Dutch National Socialist Party (NSB) (in numbers)

Before the start of the war, close to 4% of the Dutch voters voted NSB. After May 1940, the membership increased. In June 1940, the NSB had about 27,000 members. The number of members reached its maximum in the third quarter of 1941: over 75,000. It then dropped fairly steadily to over 63,000 by the end of 1943, only to rise again to around 74,000 in July 1944. To this number must be added another 10,000 members who lived abroad, almost exclusively in Germany (L. de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (‘The Kingdom of the Netherlands During the Second World War’), vol. 6, pp. 382-383).

After the Allied invasion in Normandy, the NSB began to dissolve. The panic of Dolle Dinsdag (‘Mad Tuesday’, 5 September 1944) following the rumour that the liberation of the Netherlands was only a matter of hours, almost dealt the party the final blow. Around 65,000 people, all members of ‘collaborator families’ fled to Germany (L. de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (‘The Kingdom of the Netherlands During the Second World War’), vol. 10a, p. 203).