The historian & researcher Gerard Aalders wrote a new book about Queen Wilhelmina. He focusses on her reputation in the war and 'demolishes' her image.
Aalders is a republican who made a carreer out of writing nasty books on the royal family. He was mostly obsessed by Prince Bernhard.
He calls the queen 'dumb'. 'Wilhelmina was not a mythical queen but a queen of myth'. He mentions her 'overconfidence, tunnel vision, her unworldliness and her aversion of democracy and parliament', which he blames on her education. He also mentions a quote of American president Franklin Roosevelt, who wrote that the queen was a: 'bigoted [...] impossibly demanding, intensely egocentric old lady'.
Aalders claims that her support was of no value for the Dutch resistance movement, and says that her -and the governments- uninformed decisions that were taken from a distance 'have probably costed hundres of lives'. He even calls her 'a godsend gift to the Gestapo'.
He thinks that her 34 speeches for radio Orange have 'disproportionally contributed to mythmaking'. He says the queen was not brave: 'giving a speech in the safety of a London studio does not need braveness. Her motivation was the continuation of the monarchy'. On Nieuwsuur Aalders also criticized the content of the speeches, which were - according to him - not tough enough. [Note: at the time they were considered too tough by the Dutch cabinet in London -which Aalders ignores].
He blames Queen Wilhelmina's anger eruptions during the war on the use of pervitine - now better known as Crystal Meth, which was also popular in the RAF and the Wehrmacht & easy to make and obtain. A reader of the Volkskrant points out that side effects of pervitine include 'weight loss and an increased sex drive', neither of which were discovered in the queen ?. I do remember an interview with the late prof. Fasseur, biographer of Wilhelmina, who did not mention an addiction in his books. In the interview he did make some veiled references to an addiction to some substance which explained some of the Queen's less lucid letters and comments in these years, but he did not want to write it down in his book as not to harm the trust shown to him by the monarch in opening the family archives.
http://gpdhome.typepad.com/nieuwsbe...nverdiende-reputatie-koningin-wilhelmina.html
https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/historicus-kraakt-wilhelmina-een-godsgeschenk-voor-de-gestapo~aa81fd80/
https://www.volkskrant.nl/opinie/dr...-wilhelmina-gewoon-een-kwaaie-dronk~a4594491/
I have not read the book and I will not be buying it. If it would be written by anybody but Gerard Aalders it would have been much more credible. But as said: this man has made a lot of money by trashing the royal family. Although he worked for the NIOD (National Institute for War Documentation), his publications on the royal family have never been taken seriously by other historians. They only sell because he is controversial and writes down lots of conspiracies etc. (the never-found stadhouders-letter of P. Bernhard to name one example).
We can certainly expect him to interpret every piece of information in a negative way. Only last year he was up in arms about a 'conspiracy' in the 70-ties about secret payments to the RF, which was of course quickly rebutted as there was nothing secret about it & it was made public at the time.
I am sure that there were some myths of Queen Wilhelmina & her war years. But it would be nice if he could give a balanced view instead of this vilification. Aalders hatred of the royal family makes this book incredible. But I am sure it will sell well, so the publisher will be happy. One wonder who is next on his agenda to trash. Queen Juliana or Prince Claus perhaps?
