Juliana and Bernhard: The Cold War Did It

The Dutch monarchy (and the rest of the country) experienced a existential crisis during the 1950s, one that was resolved only after the intervention of the government. The episode has become known as the "Greet Hofmans Affaire" because of the influence the faith healer of the same name exercised on Queen Juliana. The traditional interpretation is that the semi-wacko queen had become the emotional and spiritual captive of full-on wacko Ms. Hofmans. But it appears the traditional interpretation needs correcting, and that Juliana's husband, the very independent Bernhard (playboy, chair of the notorious Bildenberg meetings, World Wildlife advocate, big game hunter, international business wheeler-and-dealer, among many other things) deserves much of the responsibility, together with the good old Cold War. Historian Cees Fasseur published a new study on this crisis this week, for which he has been able to draw (with Queen Beatrix's permission) on Juliana's and Bernhard's papers in the royal archives. Initial reactions and interviews earlier this week focused on the personalities involved, and in particular on the kind of marriage the royal couple had (see above, under "playboy" and "semi-wacko"). From the early discussions this week, one also got the impression that Ms. Hofmans's influence indeed was pernicious, and that many people at home and abroad wondered what on earth the queen might be thinking. As an example, people have often pointed to Juliana's address to a joint session of Congress in April 1952, a plea for international collaboration, especially in non-military fields, and an implicit rejection of the Cold War division of the world. Ultimately, it was Bernhard who brought things to a head, causing the Dutch government in 1956 to force the queen to break with Hofmans. And how could he not, one was inclined to ask. But today, the Volkskrant has a review of the book by writer and historian Anet Bleich (author herself of a new biography of 1970s prime-minister Joop den Uyl, who had to cope with a constitutional crisis too, the so-called Lockheed Affair--another case where Bernhard's behavior had crossed the line). In a balanced take on Fasseur's book, Bleich makes it all a little more complicated, or rather, she shifts the focus to Bernhard--and to the Cold War. Hofman's influence, Bleich argues, really wasn't as pervasive. Instead, between her and Juliana it was much more a meeting of minds, a shared concern about international developments such as the nuclear arms race, the danger of nuclear war (but also about the importance of development assistance to poor countries). Also, the two became friends because Juliana couldn't really count on her philandering husband for any kind of emotional bond (Bernhard habitually took his mistress on the royal family's skiing vacations and had her stay in the same hotel, to give one example). It was these two factors that pushed Bernhard into action (leaking things to the press, which eventually brought everything into the open, forcing the government to intervene): the fact that he was losing influence in the royal household and was even being challenged over his selfish conduct; and, most intriguingly, Juliana's political views, the way she managed to express them publicly, and how this deviated from what he, Bernhard, and most of conventional wisdom thought about international politics. The two can't be separated, so one can't really argue that the Cold War alone brought about a constitutional crisis in a NATO country in the mid-1950s. However, that this "Hofmans Affair" is a central episode in early Dutch Cold War history seems pretty clear now also. (This, and the fact that the Fasseur and the Bleich books need to go on my reading list).