Anton Mussert

Anton Adriaan Mussert (; 11 May 1894 – 7 May 1946) was a Dutch politician who co-founded the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (NSB) in 1931 and served as its leader until the party was banned in 1945. As such, he was the most prominent Dutch fascist before and during World War II. Mussert collaborated with the German occupation government, but was granted little actual power and held the nominal title of Leider van het Nederlandsche Volk ("Leader of the Dutch People") from 1942 onwards. In May 1945, as the war came to an end in Europe, Mussert was captured and arrested by Allied forces. He was charged and convicted of treason, and was executed in 1946. Early life Mussert was born on 11 May 1894 in Werkendam, in the northern part of the province of North Brabant in the Netherlands. From an early age he showed talent in technical matters and after graduating from school he chose to study civil engineering at the Delft University of Technology. He married his aunt Maria Witlam, his mother's sister, in 1917 despite opposition from his mother. In the 1920s, he became active in several far right organisations, such as the Dietsche Bond which advocated a Greater Netherlands including Flanders (Dutch-speaking Belgium). Foundation of the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging On 14 December 1931, Mussert, Cornelis van Geelkerken, and ten others founded the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (Dutch: Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging in Nederland), a Dutch counterpart to the National Socialist German Workers' Party. In its early years, the NSB boasted that its membership included several hundred Jews, until the German party directed a more anti-Semitic course.