Willem Aantjes

Vocation

Traits

Dutch Christian Democratic politician. His father Klaas Aantjes (11 July 1894, Bleskensgraaf - 14 January 1951, Bleskensgraaf) was alderman in Bleskensgraaf and from 1 October 1950 till his death, mayor of Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht. His mother was Willempje van Rees (16 November 1894, Bleskensgraaf - 30 July 1986, Haaften). His brother Jan Aantjes (5 August 1920, Bleskensgraaf - 1 April 2015) became also a mayor of several municipals. The family belonged to the Reformed Association in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, a confessional orthodox Calvinist group. Aantjes followed the Mulo and Gymnasium. On 8 February 1940, Aantjes started to work for the postal mail company PTT. On 19 July 1943, he was selected for Arbeitseinsatz and sent to Güstrow to deliver mail. September 1944, Aantjes wanted to return to the Netherlands. Other Dutch forced laborers told him that if he joined the Germaanse-SS, he could ask for an assignment as a police officer in the Netherlands. So he did, but to his dismay, he was sent to the Landstorm Nederland, a division of the Waffen-SS. Aantjes refused to wear the SS uniform, was arrested arrested and imprisoned in Port Natal near Assen. After the war, Aantjes studied law in Utrecht. He never mentioned his enlisting in the Germaanse-SS to anyone. He started a brilliant career as politician in the House of Representatives for the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP)in 1959. On 6 July 1971, Aantjes became leader of the ARP group. Aantjes played an important part in the fusion of the protestant Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP), the Christian Historical Union (CHU) and the Catholic People's Party (KVP) into the Christian Democratic Appeal(CDA). He was an idealistic and driven person. His new leftwing radical evangelical 1975 speech to the CDA became known as the "Sermon on the Mount". But on 6 November 1978, Loe de Jong of the Dutch Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) announced in a press conference that Aantjes had signed up for the Waffen-SS in World War II and had been a SS guard in Port Natal. Loe de Jong was wrong by suggesting that Aantjes had actually worked for the SS, but the damage to his reputation had been done. Years later, when the more nuanced facts were published, left and right wing political friends tried to rehabilitate Aantjes, but Aantjes never could return to a prominent place in politics as before. He died in peace in the morning of 22 October 2015 in Utrecht. Link to Wikipedia biography