Geelkerken, Cornelis “Kees” van.

Geelkerken , Cornelis, born 19-03-1901 in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, Belgium, son of Wilhelm van Geelkerken, a railway servant and director of the labor purse in Zeist and Maria Joanna Lakerveld. He was the oldest of twelve children, seven boys and five girls, one brother died before his first birthday and one sister died four years old. On 15-12-1927 he married Johanna Dorothea Eschauzier and the couple had no children. He was co-founder of the Dutch National Socialist Movement, NSB . In the 1920s he gravitated toward extreme nationalism. Proposing an authoritarian, anti-democratic movement to Anton Mussert

      they formed the National Socialist Movement in 1931. Initially secretary became ‘studbook number 2’ in 1937 deputy leader. He was also leader of the youth movement, the National Youth Storm, for some time. Geelkerken (in black uniform) was installed in the zoo of Blijdorp In contrast to the stiff Mussert, Van Geelkerken was a jovial man, who easily took on people. He held many well-attended talks in the country in which he gladly reminded the Dutch public of the times of the great sea heroes and the patriotic struggle for freedom. For example, on 27-05-1933 he called Houzee to his audience with his arm outstretched, which promptly responded to the greetings from Tromp and De Ruyter. With this, the Dutch counterpart of the German Sieg Heil was born.

Mussert was executed by a firing squad, age 51, on 07-05-1946 on the Waalsdorpervlakte, the Hague. Being the secretary of the party van Geelkerken became the substitute leader, second man, in 1937. He became director of their youth corps, the Nationale Jeugdstorm. After the German invasion Van Geelkerken, her with the German Hitler Youth leader Arthur Axmann,

was appointed Inspector-General of the Nederlandsche Landwacht, the Netherlands Paratroopers. The Dutch government forbid all civil servants to join the NSB and van Geelkerken resigned from the provincial public works department in Utrecht. The Reformed Church disqualified him and his wife from the Last Supper. He greatest grievance was his interment on Mei 10^th 1940, as the Germans attacked our country. The duo Mussert, van Geelkerken had to battle for the favour of the German occupiers with Meinoud Rost van Tonningen

who was much more radical. Rost van Tonningen died in the prison of Scheveningen, age 51, on 06-06-1945, probably suicide. (see his wife”Florrie Rost van Tonningen) The first wanted a “Great Netherlands” on the German site, but Rost van Tonningen was an advocate of the “Great German” thought. Arthur Seyss Inquart

and Rauter  he was the highest SS and Police Leader in the occupied Netherlands, used them skilful against each other and Mussert and van Geelkerken became radical soon as well. In the night of 7 to 8 March 1945 Hanns Albin Rauter was severely wounded by an attack staged by the Dutch resistance at “Woeste Hoeve” on the Veluwe, a little village between Arnhem and Apeldoorn. As a reprisal the Germans executed 117 political prisoners at the location of the attack as well as 50 prisoners in Kamp Amersfoort and 40 prisoners each in The Hague and Rotterdam. This attack had not been planned; the resistance merely wanted to hijack a truck and use it to drive to a farmer who had butchered cows for the German army. Instead of the truck, Rauter’s BMW motorcar was stopped by members of the resistance dressed in German uniforms. However, Rauter had just two weeks earlier issued a directive stating that German patrols should not stop any German military vehicles outside towns or villages, and a firefight broke out. His fellow passengers were all killed, but Rauter feigned death and survived. He was found by a German military patrol and transferred to a hospital where he remained until his arrest by British Military Police after the end of hostilities. Hanns Albin Rauter was convicted in the Netherlands of crimes against humanity and executed by firing squad on 24-03-1949, age 54.

Van Geelkerken was involved in the intern organization of the Party and the Police management and he also was the Inspector General of the para military “Landwacht”, the Paratroopers. The complete break came as Leader Mussert around the turn of the year 1944/45 started to purge the Party. As well as Rost van Toningen as van Geelkerken were disbanded from their NSB positions and the later even expelled as member of the Party as he refused to lay down his leadership as commander of the Paratroopers. In the course of the war, Van Geelkerken became wild, says Leiden historian Bart van der Boom, who published a biographical sketch about Van Geelkerken. ,, He has landed in a world that he does not fit into. A toddler in the big human world. He has power and prestige, but his enemies cannot be counted. “He is sucked into the stream; he couldn’t go back, a family member says. Yes, Van der Boom acknowledges, but adds in one breath: ,, He was much too vain and too fond of his status than he would take his loss and step out. Within the organization, as a uniformed leader, he was someone, outside of that he would be a simple civil servant. ”After the break with Mussert, his star drops quickly. After a short suspension by Seyss Inquart he again was assigned as commander of the Dutch Paratroopers by SS Reichsführer, Heinrich Himmler (Did you know) himself. After the war in 1950 van Geelkerken was sentenced to life imprisonment but released in 1959.  His treason against the state was obvious but his involvement in the deportation of the Jewish people or other flagrant war crimes was not provably.

     Geelkerken here with SS Obergruppenfüher der Waffen SS. Führer 15th Waffen SS Grenadier Division in the Netherlands, Demelhuber, Karl Maria “Tosca”.

Until his retirement Geelkerken worked in the pharmaceutical industry and lived in Lunteren. After his retirement, the Van Geelkerkens lead a reclusive life in a house in Lunteren, far outside the built-up area. The self-chosen loneliness in no man’s land is very difficult for socializing people, so he is considering an emigration to Germany, where he can build a new life as an unknown person. But before he can implement the plans, he is struck by a heart attack. He died of this  heart attack on 29-03-1976, age 75, and is buried with his wife Johanna Dorothea, born Eschauzier, who died old age 88, on 02-06-1991, on the local cemetery of Lunteren, but his gravestone has disappeared. The grave at the Lunteren Municipal Cemetery was cleared in the spring of 2020. Closeby the grave of Evert Jan Roskam he was the Boerenleider, Peasant leader of the Landstand, rural class, NSB.