biography
| name: |
Wiardi Beckman, Herman Bernard
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pronunciation:
[weeah(r)dee bekma
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1904–45)
|
| biography:
| Dutch socialist politician and journalist, born in Nijmegen, E Netherlands. He studied at Leiden University, and became secretary to Pieter Troelstra, whose poems he collated and published in 1935 in Troelstra, de ziener. He became assistant editor (1932) and chief editor (1937) of Het Volk, and in 1937 a member of the Upper House. At the start of the War in Europe (1939) he volunteered for military service and was one of the writers of the proclamation in which General Winkelman announced the capitulation of The Netherlands to the people. He joined the resistance and became editor of the underground paper Het Parool. In 1941 the Dutch government-in-exile in London sent for him to join the reconstructed war cabinet. In an attempt to cross the North Sea he was arrested by the Germans and transported to Dachau, where he died. The academic office of the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) founded in 1946, was named in his honour the Dr H B Wiardi Beckman Stichting, later (1968) shortened to Wiardi Beckman Stichting. |
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