernis to be set on fire. The new prime minister answered that he simply did not have any reserves; however, three British torpedo boats were sent to Lake IJssel. Contrary to Winkelman, the German command was very satisfied with the day's events.
It had been feared that the third day of the operation might become a "crisis day", the XXVI Armeekorps having to overcome near Breda the resistance of several French divisions. The Germans had also been concerned that they may face some Belgian or even British divisions. Therefore, von Bock had before the invasion requested to be reinforced in this effort by another Army Corps. Infanteriedivision , most of 9. In the early morning of 13 May General Winkelman advised the Dutch government that he considered the general situation to be critical. On land the Dutch had been cut off from the Allied front and it had become clear no major Allied landings were to be expected to reinforce the Fortress Holland by sea; without such support there was no prospect of a prolonged successful resistance.
German tanks might quickly pass through Rotterdam; Winkelman had already ordered all available antitank-guns to be placed in a perimeter around The Hague, to protect the seat of government.
Battle of the Netherlands - Wikipedia
However, an immediate collapse of the Dutch defences might still be prevented if the planned counterattacks could seal off the southern front near Dordrecht and restore the eastern line at the Grebbeberg. Therefore, the cabinet decided to continue the fight for the time being, [] giving the general the mandate to surrender the Army when he saw fit and the instruction to avoid unnecessary sacrifices. Nevertheless, it was also deemed essential that Queen Wilhelmina was to be brought to safety; she departed around noon from Hoek van Holland , where a British Irish Guards battalion was present, [] on HMS Hereward , a British destroyer, and when sea mines made it too dangerous to try to reach Zealand, she went to England.
Arrangements for the departure had already been made before the invasion.
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After heated discussions it was decided to leave also: While two tank companies of 9. Panzerdivision remained with XXVI Armeekorps to pursue the withdrawing French, the other four began to cross the Moerdijk traffic bridge at The Dutch made some attempts to indirectly block the advance of the German armour. V, dropped two bombs on the bridge; one hit a bridge pillar but failed to explode; the bomber was shot down. Dutch batteries in the Hoekse Waard , despite dive bomber attacks, tried to destroy the bridge by artillery fire, but the massive structure was only slightly damaged.
The Light Division tried to cut the German corridor by advancing to the west and linking up with a small ferry bridgehead over the Dortse Kil. However, two of the four battalions available were inefficiently deployed in a failed effort to recapture the suburbs of Dordrecht; [] when the other two battalions approached the main road, they were met head on by a few dozen German tanks. The vanguard of the Dutch troops, not having been informed of their presence, mistook the red air recognition cloths strapped on top of the German armour for orange flags French vehicles might use to indicate their friendly intentions—orange being seen by the Dutch as their national colour—and ran towards the vehicles to welcome them, only understanding their error when they were gunned down.
The left wing of the Light Division despite the heavy losses then completed an ordered withdrawal to the Alblasserwaard at around A tank company also tried to capture the old inner city of Dordrecht without infantry support, audaciously breaching barricades, but was ordered to retreat after heavy street fighting [] in which at least two Panzerkampfwagen IIs were destroyed and three tanks heavily damaged.
All Dutch troops were withdrawn from the island in the night. German armoured forces advanced north over the Dordrecht bridge to IJsselmonde island. Three tanks, two PzKpfw. Though the Germans did not follow up their attack, this area too was abandoned by the Dutch troops. In Rotterdam a last attempt was made to blow up the Willemsbrug. In the North, the commander of 1. Kavalleriedivision , Major General Kurt Feldt , faced the unenviable task of having to advance over the Enclosure Dike because of a lack of ships.
Long channel piers projected in front of and behind the sluices, on both the right and left; on these, pillboxes had been built which could place a heavy enfilading fire on the dam, which did not provide the slightest cover for any attacker. Several air attacks on 13 May had little effect; [] in the late afternoon five bicycle sections tried to approach the main bunker complex under cover of an artillery bombardment, but soon fled after being fired upon; the first was pinned down and could only retreat under cover of darkness, leaving behind some dead.
In the East the Germans tried to overcome the resistance in the Grebbe Line by also deploying the other division of X Armeekorps , the It was ordered to break through a second attack axis near Scherpenzeel, where a dry approach route had been discovered through the inundations. Two German regiments were to attack simultaneously, in adjacent sectors. Infanterieregiment , reached the start position for the attack, the regiment on the left, Infanterieregiment , became delayed by flanking fire from the Dutch outpost line, the position of which had not been correctly determined.
It allowed itself to get involved in fragmented firefights, and although the reserve regiment was also eventually brought forward, little progress was made against the outposts. Meanwhile, the waiting Infanterieregiment was pounded by concentrated Dutch artillery fire and had to withdraw, resulting in a complete failure of the attack by On the extreme south of the Grebbe Line, the Grebbeberg, the Germans were now deploying three SS battalions including support troops and three fresh infantry battalions of IR.
During the evening and night of 12—13 May the Dutch had assembled in this sector about a dozen [] battalions. These forces consisted of the reserve battalions of several army corps, divisions and brigades, and the independent Brigade B, which had been freed when the Main Defence Line in the Land van Maas en Waal had been abandoned as part of the withdrawal of III Army Corps from North Brabant.
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However, not all of these units would be concentrated into a single effort for a counterattack to retake the main line. Some battalions had been fed immediately into the battle at the Stop Line and others were kept in reserve, mainly behind the fall-back line near the Rhenen railroad. Furthermore, most battalions were a quarter below strength.
Four were to be used, under command of Brigade B, for the flanking attack from the north.
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This brigade, unaware of Dutch intentions, had shifted its attack axis to the north to roll up the Grebbe Line from behind. Soon this resulted in a general withdrawal of the brigade, which turned into a rout when, at about Infanteriedivision was for the first time committed to battle at the Grebbeberg itself when two battalions of its Infanterieregiment attacked the Stop Line. The first wave of German attackers was beaten back with serious losses, but a second wave managed to fragment the trench line, which then was taken after heavy fighting.
After redeployment the Germans intended to renew their attack in order to take the Rhenen fall-back line and the village of Achterberg. However, these preparations would prove to be superfluous: The same Stuka bombardment that had put Brigade B to rout also broke the morale of the reserves at Rhenen. In the morning these troops had already shown severe discipline problems, with units disintegrating and leaving the battlefield because of German interdiction fire.
Fearing that otherwise they would be encircled, at Despite his pessimism expressed to the Dutch government and the mandate he had been given to surrender the Army, General Winkelman awaited the outcome of events, avoiding actually capitulating until it was absolutely necessary. In this he was perhaps motivated by a desire to engage the opposing German troops for as long as possible, to assist the Allied war effort.
In the North, a German artillery bombardment of the Kornwerderzand Position began at A few barges were found; only after the capitulation however, was the crossing actually executed. During this operation one barge foundered and the remainder lost their way. Fears for such a landing had caused Winkelman on 12 May to order the occupation of an improvised "Amsterdam Position" along the North Sea Canal , but only weak forces were available.
In the East, under cover of ground fog the field army successfully withdrew from the Grebbe Line to the East Front without being bombed as had been feared, and disengaged from the gradually pursuing enemy troops. The new position had some severe drawbacks: On IJsselmonde the German forces prepared to cross the Maas in Rotterdam, which was defended by about eight Dutch battalions. Crossings would be attempted in two sectors.
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The main attack would take place in the centre of the city, with the German 9th Panzer Division advancing over the Willemsbrug. Luftlandedivision would cross on boats. These auxiliary attacks might prevent a concentration of Dutch forces, blocking the 9th Panzer Division's advance through a densely built up urban area intersected by canals. In view of these conditions and the limited means available, there was a major emphasis on air support. Political as well as military grounds demand to quickly break this resistance.
Furthermore the speedy conquest of the Fortress Holland is to be facilitated through a deliberate weakening of the [air] power operated by Sixth Army". Generals Kurt Student and Schmidt desired a limited air attack to temporarily paralyse the defences, allowing the tanks to break out of the bridgehead; severe urban destruction was to be avoided as it would only hamper their advance.
Not feeling inclined to surrender regardless, he asked Winkelman for orders; the latter, hearing that the document had not been signed nor contained the name of the sender, instructed him to send a Dutch envoy to clarify matters and gain time. On the return of the German envoy at This was later explained by the Germans as a result of their having already pulled in their tow aerials. The other 54 Heinkels, having approached from the east, continued to drop their share of the grand total of bombs, [] destroying the inner city and killing civilians.
The ensuing fires destroyed about 24, houses, making almost 80, inhabitants homeless. The bombers were recalled just in time. Winkelman at first intended to continue the fight, even though Rotterdam had capitulated and German forces from there might now advance into the heart of the Fortress Holland. The possibility of terror bombings was considered before the invasion and had not been seen as grounds for immediate capitulation; provisions had been made for the continuation of effective government even after widespread urban destruction. This was also how the German command became aware the Dutch had surrendered; [] the Dutch troops had generally disengaged from the enemy and had not yet made contact.
The Dutch surrender implied that in principle a cease-fire should be observed by both parties. Winkelman acted both in his capacity of commander of the Dutch Army and of highest executive power of the homeland. This created a somewhat ambiguous situation. On the morning of 14 May the commander of the Royal Dutch Navy , Vice-Admiral Johannes Furstner , had left the country to continue the fight; [] Dutch naval vessels were generally not included in the surrender.
Eight ships and four unfinished hulks had already departed, [] some smaller vessels were sunk off, and nine others sailed for England in the evening of 14 May. Johan Maurits van Nassau was sunk by German bombers while crossing. Only with some difficulty did Winkelman convince him to obey the surrender order. Both quickly agreed on most conditions, Winkelman declaring to have surrendered army, naval and air forces. The province of Zealand was exempt from the surrender; fighting continued there in a common allied effort with French troops. The Dutch forces in the province comprised eight full battalions of army and naval troops.
The northern islands of the province were defended only by a few platoons. The main Dutch army forces would thus be concentrated in Zuid-Beveland , the peninsula east of Walcheren, to deny the enemy this approach route to Vlissingen. Zuid-Beveland was connected to the coast of North Brabant by an isthmus; at its eastern and most narrow end the Bath Position had been prepared, occupied by an infantry battalion. This was mainly intended as a collecting line for possible Dutch troops retreating from the east. At its western end was the longer Zanddijk Position, occupied by three battalions. Part of their equipment was brought by ship through Flushing harbour.
Most troops of these divisions would remain south of the Western Scheldt in Zeelandic Flanders, where two of the eight Dutch battalions were also present, as were two border companies. Only two French regiments were sent to the northern bank. On 13 May the Dutch troops were placed under French operational command and 68e Division d'Infanterie was transferred to the 7th Army. The Dutch considered the Bath and Zanddijk Positions to be very defensible because of the open polder landscape and extensive inundations. However, the French commander, General Pierre-Servais Durand , was not convinced of their value and positioned his troops at more conspicuous obstacles.
On the evening of 13 May one regiment, the e of 68e Division d'Infanterie , occupied the Canal through Zuid-Beveland and the other, the e of 60 Division d'Infanterie , took a position at the Sloe straights separating the island of Walcheren from Zuid-Beveland, even though there was not sufficient time for adequate entrenchment.
This prevented an effective concentration of Allied forces, allowing the Germans, despite a numerical inferiority, to defeat them piecemeal. On 14 May the Germans had occupied almost all of North Brabant. The morale of the defenders of the Bath Position, already shaken by stories from Dutch troops fleeing to the west, was severely undermined by the news that Winkelman had surrendered; many concluded that it was useless for Zealand to continue resisting as the last remaining province. A first preparatory artillery bombardment on the position in the evening of 14 May caused the commanding officers to desert their troops, who then also fled.
A first attack around An aerial bombardment that morning routed the defenders before the ground attack had even started; the first German crossings around An attempt in the evening of the same day to force the eight hundred metres long Sloedam , over which most of the French troops had fled to Walcheren, ended in failure. While the commanders of the remaining Dutch troops on South-Beveland refused direct commands by their superior to threaten the German flank, on 17 May a night attack at The Germans now demanded the capitulation of the island; when this was refused they bombed Arnemuiden and Flushing.
Middelburg , the province's capital city, was heavily shelled by artillery, its inner city partially burning down. The heavy bombardment demoralised the largely French defenders, and the Germans managed to establish a bridgehead around noon. In the evening the encroaching Germans threatened to overrun the French forces that had fled into Flushing, but a gallant delaying action led by brigade-general Marcel Deslaurens in person, in which he was killed, allowed most troops to be evacuated over the Western Scheldt. After North-Beveland had surrendered on 18 May, Zeelandic Flanders was the last remaining unoccupied Dutch homeland territory.
On orders of the French, all Dutch troops were withdrawn on 19 May to Ostend in Belgium, as their presence would be demoralising and confusing to their own forces. On 27 May all of Zeelandic Flanders had been occupied. Following the Dutch defeat, Queen Wilhelmina established a government-in-exile in England.
It would be five years before the entire country was liberated, during which time over , inhabitants of the Netherlands became victims of war, among them , Jews and other minorities, victims of genocide. Another 70, more may have died from indirect consequences, such as poor nutrition or limited medical services. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Battle of the Netherlands.
Battle of the Grebbeberg. Location of the Dutch defence lines and area within Dutch troops are present. Heavy Dutch defence line against armoured vehicles. Dutch defences in Zeeland. French defences in the Netherlands. Position of German troops as well as areas under German control. Landmacht en Luchtvaartafdeling, drs G.
Retrieved 25 March Maandschrift van het Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, blz.