The Oud-Strijders Legioen (OSL; "Former Warriors' Legion" [1] ) was a Dutch right-wing veterans' organization that was active after 1958 and which still maintains a web presence. Though never a big organization or a political party, the OSL exerted considerable influence in Dutch politics and was a well-known voice for conservative nationalism, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. It was led, from the beginning, by military veteran Prosper Ego.
The OSL was founded in 1958 by Prosper Ego, who had served in the Netherlands Indies and had been active in the VLN, a veterans organization, since 1952; he and others split off from the VLN when that organization wanted to take up arms following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. [2] The OSL was composed mainly of former military personnel who saw action in the Indonesian National Revolution and the Korean War. It attracted people who were opposed to communism and the peace and anti-nuclear movement of the 1960s and afterward, and supported the South-African apartheid regime. [3] In its heyday, the foundation had 14,000 supporters. [4] [5] During the large demonstrations of the 1980s against nuclear arms in the Netherlands, the OSL organized prominent counterprotests, flying planes over the demonstrations trailing banners with slogans such as Liever een raket in de tuin dan een Rus in de keuken ("Better a cruise missile in your garden than a Russian in your kitchen"). [1] [6] [7] It published a magazine, Sta-Vast ("Stand firm"); [3] in the 1990s LPF politician Mat Herben was the magazine's editor in chief, and he was fined 5000 guilders in 1995 for printing a bigoted article. [4] The organization was later renamed OSL Stichtingen (or, more fully, "OSL Stichtingen voor vrijheid & veiligheid", meaning "OSL organizations for freedom and security" [8] ). [9]
The OSL never intended to be a political party and never received government subsidies (common for political parties in the Netherlands). Its platform includes a desire for a self-sufficient military, protection of the parliamentary democracy, protection of citizens and their properties, and a "powerful" foreign policy within the European Union and NATO. [8] As a conservative nationalist organization, the OSL formed an alternative in the 1980s for those who considered the Centre Party, then the leading right-wing political party, too loud and too extreme. [9] Throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, the OSL was one of the most important critics (with the Reformed Political Party) of "cultural permissiveness". [10] In the 1970s and 1980s, it influenced the right wings of the more mainstream conservative parties Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD); in the 1990s it also influenced the LPF, the populist party founded by Pim Fortuyn. [9]
By 2010 Ego, still the OSL's chairman, had begun to scale down the organization, donating the archives documentation to the Nationaal Archief. [11] The organization was dissolved that year and closed its office, in Rotterdam; at the time it had some 2400 members. [3] A few months later, though, Ego announced that with new financial support the organization had restarted its website; [12] writers for the site include Herben and Ego. [13]
Dutch writer Jeroen van Bergeijk compared the OSL to the American Legion —"a kind of Boy Scout organization for the elderly ... a conservative club which aims to combat desecration of the flag, reintroduce prayer in schools, and keep homosexuals out of its ranks". [14] The evaluation of the OSL in a publication by the Anne Frank Foundation in 1981, Oud en nieuw fascisme, caused some controversy: the OSL was designated as "extreme right-wing", with fascist characteristics (racism, neo-colonialism). [15]
Wilhelmus Simon Petrus Fortuijn, known as Pim Fortuyn, was a Dutch politician, author, civil servant, businessman, sociologist and academic who founded the party Pim Fortuyn List in 2002.
The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy is a conservative-liberal political party in the Netherlands. The VVD, whose forerunner was the Freedom Party, is a party of the centre-right that tries to promote private enterprise and economic liberalism.
The Pim Fortuyn List was a right-wing populist political party in the Netherlands named after its eponymous founder Pim Fortuyn, a former university professor and political columnist. The party was considered nationalist as well as adhering to its own distinct ideology of Fortuynism according to some commentators.
Liberalism in the Netherlands started as an anti-monarchical effort spearheaded by the Dutch statesman Thorbecke, who almost single-handedly wrote the 1848 Constitution of the Netherlands that turned the country into a constitutional monarchy.
The Socialist Alternative Politics is a Trotskyist political group in the Netherlands without parliamentary representation.
Hilbrand Pier Anne Nawijn is a Dutch lawyer and politician of the local political party Lijst Hilbrand Nawijn (LHN) in Zoetermeer.
Mathieu "Mat" Herben is a Dutch journalist, civil servant and retired politician of the dissolved Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) party and served as leader of the LPF 2003 to 2006.
Hartog Hank Richard "Harry" Wijnschenk is a former Dutch politician. From 2002 to 2003 he was an MP for the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF), and later for the Wijnschenk Group. He briefly served as leader of the LPF in 2002.
The Stichting Oud Politieke Delinquenten was a Dutch right-wing organization founded by and for formerly jailed and convicted war criminals, who had collaborated with the German occupiers during World War II. The SOPD was the first and the largest of the collaborationist organizations in the country, "numbering perhaps a hundred former internees."
Jan Hartman (1887–1969) was a Dutch fascist and collaborator during World War II. After the war, he was active in far-right politics, and was one of the two founders of the Stichting Oud Politieke Delinquenten, a right-wing organization founded by and for formerly jailed and convicted war criminals and collaborators.
VoorNederland was a Dutch political party. It was previously active in the House of Representatives of the Netherlands as the Group Bontes/Van Klaveren, a parliamentary group founded in April 2014. The parliamentary group was succeeded by a political party in May 2014. After failing to garner win a single seat in the 2017 general election, the party disbanded.
The Weerbaarheidsafdeling was the paramilitary arm of the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (NSB), the fascist political party that collaborated with the German occupiers of the Netherlands during World War II. The organization, roughly equivalent to the German SA, was founded in 1932 by Anton Mussert, co-founder of the NSB in 1931 and its leader until the end of the war. Members wore and marched in black uniforms and were thus called "blackshirts". In 1933 the Dutch government banned the wearing of uniforms, and the WA was disbanded in 1935 in order to forestall the Dutch government's banning it. In 1940, after the German invasion, the WA became openly active again, and more ruthless than before. They specialized in violent attacks, particularly on the Dutch Jewish population.
Prosper Joannes Gerardus Antonius Ego was the founder of the Oud-Strijders Legioen.
Amma Asentewaa Asante is a Dutch politician. She was a member of the municipal council of Amsterdam from 1998 to 2006 and a member of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands for the Labour Party from 2016 to 2017.
Anet Bleich is a Dutch journalist, political commentator, author, columnist and writer.
Bertha "Betsy" Bakker-Nort was a Dutch lawyer and politician who served as a member of the House of Representatives for the Free-thinking Democratic League (VDB) from 1922 to 1942.
Soekaesih was a Communist Party of Indonesia activist known for being one of only a handful of female political prisoners exiled by the Netherlands government to Boven-Digoel concentration camp. After being released she traveled to the Netherlands in the late 1930s and campaigned for the camp to be shut down.
Willem van der Velden was a Dutch politician who served as a member of the House of Representatives from 2002 to 2003.
Anti-fascist research group Kafka, commonly abbreviated to Kafka, is a Dutch anti-fascist and far-left research group, founded by Hans van Drunen. Its name was said to be an acronym for Kollektief Anti-Fascistisch/-Kapitalistisch Archief before 1994, but the research group has since indicated that they had named themselves after the writer Franz Kafka.
After the Dutch general election of 15 May 2002, a cabinet formation took place in Netherlands. This resulted in the First Balkenende cabinet on 22 July 2002. The coalition was formed by Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF).