Alfred Haighton

Coenraad Alfred Augustus Haighton (born Rotterdam, October 26 1896 - died Beekbergen, April 13 1943) was a millionaire businessman and the leader of the Netherlands' first fascist movement.

From a privileged background, Haighton was well educated, studying in Los Angeles and producing a thesis on Arthur Schopenhauer, although he was also physically disabled for his entire life. Haighton's father had been a highly successful businessman, making a fortune in particular from his lottery insurance business LOTISICO. He died early and as such Alfred Haighton inhereted the highly profitable business, allowing him to devote much of his time to politics. He soon became close to H.A. Sinclair de Rochemont and in 1924 the two set up the "Verbond van Actualisten", a group which looked for inspiration to Italian fascism. The group broke down in 1927 and Haighton then put his money into a journal, "De Bezem" and eventually his own movement, the "Fascistische Jongeren Bond". This movement was deplted in 1932 when his close ally Jan Baars broke from him to set up the General Dutch Fascist League (ANFB).

Haighton had become a strong anti-Semite and as such led the followers he had left into the National Socialist Dutch Workers Party (NSNAP), although once again his abrasive personality meant that the relationship was not to last. He dropped out of politics for a spell before joining Arnold Meijer's Zwart Front, although he declined to join the National Front when this group absorbed the Zwart Front in 1940. Officially a member of the NSNAP again he took little role in active politics and instead concentrated on his anti-Semitic writing and editing the pro-German journal "de Nieuws Gids" until his sudden death.

References

* Philip Rees, "Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890"