Post-war confiscation of German assets in the Netherlands

In her PhD dissertation ‘The burden of nationality,’ Marieke Oprel investigates the process of the revocation of enemy status. She found that not all German citizens were perpetrators. Among those declared enemy subjects were miners, labourers, housemaids and farmers living on the German border. Some of these Germans were arrested, interred or even expelled. Many took steps to prove their allegiance to the Netherlands—but exactly how to do so was unclear. The policy on revoking enemy status was arbitrary and inconsistent. Moreover, the enemy assets added millions of guilders to Dutch coffers.
In late October 1944, in preparation for post-war reconstruction, the Dutch government in exile in London declared all Germans in the Kingdom of the Netherlands enemies of the state. After the capitulation, their assets were confiscated, irrespective of their actions during the war or their political allegiance. Even German Jewish refugees, Germans who had lived in the Netherlands for years and those who had renounced their German citizenship were affected. They paid—often literally—a high price for being German nationals.
To overturn their enemy status and repossess their assets, these Germans had to prove that they had behaved as good Dutch citizens. More than 20,000 applications for the revocation of enemy status are preserved in the National Archives in The Hague, giving a grim picture of the precarious situation of many German nationals in the Netherlands.
Oprel spoke with second- and third-generation Germans who indicated that enemy status had a major impact on their everyday lives. Many are still plagued by it: not so much by the lack of financial compensation as by the lack of recognition of their history.
Until recently, little attention has been paid to the revocation of enemy status of Germans in the Netherlands. It is important to add this page from our past to the history books.