H. A. Sinclair de Rochemont

Hugues Alexandre Sinclair de Rochemont ( Hilversum, 6 January 1901 – 13 March 1942) was a Dutch fascist and later a collaborator with the Nazis.

Whilst studying Indology at Leiden University, he became associated with the rightist professor Gerardus Johannes Petrus Josephus Bolland (1854 - 1922). After leaving the university in 1924, he set up the country's first fascist movement, the ''Verbond van Actualisten'', with Alfred Haighton.Philip Rees, ''Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890'', 1991 This group had stood in the 1925 Dutch general election, 1925 general election but won only 0.08% of the vote.R. J. B. Bosworth, ''The Oxford Handbook of Fascism'', Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 454 Alongside this, Sinclair de Rochemont worked as a journalist for ''De Vaderlander'' and as a union busting, strike breaker. In 1927, he began editing ''De Bezem'' (The Broom), a fascist journal aimed at the working classes and continued to publish under this name after 1930, when he split from Haighton.

Having split from Haighton, Sinclair de Rochemont became associated with Joris Van Severen of Belgium, although most of his time was given over to his work as a civil servant and then as an antiquarian bookseller. He joined both the National Front (Netherlands), National Front and the National Socialist Dutch Workers Party in 1940, having become fully convinced of Nazism, even to the point of accepting the incorporation of the Netherlands into the Third Reich.

After spells in prison for homosexuality and attempting to assassinate Anton Mussert, Sinclair volunteered for the Dutch legion of the Waffen-SS and was killed on active duty near Grisi in the Soviet Union.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sinclair de Rochemont, H.A.
1901 births
1942 deaths
People from Hilversum
Dutch fascists
Dutch LGBT journalists
Dutch Waffen-SS personnel
Leiden University alumni
National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands politicians
20th-century Dutch journalists
20th-century LGBT people
Waffen-SS personnel killed in action
LGBT people in the Nazi Party