The Dutch People's Union ( nl, Nederlandse Volks-Unie, , NVU) is a Dutch
Neo-Nazi
Neo-Nazism comprises the post– World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and racial supremacy (often white supremacy), attack ...
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or po ...
. The party supports a merger between the Netherlands and
Flanders
Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture ...
.
History
The party was founded as a political party on 27 May 1971 by Guus Looy, with as key purpose to rehabilitate convicted WW-II war criminals. In 1973
Roeland Raes
Roland Henri Theofiel (Roeland) Raes (born 4 September 1934) is a Belgian politician, a former senator for and vice president of the political party Vlaams Blok. Raes took a dr. iur. ( J.D.) at Ghent University.
He became politically active in ...
, of the Belgian ''
Vlaams Blok
''Vlaams Blok'' ( en, Flemish Block, or VB) was the name of a Belgian far-right and secessionist political party with an anti-immigration platform.Erk, 2005, pp. 493-502. Its ideologies embraced Flemish nationalism, calling for the independenc ...
'', became vice-president (reflecting the desire of both parties to unite the Netherlands and Flanders) and later that year
Joop Glimmerveen took over the position of president. During the 1970s, the party became increasingly militant as younger
neo-Nazis
Neo-Nazism comprises the post– World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and racial supremacy (often white supremacy), attack ...
joined its ranks.
When Glimmerveen revealed his sympathy for
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...
and
Anton Mussert
Anton may refer to: People
* Anton (given name), including a list of people with the given name
* Anton (surname)
Places
* Anton Municipality, Bulgaria
** Anton, Sofia Province, a village
* Antón District, Panama
** Antón, a town and capital ...
and the NVU became more and more a
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...
party, support for the party collapsed and it was forbidden. Due to a mistake in the law, the NVU managed to continue after it was forbidden. Some members formed the
''Centrumpartij'' (CP), which later split into the
''Centrum Demokraten'' (CD) and CP'86. In the mid-eighties, the NVU collapsed completely.
In 1996, a few young neo-Nazis asked then-68-year-old Joop Glimmerveen to start the NVU again and he did. In 1998, they tried to enter the city council elections in Den Haag and Arnhem, but did not succeed. At this moment, the NVU is the most active party on the extreme right in the Netherlands and gets support from the ''
Aktiefront Nationale Socialisten'' (ANS), a small organization of activists who claim solidarity with the plight of the Palestinians and other groups which they consider to be anti-imperialist. The number of members of the NVU is unknown.
Criticism
One of the biggest critics of current NVU's leader
Constant Kusters is Joop Glimmerveen, the face and leader of the NVU since the beginning of the 1970s and party ideologist until the end of the 1990s. In 1996 after almost 11 years of inactivity, Glimmerveen handed the NVU over to Kusters and
Eite Homan.
Glimmerveen gave up NVU membership in 1994 but kept control of the editorial rights of the party magazine Wij Nederland. Kusters writes and edits the party newspaper Wij Europa but Glimmerveen cannot stand either its ideological course or its 'shoddy production'.
In 2003, Glimmerveen published a special edition of Wij Nederland full of letters to Kusters, the latter's answers, and his own vision of the NVU. Among other things, Glimmerveen has charged Kusters with misuse of NVU funds for his own benefit and threatened him with court action.
Election results
The Dutch People's Union participated in city council elections in several cities in 1974, 1986, 2002, 2006 and 2010. In none of these elections they gained enough votes for a seat in the council. They also participated in the
States-Provincial
The provincial council (, PS), also known as the States Provincial, is the provincial parliament and legislative assembly in each of the provinces of the Netherlands. It is elected for each province simultaneously once every four years and has ...
elections in
Gelderland
Gelderland (), also known as Guelders () in English, is a province of the Netherlands, occupying the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Netherlands by land area, and second by ...
in 2003 and 2007, but here too did not get enough votes for a seat in the Council. In 1977, 1981 and 1982 the party participated in elections for the
House of Representatives (''Tweede Kamer''), but did not get a seat in the house.
[''Right-Wing Extremism in the Netherlands'']
table 1, page 10
* Party was listed as ''Lijst Glimmerveen''
Notes
References
* (Half the links on this website do not load)
{{White Nationalism, state=collapsed
Formerly banned far-right parties
Political parties established in 1971
1971 establishments in the Netherlands
Neo-Nazi political parties in Europe
Neo-Nazism in the Netherlands
Nationalist parties in the Netherlands