Ernst Herman van Rappard

Ernst Herman ridder van Rappard (born October 30, 1899 in Banjoemas, Java, Dutch East Indies - died January 11, 1953 in Vught) was a Dutch Nazi and anti-Semite. Born in the then Dutch East Indies, he studied economics in Berlin and Munich and there became supportive of Nazism.

He joined the National Socialist Dutch Workers Party (NSNAP) in 1931, although the group split into three and van Rappard soon found himself as the leader of his own version of the party. His group, the NSNAP-Van Rappard advocated the incorporation of the Netherlands into the Third Reich, arguing that the Dutch had a strong ethnic kinship with the Germans. His group also vied with the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (NSB) in terms of its virulent anti-Semitism, drawing most of its support from the Dutch-German border. His group was lter renamed NSNAP-Hitlerbeweging, though Adolf Hitler ordered the removal of his name from what was a minor movement.

His movement petered out until the 1940 German invasion when it was revived, although it was dissolved in 1941 along with all political parties apart from the NSB. Following this van Rappard enlisted in the Waffen-SS.

His service for Germany resulted in him being sentenced to death in 1949, although this was changed to life imprisonment. He died in Nieuw-Vossenveld prison.

External links

* [http://www.inghist.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/BWN/lemmata/bwn6/rappard Biography from "Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland "]