Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands

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Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (1911-2004)[1] was a founder of the Bilderberg Group and the 1001 Club.

Early life

SS Membership

As a young student, Bernhard was a member of the SS, a fact which was examined by a Dutch inquiry after he met Crown Princess Juliana:

He had joined, he said, because had he not been a member of such an organisation it would have been made harder for him to pass his law exams; moreover, membership brought with it the free use of a garage. He resigned from the party in 1937 - although his letter, now in the National Archives in Washington, DC, ended with the words "Heil Hitler".[2]

I G Farben

After his graduation in 1935, Bernhard worked for I G Farben:

After a period of training, he became Secretary to the Board of Directors at the Paris office in 1935. He worked there until his engagement on 8 September 1936 to Princess Juliana, heiress to the Dutch throne.[3]

World War Two

Prince Bernhard in Eindhoven, 19 September 1944

After the Dutch royal family escaped to the Netherlands in 1940, Bernhard returned to the country during the final defence against the Germans. After he escaped to England again, King George VI sought an intelligence post for him, but was blocked by the War Ministry because of Bernhard's German background.[4]

In September 1944, with Dutch troops fighting in France, Eisenhower appointed him commander in chief of the Dutch forces:

On Queen Wilhelmina's orders, he also took charge of the Dutch resistance forces (his brother Aschwin had spent much of the war working for their counterpart in Germany itself). The Prince played a vital and rather under-appreciated part in fusing the amorphous Dutch resistance factions into one unified force which eventually spear-headed the Allied advance into the Netherlands.[5]

Dutch stay-behind

Shortly after the end of the war Dutch secret service circles close to MI6 approached Prince Bernhard with the suggestion for a stay-behind network in the country to prepare for resistance in case of an invasion. Prince Bernhard saw to it that Dutch security service chief Louis Einthoven set up an organisation codenamed 'O' with the approval of Prime Minister W. Schermerhorn.[6]

In 1948, J.J.L Baron Van Lynden, who had been working for the prince, took over control of a second Dutch stay-behind network, G7. Van Lynden subsequently maintained his connection with the royal family, which provided a useful cover for his secret role.[7]

Bilderberg

During 1952, the head of Unilever Paul Rykens arranged for Joseph Retinger of the European Movement to meet with Prince Bernhard.[8] In May that year, Retinger presented Bernhard with his plan for an élite transatlantic dialogue to address the causes of rising anti-Americanism in Europe, and isolationism in the US.[9]

Following the election of President Eisenhower, Prince Bernhard and Retinger travelled to the US with British Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell and Denis Healey to lobby for support and funds. The Prince met with an 'old friend' CIA director General Walter Bedell Smith, who eventually passed on the plan to C.D. Jackson, Eisnhower's special assistant on psychological warfare and president of the Committee for a Free Europe.[10]

Bernhard went on to chair the conference at the Bilderberg Hotel in Arnhem in May 1954.[11]

The prospect of future conferences was however threatened by American suspicions that Retinger was a British secret agent. These were intensified when Bernhard backed Retinger in seeking the removal of John Coleman as head of the US Bilderberg contingent. Although this was rebuffed by Eisenhower, Coleman had to be replaced with Bedell-Smith after suffering a heart attack.[12]

World Wildlife Fund

When the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) approached Prince Philip to become its first international president in 1961, Philip suggested Prince Bernard instead. Prince Bernhard served in this role until 1976, when he was forced to resign after it became public that he had solicited more than $1 million in "commissions" from Lockheed in exchange for Lockheed's receiving contracts to build planes for the Netherlands. Bernhard later said he had planned to give the Lockheed money to WWF. According to journalist Raymond Bonner, a member of the WWF board from the period insisted this was not true.[13]

1001 Club

In 1971, WWF board member Anton Rupert recruited fellow South African Charles de Haes as personal assistant to Prince Bernhard, implementing the 1001 Club project.[14] The 'one' was Prince Bernhard, the one thousand were wealthy patrons who made a secret one-time donation of $10,000. According to Raymond Bonner, the list of donors included Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, Bank of Credit and Commerce International founder Agha Hasan Abedi, and British businessman Lord Kagan, as well as a number of members of the South African Broederbond.[15]

Operation Lock

In 1987, Prince Bernhard hired KAS Enterprises to undertake Operation Lock. Ostensibly aimed at ivory smuggling in Southern Africa, there were accusations that the operation was a front for South African attempts to destabilize neighbouring states.[16]

In December 1988, Bernhard auctioned two paintings, The Holy Family by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo and The Rape of Europa by Elisabetta Sirani, for £610,000 to an anonymous buyer at Sotheby's. The proceeds were donated to the WWF.[17]

However, a few weeks later Bernhard asked the adminstrator of the 1001 Club to transfer £500,000 from the club's account to that of Queen Juliana.[18]

According to Frans Stroebel, the head of WWF's South African affiliate, these funds were needed for Operation Lock, and De Haes agreed to their release.[19]

Raymond Bonner's At the Hand of Man, quotes the following extract of a letter from Stroebel to Prince Phillip:

I have given Mr. de Haes a number of comprehensive briefings on the project since I first became involved. In May 1989, I gave him full details. He then went to HRH Prince Bernhard to confirm that Bernhard was indeed the sponsor. Mr. de Haes satisfied himself with the developments, and in subsequent discussions with me he never expressed any concern about my involvement, or, for that matter, the covert programme itself.[20]

Lockheed scandal

Bernhard was hit by financial scandal in December 1975, when a former executive of the Lockheed aircraft company, Ernest Hauser, provided the Wall Street Journal with a diary that he had kept from 1961 to 1964:

In the diary, Hauser recorded Prince Bernhard's demands for commission for helping to promote sales of Lockheed Starfighters to the Dutch Air Force. In an interview with the BBC in August 1976, Hauser claimed that the Prince had an

insatiable appetite for money and was paid more than $1 million by Lockheed.[21]

A Dutch investigation doubted the authenticity of the diary but concluded that Bernhard had shown himself "shown himself open to dishonourable favours and offers" and had "harmed the interests of the State". As a result, he was forced to resign all his public offices.[22]

In an interview given after his death, Bernhard admitted that he had accepted $1.2 million in bribes from Lockheed.[23]

Affiliations

External Resources

references

  1. ↑ Anthony Browne, From beyond the grave, Prince finally admits taking $1m bribe, The Times, 4 December 2004.
  2. ↑ Obituaries: HRH Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, telegraph.co.uk, 4 Dec 2004.
  3. ↑ Biography, The Dutch Royal House, accessed 5 November 2009.
  4. ↑ Obituaries: HRH Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, telegraph.co.uk, 4 Dec 2004.
  5. ↑ Obituaries: HRH Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, telegraph.co.uk, 4 Dec 2004.
  6. ↑ Daniele Ganser, Nato's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, Frank Cass, 2005, p.152.
  7. ↑ Daniele Ganser, Nato's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, Frank Cass, 2005, pp.153-154.
  8. ↑ Stephen Dorril, MI6, Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Touchstone, p.496.
  9. ↑ Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War, Calling the Tune? Frank Cass, 2003, p242.
  10. ↑ Stephen Dorril, MI6, Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Touchstone, p.497.
  11. ↑ Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War, Calling the Tune? Frank Cass, 2003, p244.
  12. ↑ Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War, Calling the Tune? Frank Cass, 2003, pp.245-247.
  13. ↑ Raymond Bonner, At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa's Wildlife, Simon and Schuster, 1993, pp.66-67.
  14. ↑ Raymond Bonner, At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa's Wildlife, Simon and Schuster, 1993, p.69.
  15. ↑ Raymond Bonner, At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa's Wildlife, Simon and Schuster, 1993, p.67.
  16. ↑ The SAS: Savage Wars of Peace, 1947 to the Present, by Anthony Kemp, John Murray (publishers) Ltd, 1994, pp202-205.
  17. ↑ Raymond Bonner, At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa's Wildlife, Simon and Schuster, 1993, p.80.
  18. ↑ Raymond Bonner, At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa's Wildlife, Simon and Schuster, 1993, p.80.
  19. ↑ Raymond Bonner, At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa's Wildlife, Simon and Schuster, 1993, p.80.
  20. ↑ Raymond Bonner, At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa's Wildlife, Simon and Schuster, 1993, p.80.
  21. ↑ Obituaries: HRH Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, telegraph.co.uk, 4 Dec 2004.
  22. ↑ Obituaries: HRH Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, telegraph.co.uk, 4 Dec 2004.
  23. ↑ Anthony Browne, From beyond the grave, Prince finally admits taking $1m bribe, The Times, 4 December 2004.
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