The relationship between the Frisians and the Nazi regime is a complicated chapter that most Frisians would rather not dwell on. Like all of the occupied Netherlands, Friesland experienced German occupation from 1940 to 1945. But the Frisian situation had unique dimensions — the Nazis had specific ideas about Frisians, and those ideas created both danger and temptation.
Nazi Interest in the Frisians
The Nazi racial ideology classified Frisians as an especially “pure” Germanic people. Heinrich Himmler and the SS took particular interest in the Frisians, viewing them as descendants of an uncorrupted Nordic stock. The SS-Ahnenerbe, the Nazi pseudoscientific research organization, studied Frisian culture and history to support their racial theories. This attention was not a compliment — it was part of a deranged racial classification system that sought to rank peoples by “blood purity.”
The Frisian Movement and Collaboration
Before the war, there was a small but active Frisian cultural movement pushing for more recognition of the Frisian language and identity. When the Germans arrived, some members of this movement saw an opportunity. If the Nazis valued Frisian culture, perhaps they could be persuaded to grant Frisian language rights that the Dutch government had long denied. A minority of Frisian activists collaborated with the German occupiers in hopes of advancing the Frisian cause. The most notable example was the Frisian faction within the NSB (the Dutch Nazi party), though this group remained small.
Resistance in Friesland
Far more Frisians resisted the occupation than collaborated with it. Friesland became one of the most active regions for resistance in the Netherlands. The rural landscape, with its scattered farms and tight-knit communities, made it easier to hide people and harder for the Germans to maintain surveillance. Frisian resistance groups helped hide Jewish people, downed Allied pilots, and men avoiding forced labor. The village of Nieuwlande in neighboring Drenthe became famous because every single household sheltered Jewish refugees, but similar efforts happened across rural Friesland.
The Hunger Winter and Liberation
Friesland suffered during the Hunger Winter of 1944-1945, though generally less severely than the heavily urbanized western Netherlands. The province’s agricultural character meant food was somewhat more available, and many people from the starving cities of Holland traveled north to Friesland in search of food. Canadian forces liberated Friesland in April 1945, and the province remained deeply grateful — the connection between Friesland and Canada persists to this day.
The Aftermath
After the war, the collaboration by a segment of the Frisian movement cast a shadow over Frisian cultural activism for years. Advocating for Frisian language rights became politically sensitive because of the association with wartime collaboration. It took decades for the Frisian movement to fully recover its credibility. Ironically, the postwar Dutch government eventually did grant many of the language rights that prewar Frisian activists had wanted — Frisian became an official language in the province in 1956. But the wartime collaboration remained a painful reminder that cultural nationalism, when it intersects with extremist ideology, can lead people down very dark paths.
