Het verborgen front: Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde illegaliteit in de provincie Limburg tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog

A satisfactory account of the history of the organized resistance in the province of Limburg will not be found by exclusively following the relevant events and developments in the years of the German occupation. As early as in the nineteenthirties foundations were laid which may serve as a partial explanation for a partisan attitude after the events of May 1940. In their establishment the Catholic Church played an important part, for it was this church community which most of all regarded the threat of right-wing radicalism as a matter not to be underestimated, and which was the first to take up arms by launching a fierce social counter-attack. Headed by Bishop J.H.G. Lemmens of Roermond and leading, socially committed clergymen such as H.A. Poels and J. Jacobs, a fundamental counterattack sparked off in the mid-nineteenthirties, which in the South of the province, where the N.S.B. (National Socialist Movement) found its largest support, was fought at daggers drawn. By exerting its influence and exercising its authority on all social levels the Catholic Church succeeded in stigmatizing the N.S.B. and in compelling the movemement to take up a defensive position.Although anti-national socialist sentiment was undeniably widespread in Limburg, the church-stimulated militancy did not reveal itself immediately after the German invasion. It took some time yet before there would be a Catholic-inspired resistance of any structure. This is connected with the tactics followed by the occupying forces, which were aimed at gently winning the populace over to national socialism. The Church and its social organizations were functioning normally and the effects of war and occupation remained limited. Nevertheless, in the South of the province three military-civilian underground units grew up in the course of 1940 and 1941...