The Kingdom of the Netherlands During World War II

The Kingdom of the Netherlands During World War II (Dutch Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog) is the standard reference on the history of the Netherlands during World War II. The series was written by Loe de Jong (1914–2005), director of the Dutch Institute for War Documentation (Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, or NIOD), and was published between 1969 and 1991. The series contains 14 volumes, published in 29 parts. De Jong was commissioned to write the work in 1955 by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. The first volume appeared in 1969, and de Jong wrote his last (volume 13) in 1988. The final volume, containing critique and responses, appeared in 1991.

De Jong was commissioned to write The Kingdom of the Netherlands During World War II by the Ministry of Education and Sciences, the predecessor of the current Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. The series was to be completed in 15 years and comprise six or seven volumes, but it took de Jong until 1969 to publish the first volume. Originally the government intended for the series to be edited by four professors of the four main Dutch politico-denominational pillars, who quickly realized that they would be unable to fulfill the task in addition to their regular obligations. Instead, the assignment was given to de Jong, then a young historian who had already argued for such a reference work in 1948 and became the first director of the NIOD. De Jong himself wrote the first thirteen volumes, the last of which was published in 1988.

In 1987, the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sciences, in response to criticism, asked the NIOD to appoint an investigative committee to evaluate de Jong's thirteen volumes and write a fourteenth, which was to include the opinions of other historians. This committee, made up of Jan Bank, Cees Fasseur (), A. F. Manning, E. H. Kossmann, A. H. Paape, and Ivo Schöffer (), published the fourteenth and final volume in 1991, with Jan Bank, professor of Dutch history at Leiden University, and Peter Romijn (), department head at NIOD and professor of history at the University of Amsterdam, as general editors.

...
Wikipedia