Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T15:14:26.931Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On New Land a New Society: Internal Colonisation in the Netherlands, 1918–1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2013

LIESBETH VAN DE GRIFT
LIESBETH VAN DE GRIFT*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Radboud University Nijmegen, Erasmusplein 1, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

State projects aimed at technological innovation and social renewal were a widespread phenomenon in inter-war Europe. This is exemplified by the practice of internal colonisation – the construction of new settlements within state territories – in the Netherlands. This article examines one such case, the reclamation and colonisation of the Wieringermeer in the 1930s, in detail. In doing so, it reveals that the principle of state abstention, which prevailed throughout the inter-war period, was abandoned on reclaimed land. Politicians and experts perceived these territories as a clean slate on which they could experiment with new forms of government intervention. This article focuses on state policies of social planning and the technocratic governance of reclaimed land, and examines whether these could be reconciled with democratic notions of sovereignty and citizenship in the minds of the planners, the politicians and, last but not least, the pioneers themselves.

Une nouvelle société sur des terres nouvelles: la colonisation interne aux pays-bas, 1918–1940

Les projets nationaux d’innovation technologique et de renouveau social étaient nombreux dans l’Europe de l’entre-deux-guerres. Aux Pays-Bas, on en trouve un exemple dans la pratique de la colonisation interne: la construction de nouveaux villages à l’intérieur du territoire national. Cet article examine en détail le cas de l’assèchement et de la colonisation du polder de Wieringermeer dans les années trente. Il montre notamment que le principe de l’abstention de l’État, qui avait prévalu pendant toute la période de l’entre-deux-guerres, fut abandonné dans le cas des polders. Pour les politiques et les experts, ces territoires constituaient une page blanche où tester de nouvelles formes d’intervention gouvernementale. Cet article porte tout particulièrement sur les politiques officielles de planification sociale et sur la gouvernance technocratique des terres asséchées et pose la question de savoir si, dans l’esprit des urbanistes, des politiques et, surtout, des colons eux-mêmes, ces politiques et cette gouvernance étaient conciliables avec les notions démocratiques de souveraineté et de citoyenneté.

Eine neue gesellschaft auf neu gewonnenem land: die interne kolonisierung der niederlande von 1918–1940

Staatliche Projekte zur Förderung der technologischen Innovation und der sozialen Erneuerung waren in der europäischen Zwischenkriegszeit ein viel verbreitetes Phänomen. Hierzu zählt auch die Praxis der internen Kolonisierung in den Niederlanden durch die Schaffung neuer Siedlungen innerhalb des Staatsgebiets. In diesem Beitrag wird ein solcher Fall exemplarisch beleuchtet: die Gewinnung und Besiedelung des Wieringermeers in den dreißiger Jahren. An diesem Fallbeispiel wird deutlich, dass bei der Erschließung von Neuland das in der Zwischenkriegszeit übliche Prinzip der staatlichen Nichteinmischung aufgegeben wurde. Politiker und Experten verstanden diese Gebiete als ‘unbeschriebene Blätter’, auf denen sie mit neuen Formen staatlicher Intervention experimentieren konnten. Im Mittelpunkt des Beitrags stehen die staatlichen Sozialplanungsmaßnahmen und die technokratische Verwaltung für das neu erschlossene Land. Dabei wird untersucht, inwieweit diese sich in den Köpfen der Planer, Politiker und auch der Pioniere selbst mit demokratischen Vorstellungen von Souveränität und Staatsbürgerschaft vereinbaren ließen.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , November 2013 , pp. 609 - 626
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The farmer in question was Sicco Mansholt, representative of the Social Democratic Workers Party and future president of the European Commission. Letter to Sikke Smeding from someone present at the political party meeting, 9 Dec. 1938. Nieuw Land Erfgoedcentrum (RAFL), Archive of the Directorate of the Public Body De Wieringermeer (Directorate De Wieringermeer), file 598.

2 It is important to note the difference between the concept of ‘internal colonisation’ as understood by contemporaries and the concept of ‘internal colonialism’, first coined by Lenin to describe the Russian metropole's economic exploitation of the periphery. This concept was later adopted by scholars to describe the rule of the centre and its dominant ethnicity over people in remote areas and often of other ethnic origins. Moses, A. Dirk, ‘Empire, Colony, Genocide: Key Words and the Philosophy of History’, in Moses, A. Dirk, ed., Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation and Subaltern Resistance in World History (Oxford and New York: Berghahn, 2008Google Scholar; citations from pb edn, 2010), 3–54, 23.

3 ter Veen, H. N., ‘Zuiderzee en Staat’, in ter Veen, H. N., Van aardrijkskunde tot sociale wetenschap: Keur uit verspreide geschriften (Amsterdam: H. J. Paris, 1950), 72–114Google Scholar, 111. This article first appeared in De Economist in 1935.

4 Polders are tracts of lowlands, which have been reclaimed from a body of water. First, surrounding dikes are built around the designated area, then the area is drained by pumping out the water. On the history of reclamation in the Netherlands, see van de Ven, G. P., ed., Man-made Lowlands: History of Water Management and Land Reclamation in the Netherlands (Utrecht: Matrijs / International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage, 1993Google Scholar; 4th rev. edn 2004).

5 van der Woud, Auke, Het lege land: De ruimtelijke orde van Nederland, 1798–1848 (Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1987; 8th edn Olympus, 2010), 280–301Google Scholar.

6 Berend, Ivan T., Markt und Wirtschaft: Ökonomische Ordnungen und wirtschaftliche Entwicklung in Europa seit dem 18. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2007)Google Scholar; Sejersted, Francis, The Age of Social Democracy: Norway and Sweden in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011)Google Scholar; Scott, James C., Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; van Laak, Dirk, Weiβe Elefanten: Anspruch und Scheitern technischer Groβprojekte im 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1999)Google Scholar; Schivelbusch, Wolfgang, Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany, 1933–1939 (New York: Picador / Henry Holt and Company, 2007)Google Scholar; van Laak, Dirk, ‘Planung: Geschichte und Gegenwart des Vorgriffs auf die Zukunft’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 34, 4 (2008) 305–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Doering-Manteuffel, Anselm, ‘Ordnung jenseits der politischen Systeme: Planung im 20. Jahrhundert’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 34, 4 (2008) 398–406CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Etzemüller, Thomas, ed., Die Ordnung der Moderne: Social Engineering im 20. Jahrhundert (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 de Rooy, Piet, ‘Het zoeken naar de moederwetenschap. Ordening in de jaren dertig’ in Koole, R. A., ed., Van Bastille tot Binnenhof: De Franse Revolutie en haar invloed op de Nederlandse politieke partijen (Houten: Fibula/Unieboek bv, 1989), 66–88Google Scholar; de Rooy, Piet, ‘Een zoekende tijd: De ongemakkelijke democratie 1913–1949’, in Aerts, Remieg, te Velde, Henk, de Rooy, Piet and de Liagre Böhl, Herman, eds, Land van kleine gebaren: Een politieke geschiedenis van Nederland, 1780–1990 (Nijmegen: SUN, 1999Google Scholar; citations from 2007 edn), 203–6. van Zanden, Jan L., The Economic History of the Netherlands 1914–1995: A Small Open Economy in the ‘Long’ Twentieth Century (London: Routledge, 1998), 3–4Google Scholar.

8 Lijphart, Arend, The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Van Zanden, Netherlands, 55–8, 93ff.

9 Couperus, Stefan, De machinerie van de stad: Stadsbestuur als idee en praktijk, Nederland en Amsterdam 1900–1940 (Amsterdam: aksant, 2009)Google Scholar.

10 van Lente, Dick and Schot, Johan, ‘Technology as Politics: Engineers and the Design of Dutch Society’ in: Schot, Johan, Lintsen, Harry and Rip, Arie, eds, Technology and the Making of the Netherlands: The Age of Contested Modernization, 1890–1970 (Zutphen: Walburg Pers and MIT Press, 2010), 364–431Google Scholar, 368.

11 Van Zanden, Netherlands, 102.

12 Ibid. 58–60, 114; Krips-Van der Laan, H. M. F., Praktijk als antwoord: S. L. Louwes en het landbouwcrisisbeleid (Groningen: Nederlands Agronomisch-Historisch Instituut, 1985)Google Scholar.

13 Van Zanden, Netherlands, 114.

14 The involvement of various extra-parliamentary institutions in the reclamation scheme reflected a more general development in Dutch inter-war politics: increasingly, government ministers sought to create a broad basis of public support among interest groups and parties. Wolffram, Dirk Jan, 70 jaar ingenieurskunst: Dienst der Zuiderzeewerken 1919–1989 (Lelystad: De Twaalfde Provincie, 1997), 128Google Scholar.

15 De Rooy, ‘Een zoekende tijd’, 180; Beyen, Marnix, ‘Een gezond oorlogskind: Parlementaire discussies over de afsluiting en drooglegging van de Zuiderzee, 1918’ in: Sintobin, Tom, ed., ‘Getemd maar rusteloos’: De Zuiderzee verbeeld – een multidisciplinair onderzoek (Hilversum: Verloren 2008), 73–89Google Scholar, 76–7. Wolffram, Dirk Jan, ‘Ingenieur in de politiek: Cornelis Lely (1854–1929)’ in de Haan, Ido, ten Have, Wichert, Kennedy, James and Knegtmans, Peter Jan, eds, Het eenzame gelijk: Hervormers tussen droom en daad 1850–1950 (Amsterdam: Boom, 2009), 249–62Google Scholar.

16 Verslag der Commissie inzake het bestudeeren van de uitgifte der Zuiderzeegronden ingesteld bij besluit van den minister van waterstaat d.d. 24 december 1926 (Den Haag: Ter Algemeene Landsdrukkerij, 1930), 30.

17 van Blom, Durk, ‘Van zee tot meer en land’, De Gids 81 (1917), 124–62Google Scholar, 143.

18 This general political concern is illustrated by the installment of two state commissions on agriculture and tenure in 1906 and 1919 respectively: Staatscommissie voor den landbouw, Rapporten en voorstellen betreffende den oeconomischen toestand der landarbeiders in Nederland (’s-Gravenhage: Gebrs. J. and H. van Langenhuysen, 1909); Staatscommissie voor het Pachtvraagstuk, Verslag van de Staatscommissie voor het pachtvraagstuk (Rotterdam: Libertas, 1920).

19 These were the findings of the state commission on agriculture, charged with examining the ‘economic situation of rural workers’ and bringing forward proposals to improve their lot. See Staatscommissie Landbouw, Rapporten en voorstellen.

20 Verslag Commissie Vissering, 47, 49, 88–9.

21 Lambertus Helprig (Bertus) Mansholt was, like his son Sicco, a farmer and strongly involved in the social democratic movement. Mansholt (and his father Derk Roelfs Mansholt before him) had been very critical of the Zuiderzee project, fearing that high water levels would threaten the northern provinces of Friesland and Groningen. An additional study was carried out by a state commission headed by the Nobel laureate H. A. Lorentz, the results of which managed to appease Mansholt. Throughout the reclamation project, he continued to critically monitor the process. Both his two sons Dirk and Sicco would be selected as farmers in the Wieringermeer, a result which, Sicco Mansholt's biographer has argued, may well have been the authorities’ way of thanking Mansholt for his continuous engagement. Merriënboer, Johan van, Mansholt: Een biografie (Amsterdam: Boom 2006), 64Google Scholar.

22 Initially a fierce critic of Taylorism, Van der Waerden made an about-face and became a staunch supporter in the 1920s. See Couperus, Machinerie, 107.

23 van der Waerden, Th., ‘Afsluiting en drooglegging der Zuiderzee’, De Socialistische Gids 3 (1918), 249–72Google Scholar, 269.

24 L. H. Mansholt and Th. van der Waerden, ‘NOTA ten gunste van Staatsexploitatie’ (annex to report Vissering Commission), 196–215, 199.

25 S. L. Louwes and B. W. Okma, ‘NOTA houdende bezwaren tegen uitgifte in erfpacht met wisselenden canon’ (annex to report Vissering Commission), 222–5.

26 H. C. Couwenberg, ‘NOTA betreffende het beheer en de wijze van uitgifte van gronden’ (annex to report Vissering Commission), 193–5.

27 Borderwijk, H. W. C., ‘De uitgifte der Zuiderzeegronden’, De Economist 6 (1931), 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 16, 30.

28 In 1909, the State Commission of Agriculture had underlined the beneficial effects of private landownership; ten years later, the State Commission for Tenure shrank from government interference to prevent the steep inflation of rents. Staatscommissie Landbouw, Rapporten en voorstellen; Staatscommissie Pachtvraagstuk, Verslag.

29 ter Veen, H. N., ‘Het beheer der Zuiderzeepolders’, De Socialistische Gids, 9 (1935), 560–77Google Scholar, 562–3.

30 Verslag Commissie Vissering, 78–80.

31 H. N. ter Veen, ‘The Lake of Haarlem as a Settlement’, in Ter Veen, Van aardrijkskunde tot sociale wetenschap, 64–72. This article first appeared in Eugenics Review in 1926. See also: ter Veen, H. N., De Haarlemmermeer als kolonisatiegebied (Groningen: P. Noordhoff, 1925)Google Scholar.

32 Noordman, Jan, Om de kwaliteit van het nageslacht: Eugenetica in Nederland 1900–1950 (Nijmegen: Sun, 1989)Google Scholar.

33 This is what Ter Veen taught students in his lectures. Hagoort, Peter, ‘Sociale wetenschappen op het kruispunt van binnenweg en heirbaan’, Grafiet 1 (1981/82), 14–71Google Scholar, 38.

34 Migrants were not allowed to cluster together on the basis of their denominations or place of origin. All villages were to house a mixture of settlers. The fact that children were to attend a ‘neutral’ school in which different denominations were represented, was an exception in the Netherlands at the time. Ben de Pater, ‘Het Nieuwe Land als grand design: “in de plaats van een natuurlijke groei, nu het plan”’, in Sintobin, ‘Getemd maar rusteloos’, 133–53, 141.

35 Minutes of the administrative commission within public body De Wieringermeer, April, 1939. RAFL, Directorate De Wieringermeer, file 21.

36 van Dissel, A. M. C., 59 jaar eigengereide doeners in Flevoland, Noordoostpolder en Wieringermeer: Rijksdienst voor de IJsselmeerpolders 1930–1989 (Lelystad: Walburg Pers, 1991), 98–100Google Scholar.

37 van Heek, F., Economische en sociale problemen van de Wieringermeer: Een studie van een kolonisatiegebied in wording (Alphen aan de Rijn: N. Samsom N.V., 1938), 25Google Scholar.

38 A lively civil society, in the Dutch case: the dominant position of confessional groups within society and their reluctance to accept intrusion of the state in the private sphere, have been put forward as factors that accounted for this attitude to eugenics. Noordman, Om de kwaliteit; Lucassen, Leo, ‘A Brave New World: The Left, Social Engineering and Eugenics in Twentieth-Century Europe’, International Review of Social History 55 (2010), 265–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On eugenics in the other countries, see for instance: Broberg, Gunnar and Roll-Hansen, Nils, eds, Eugenics and the Welfare State: Sterilization Policy in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Adams, Mark B., ed., The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil and Russia (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

39 H. N. ter Veen, ‘De Stichting voor het Bevolkingsonderzoek in de drooggelegde Zuiderzeepolders’, in Ter Veen, Van aardrijkskunde tot sociale wetenschap, 114–19, 118. This article first appeared in De Gemeente-Stem in 1937.

40 Verslag Commissie Vissering, 18.

41 Het socialisatievraagstuk: Rapport uitgebracht door de commissie aangewezen uit de S.D.A.P. (Amsterdam: N. V. Boekhandel en Uitgeversmaatschappij ‘Ontwikkeling’, 1920); Verslag Commissie Vissering, 20–25.

42 Verkaik, J. P. and van Royen, P. C., 50 jaar bestuur in Flevoland, Noordoostpolder en Wieringermeer: Het ‘openbaar lichaam’ in de Zuiderzee- en IJsselmeerpolders 1937–1987 (Lelystad: Walburg Pers, 1993), 33–4Google Scholar; Hermsen, E., Dr. Ir. S. Smeding. Directeur landdrost van de Wieringermeer en de Noordoostpolder 1930–1954 (Zutphen: De Walburg Pers, 1988)Google Scholar.

43 Notes regarding the advice of the Council of State, 1935. RAFL, Directorate De Wieringermeer, file 10.

44 Verkaik and Van Royen, 50 jaar bestuur, 48, 51, 57.

45 Minutes of the administrative commission within public body De Wieringermeer, 18 Feb. 1939. RAFL, Directorate De Wieringermeer, file 608.

46 Kamp, A. F., Zuiderzee-land: Verleden en toekomst van de Zuiderzee (Amsterdam: N. V. Em. Querido's Uitgevers-Maatschappij, 1937), 192Google Scholar.

47 Ter Veen, ‘Zuiderzee en staat’, 107–8.

48 Minutes of the administrative commission within directorate, 20 July, 1937. RAFL, Directorate De Wieringermeer, file 6.

49 Van Heek, Economische en sociale problemen, 57–8, 57 n. 5.

50 Van Dissel, 59 jaar, 103.

51 H. N. ter Veen, ‘Het beheer’, 576–7.

52 Advice of Council of State regarding the foundation of a public body, 2 Apr. 1935. RAFL, Directorate De Wieringermeer, file 10.

53 As cited in Huygens, W., De Wieringermeer, een studie van bestuur en beheer der IJsselmeerpolders (The Hague: Zuid-hollandse uitgeversmij., 1939), 108Google Scholar; in 't Veld, Joris, Bestuursinrichting van de Wieringermeer (Alphen aan de Rijn: N. Samsom N.V., 1938), 30Google Scholar.

54 Draft report of the meetings of the Second Chamber, 1935–6. RAFL, Directorate De Wieringermeer, file 10.

55 ‘De service van ons eigen gemeentel. bestuursapparaat’, Wieringermeerbode, 22 March 1938. Other critical articles in the same newspaper include ‘Bestuursinrichting in den Wieringermeer’, 13 Dec. 1938; ‘Ons raadsoverzicht’, 24 June 1939. The national newspaper Standaard is mentioned in: Hermsen, Dr. Ir. S. Smeding, 56–7.

56 Verkaik and Van Royen, 50 jaar bestuur, 50, 50 n. 57.

57 Blackbourn, David, The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), 270Google Scholar; Smit, Jan G., Neubildung deutschen Bauerntums: Innere Kolonisation im Dritten Reich – Fallstudien in Schleswig Holstein (Kassel: Gesamthochschulbibliothek 1983)Google Scholar.

58 Sörlin, Sverker, Framtidslandet: Debatten om Norrland och naturresurserna under det industriella genombrottet (Stockholm: Carlsson Bokförlag, 1988)Google Scholar; Lindkvist, Anna, Jorden åt folket: Nationalföreningen mot emigrationen 1907–1925 (Umea: Print och Media, 2007)Google Scholar.

59 Ben-Ghiat, Ruth, Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922–1945 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2001), 4–5Google Scholar; Griffin, Roger, Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007), 225CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ghirardo, Diane, Building New Communities: New Deal America and Fascist Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989)Google Scholar. Ipsen, Carl, Dictating Demography: The Problem of Population in Fascist Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 94–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 Ghirardo, Building; Rodgers, Daniel T., Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998), 446–54Google Scholar; Cannon, Brian Q., Remaking the Agrarian Dream: New Deal Rural Resettlement in the Mountain West (Albuquerque, N. Mex.: University of New Mexico Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

61 Maier, Charles S., ‘Between Taylorism and Technocracy: European Ideologies and the Vision of Industrial Productivity in the 1920s’, Journal of Contemporary History 5, 2 (1970), 27–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Couperus, Machinerie; Baneke, David, Synthetisch denken: Natuurwetenschappers over hun rol in een moderne maatschappij (Hilversum: Verloren, 2008)Google Scholar.