Handhaven onder de nieuwe orde (Dutch)

Handhaving under the New Order is the first history of the Rotterdam police during occupation time, based on many new sources and unique visual material. But this book is not only about the force as an organization. It is also – on the basis of more than a hundred interviews – about the individual policeman who adapted to a greater or lesser degree.
This book is not only a political history of the corps, but also a contribution to the history of the city of Rotterdam and to the ongoing discussion of the Dutch civil service during the occupation. For example, it discusses whether the corps leadership was under the spell of the occupiers, whether equalization was a success, what role the corps played in the persecution of the Jews and whether the corps was sufficiently purified after the occupation.
Attention is also paid to National Socialist organizations that took over police tasks such as the Landwacht, the Vrijwillige Hulppolitie and the Nederlandse SS.
While elsewhere agreements were made between the occupying forces and resistance organizations, German (police) agencies stationed in Rotterdam, aided by Dutch henchmen, including the detectives of the infamous Group 10, continued to suppress the population. As a result, more than 17,500 prisoners were locked up in the cells of the police headquarters and in the final months many victims stood before the execution squad.
Handhaven onder de Nieuwe Orde (Enforcement under the New Order) shows how a corps, under the leadership of a not too progressive and mild-mannered chief of police, was transformed into an instrument of power of the occupying forces.
Frank van Riet, himself employed by the police, has been researching the organization of the Dutch police force and its role during World War II for many years. As far as the Rotterdam research is concerned, he is a doctoral student at the University of Amsterdam.