Commemorating a ‘Foreign’ War in a Neutral Country The Political Insignificance of World War 1 Memory in the Netherlands

• Main Author: Kees Ribbens
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Open Journals 2016-09-01
• Series: BMGN: Low Countries Historical Review
• Subjects: History; Netherlands; First World War
• Online Access: https://www.bmgn-lchr.nl/articles/10229

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span>The recent creation of a First World War museum exhibit at </span><span>Huis Doorn </span><span>reflects the increased Dutch attention paid to this war, accompanying the international Centenary efforts, although the neutral Netherlands had not been actively involved in the military events of </span><span>wwi</span><span>. This initiative, on a small estate where the former German emperor Wilhelm II lived after the defeat of Germany in 1918, was not a natural outcome of the dynamics of Dutch historical culture. </span></p><p><span><br /></span></p><p><span>This article raises the question of how </span><span>wwi </span><span>became increasingly emphasised in the early twenty- first century, and to what extent this reflects a profound change in the national historical culture, which previously displayed no strong connections to </span><span>wwi</span><span>. While familiarity with </span><span>wwi </span><span>has grown among the Dutch media and the wider public, governmental interest remained limited (very different from the case of </span><span>wwii</span><span>), making it rather difficult to actually speak of </span><span>politics of memory</span><span>. </span></p><p><span><br /></span></p><p><span>This article is part of the <a href="/585/volume/131/issue/3/">forum</a> 'Commemorating War 100 years after the First World War'.</span></p></div></div></div>