Activist Effort or Widespread Support? Dutch Newspaper Secrecy

The aim in this chapter is to use the example of the Netherlands to explore the relationship between the development of Nazi control in an occupied country, and the rise in new forms of journalism. There are records of over one thousand two hundred underground newspapers, so by engaging with this archive, this chapter and the next one trace how as the war progressed, oppositional press mushroomed from small scale beginnings to fast growth, with impressive development despite the dangers that writing, production and distribution posed under Nazi rule. This pioneering growth was mirrored by a growth in ‘Nazification’ that provided the fuel for powerful content, a clear motivation for resistance organisations, and the wherewithal of an oppositional network of resistance cells for newspaper distribution. This chapter examines how inextricably entwined the consumption, production, and distribution of illegal newspapers were with Dutch experiences of, and reactions to, occupation. This chapter and the subsequent chapter on The Netherlands trace the routes to inclusivity chronologically, exploring both the establishment of pioneering publications and the stages of growth through the prism of their relationship with, and reaction to, wartime events in this occupied country.