Commemorating a ‘Foreign’ War in a Neutral Country:The Political Insignificance of World War I Memory in the Netherlands

The recent creation of a First World War museum exhibit at Huis Doorn reflects the increased Dutch attention paid to this war, accompanying the international Centenary efforts, although the neutral Netherlands had not been actively involved in the military events of wwi. This initiative, on a small estate where the former erman emperor Wilhelm II lived after the defeat of Germany in 1918, was not a natural outcome of the dynamics of Dutch historical culture. This article raises the question of how wwi became increasingly emphasised in the early twentyfirst century, and to what extent this refl... Mehr ...