Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld

Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (June 29, 1911 – December 1, 2004) born Count Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, was Prince Consort to the late Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, and father of the current monarch, Queen Beatrix.

Although his private life was rather unknown and even controversial, Bernhard was generally seen as a charming and popular figure among the majority of Dutch people for his suggested performance as a fighter pilot and activities as a liaisons officer during World War II and rebuilding afterwards, or even for helping out specific individuals. The German-born prince helped found the World Wildlife Fund, becoming its first president in 1961. He helped found the Rotary International and was one of two founders of the Bilderberg Group, an international grouping, with its composition varying slightly, meeting yearly in order to discuss the idea of future European unity in the context of transatlantic relations. He also founded the top secret Dutch BVD (now AIVD) -organisation. While some people in the Netherlands were given a (perhaps daily) glance at what Bernhard actually did during his life, most people were in fact rather ignorant about him, although some knew that he had received a highly advanced training in industrial espionage during his years in Germany, or even tended to glamorize him.

Early life

Bernhard was born Count Bernhard Leopold Friedrich Eberhard Julius Kurt Karl Gottfried Peter of Lippe-Biesterfeld in Jena, Germany, the elder son of Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld (younger brother of the reigning Prince of Lippe) and Baroness Armgard of Sierstorpff-Cramm. Because the marriage of his parents did not conform with the marriage laws of the House of Lippe, Bernhard was only born with the title of "count". In 1916 the Reigning Prince of Lippe, Leopold IV, gave Bernhard the title of "Prince of Lippe-Biesterfeld".

After World War I, Bernhard's family lost their German principality and the revenue that came with it.But the family was still wealthy and Bernhard spent his early years at Reckenwalde, the family's new estate in East Prussia (now Woynovo in Poland ), near the city of Züllichau (Sulechow). He received his early education at home. When he was twelve, he was sent to board at the gymnasium in Züllichau and several years later to board at a gymnasium in Berlin, from which he graduated in 1929.

Bernhard then studied law at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland and in Berlin, where he acquired a taste for fast cars, horse riding, and big-game hunting safaris. He was reckless and was nearly killed in a boating accident and an airplane crash, and he suffered a broken neck and crushed ribs in a 160 km/h (100 mi/h) car crash.

Bernhard joined the NSDAP, the SA and a special branch of the SS called the "Reiter SS" (SS on horseback). The Prince was not a Nazi by conviction; these memberships made life easier for an ambitious young man. People defending the Prince have stated that membership was necessary to be a student. The Prince later denied these well-documented memberships. Whatever the case, he was not politically active and although this German aristocrat was never a fierce champion of democracy, there are no accounts of him ever having made fascist or anti-semitic remarks.

Entry into the House of Orange

In the 1930s, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Prince Bernhard's younger brother Aschwin publicly declared his support for the Nazi Party. Prince Bernhard was trained as a fighter pilot and was later made an officer of the German Reiter SS Corps (SS Cavalry Corps). The Prince eventually went to work for the German chemical company, IG Farben. After a period of training, he became Secretary to the Board of Directors at the Paris office in 1935. Because he was a Protestant and a Royal, Bernhard was acceptable to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands as a suitable husband for her daughter, Princess Juliana. However, Bernhard's appropriateness as the consort of the future Queen would later become a matter of public debate.

Prince Bernhard's political affiliations with the Nazi regime have received much attention. Various members of his family and acquaintances were aligned with the Nazis prior to and during the war - a number of these being entertained shortly before and joining the royal wedding. Protocol demanded that the Prince-Consort be invited to an audience with his head of state, the German dictator Adolf Hitler. The atmosphere was less than cordial. The dictator is reported to have made some small talk about tourism on the Rhine and reportedly hailed the union between the Prince and Princess Juliana as a great alliance of Germanic nations. The Prince and Hitler met only once. Later, at his dinnertable Hitler called Berhard "a complete idiot".

The Prince's brother Prince Aschwin of Lippe-Biesterfeld was serving his country as an officer in the German army. Although the secret sevices on both sides were interested in this peculiar pair of brothers, no improper contacts or leaks of information were discovered. The prince showed himself to be a loyal Dutch citizen and officer. He cut off relations with those members of his family who were enthusiastic Nazis. As a sign of his "Dutchness" he spoke only Dutch when negotiating the surrender of German forces in the Netherlands. The Prince was known to be very fond of smart uniforms and medals. He made a point of wearing his medals in the English "Court style". The Dutch armed forces wear their medals in a manner that is copied from the Prussian Army. The Prince's deliberate disobedience of the regulations was not widely noticed but it is a clear sign of his allegiance .

The Prince's mother was no admirer of the Nazis and got into trouble for refusing to hoist a swastika flag on her country seat in Reckenwalde. The Nazi government did not take kindly to her, as the mother of an allied general.

World War II

Prince Bernhard began to make himself popular and trusted in the eyes of the Dutch people at the outset of World War II. During the German Invasion, the Prince, carrying a machine gun, organised the palace guards into a combat group that managed to expel the German paratroopers from the palace grounds, so allowing for the royal family to flee the Netherlands and take refuge in England. Once safely there, Princess Juliana and the children then went on to Canada, where they remained until the end of the war.

In England, Prince Bernhard asked to work in British Intelligence but the War Admiralty, and later General Eisenhower's Allied Command offices, did not trust him sufficiently to allow him access to intelligence information. However, on the recommendation of King George VI, he was later permitted to work in the war planning councils.

In 1941 Prince Bernhard was given the honorary rank of wing commander in the Royal Air Force. He then trained as a pilot and gained his wings later that same year.

From 1942 to 1944 Bernhard flew as a pilot with the Royal Air Force. He also helped organise the Dutch resistance movement and acted as personal secretary for Queen Wilhelmina.

By 1944, Prince Bernhard became commander of the Dutch armed forces. After the liberation of the Netherlands, he returned with his family where he became active in the negotiations for the German surrender. He was present during the armistice negotiations and German surrender in Hotel de Wereld ("The World Hotel") in Wageningen in The Netherlands on May 5, 1945. However, he is alleged to have said that he felt sorry for the German General Blaskowitz, later charged with war crimes, who was responsible for the Nazi surrender in the Netherlands. The Prince was a genuine war hero in the eyes of most of the Dutch and even kept cordial relations with the communists who fought against the Nazis. In the post-war years the popular and very regal, glamourous and well-connected Prince earned respect for his hard work in helping to reinvigorate the economy of the Netherlands.

Postwar roles

Queen Wilhelmina erased the word " honorary" in the decree that promoted Bernhard to General. In this unconstitutional manner she gave this Royal Prince a position that was never intended by either parliament or her ministers. The minister of defence did not choose to correct the monarch and the Prince took a real and important role in the Dutch Armed forces. After the war the position of Inspector General was created for the Prince. He was made a member of the board of supervisors of Fokker Aircraft, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and within a few years was invited to serve as an advisor of numerous corporations and institutions. After a 1952 trip with Queen Juliana to the United States, Prince Bernhard was heralded by the media as a business ambassador extraordinaire for the Netherlands. With his global contacts, in May 1954 he was a key figure in organising a meeting at the Bilderberg Hotel in the Netherlands for the business elite and intellectuals of the Western World to discuss the economic problems in the face of the then growing threat from communism. As a result of the success of this first meeting, it would become an annual affair known as the Bilderberg Group. The idea for the European Union, first proposed by Robert Schuman on May 9 1950, was encouraged at Bilderberg.

Though generally not reported in the Dutch press, growing strain arose between Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard during this time. The jet-setting Bernard used his many absences from the country to carry on numerous affairs, while throwing lavish parties at the various Dutch embassies.

Prince Bernhard was a very outspoken person, who often flouted protocol by making personal remarks on subjects about which he felt deeply. Almost until his last day he called for more recognition for the Polish WWII veterans, who played such an important role in the liberation of the Netherlands.

Scandals

As a man Prince Bernhard was a " larger than life" figure with a large network and a cosmopolitan lifestyle. Rumours, gossip and anecdotes about him are widespread. Some of the "facts" that have been printed about him are clearly not true. Some of the Prince's work for charity was never made public. On the other hand there were business deals and parts of the Prince's private and political life that were distinctly shadowy.

The following list of scandals and rumours is therefore by no means complete. On the other hand there is no complete list of the Prince's achievements and charitable work.

In the middle of the 1950s Prince Bernhard was involved in what some considered a personal vendetta against Greet Hofmans, a faith healer and hand layer. For nine years she was a friend and advisor of Queen Juliana, often residing at Palace Soestdijk. Originally, Hofmans was introduced to Queen Juliana on the initiative of Prince Bernhard in 1948 to treat the eye sickness of Princess Marijke Christina. This illness arose after Juliana was infected with rubella during pregnancy. Hofmans developed a great influence on the queen, encouraging pacifist ideas. In the period of the Cold War this caused a crisis in the royal household. Reputedly it reached the point where it threatened the marriage of Juliana and Bernhard.

Outside the Netherlands a great deal was written over the Hofmans affair. On 13 June 1956 an article appeared in the German magazine Der Spiegel with the title Zwischen Königin und Rasputin, literally meaning Between queen and Rasputin, which, as the title already indicates painted a less than flattering picture of Hofmans. Later on, Bernhard admitted that he personally provided the information for the article. It is thought that by doing this he hoped to have Hofmans removed from the court. The prime minister, Willem Drees, had to act and appointed a committee of three wise men ( elder statesmen) to advise the royal couple. The Prince got what he wanted; Hofmans was banished and various friends and supporters of the Queen in the Royal household had to give up their office. The report of the three wise men seems to have been mislaid in the archives.

By the 1970s, Prince Bernhard served on more than 300 corporate boards or committees worldwide and was loudly praised in the Netherlands for his very active efforts to promote the economic well-being of the country. But scandal rocked the Royal family in 1976 when it was revealed that Prince Bernhard had accepted a US$1.1 million bribe from U.S. aircraft manufacturer, Lockheed Corporation to influence the Dutch government's purchase of fighter aircraft. Prime Minister of the Netherlands Joop den Uyl ordered an inquiry into the affair while Prince Bernhard refused to answer reporters' questions, stating: "I am above such things." ^*The Dutch and international press headlined the stories for months, providing proof of Prince Bernhard's German SS participation and his numerous extra-marital affairs, including the purchase of a luxurious Paris apartment for his mistress Helene Grinda, with whom he had an illegitimate daughter, Alexia. (Bernhard has a second illegitimate daughter, Alicia, in the USA.)

Further evidence came to light of the Prince having been deeply involved with Tibor Rosenbaum, the Swiss banker and front man for Mafia financier Meyer Lansky. To make things worse, it was revealed that the Prince had also been involved in business dealings with Robert Vesco who had been a frequent guest at the Royal Palace. Vesco used an Amsterdam mailing address while committing the largest single fraud ever, stealing more than US$220 million from a Swiss based company, Investors Overseas Services Ltd.

On August 26, 1976, a toned-down, but nonetheless devastating, report on Prince Bernhard's activities was released to a shocked Dutch public. The Prince's own letter in 1974 to Lockheed Corporation that demanded "commissions" be paid to him on Dutch government aircraft purchases was one of the most damaging documents in a mountain of evidence. Criminal charges were not laid by the government due to threats by Queen Juliana that she would abdicate if her husband were prosecuted.

Prince Bernhard was sacked as Inspector-General of the Dutch armed forces and agreed not to wear his uniform. He resigned his various high profile positions in many businesses, charities, and other institutions and in return the States-General voted against criminal prosecution. He turned over presidency of the international World Wildlife Fund to the British Duke of Edinburgh. The Dutch Royal family worked hard to rehabilitate the Prince's name, but another scandal was to be revealed.

In 1988, Prince Bernhard and Princess Juliana sold two paintings from their personal collection to raise money for the World Wildlife Fund. The paintings sold for GBP700 000, which was deposited in a Swiss WWF bank account. In 1989, however, Charles de Haes, director-general of the WWF, transferred GBP500 000 back to Bernhard, for what de Haes called a private project. In 1991, newspapers reported what this private project was: Prince Bernhard had hired mercenaries - mostly British - to fight against poachers in nature reserves. The paramilitary group infiltrated organisations profiting from illegal trade in ivory in order to arrest them.

This 'Project Lock', as it was called, seemed to have backfired enormously, however. The "private army" of Bernhard had not only infiltrated in the illegal trade, they were also participating in it. To make things worse, Irish reporter Kevin Dowling discovered that the South-African army was also involved in the trade, hinting at connections between the army of Bernhard and the WWF and the struggle for maintaining apartheid. Moreover, he claimed members of the South-African run counterinsurgency unit Koevoet (Afrikaans/Dutch for "crowbar"), responsible for the Boipatong massacre in 1992, were trained under Project Lock.

In 1995, Nelson Mandela called upon the Kumleben Commission to investigate, among other things, the role of the WWF in apartheid South Africa. In the report that followed, it was suggested that mercenaries from Project Lock had been planning assassinations of ANC members and that mercenaries had been running training camps in the wildlife reserves, training fighters from the terrorist groups UNITA and Renamo. Although Prince Bernhard was never accused of any crime in its context, the Project Lock scandal dealt another damaging blow to the Prince's name.

The Prince is also alleged to have sent a letter to Adolf Hitler offering the Prince's support in exchange for Hitler's support of Bernhard as "Stadthouder" of the occupied Netherlands. These allegations have never been substantiated and no letter has ever been discovered.

Yet more controversy came on 30 October 2002, when he paid the fines of two Albert Heijn supermarket staff members, who were convicted of assaulting a shoplifter after they detained him.

Prince Bernhard is also well-known for his love for fast planes, fast cars and speeding. Apparently Winston Churchill said that he only knew of one person that was having a great time during WWII, and that it was Prince Bernhard ^*.

In an interview published after his death, Prince Bernhard admitted that he had accepted more than one million dollars (US) in bribes from Lockheed,he acknowledged it was a mistake and all of the money went to the WWF. He also admitted to having fathered two illegitimate daughters in the years following his marriage. ^*

Death

Prince Bernhard died of cancer at the age of 93 in an Utrecht hospital (the Universitair Medisch Centrum Utrecht - University of Utrecht Medical Centre) on 1 December, 2004; until his death he suffered from malignant lung and intestinal tumours. On December 11 he was interred at the Nieuwe Kerk, Delft. Bernhard's funeral was different form those of Prince Claus and Queen Juliana in that Bernhard's coffin was transported on the undercarriage of a cannon instead of in the traditional carriage used when the coffins of Prince Claus and Queen Juliana were transported to Delft. Together with the playing of many military marches and the forming of guards of honour by Second World War veterans this gave the funeral procession a military character as the late prince, as a Second World War veteran himself, had wished. As a final tribute to his former military role in the Royal Netherlands Air Force, three modern F-16 jet fighters and a World War II Spitfire plane performed a low fly-by during the funeral in a classic missing man formation.

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