Agency under German Occupation: Conservationist Policy-Making in The Netherlands, 1940–1945

The paper provides a political history of nature conservation in the Netherlands during the Second World War, 1940–1945. Nature and nature conservation were not mere victims of Nazi German oppression or destruction; rather, conservationist organisations clearly had agency under difficult circumstances. The movement’s leaders were accustomed to using informal contacts, semi-formal arrangements and back channel deals with government authorities and agencies, and continued to exert influence on the new Department of Education, Science and Protection of Culture with considerable success after 1940. Although these consultation structures and the Department’s power to impose measures by decree could not always prevent severe damage, this story sheds new light on the history of the nature conservation movement as an historical actor in its own right under the conditions of war and occupation.