New book sheds light on marriage of former Dutch queen

After 52 years of secrecy, a new book on the marriage of the former Dutch queen, Juliana, and Prince Bernhard sheds light on the role of faith-healer Greet Hofmans in the marital relationship. Juliana died in 2004.

The fact that the Dutch royal couple’s marriage had turned into a form of trench warfare was the best-kept secret in the Netherlands in the 1950s. Then on June 13, 1956 the German magazine Der Spiegel hit the newsstands with an article which lifted the cloak of secrecy shrouding Palace Soestdijk where the royal couple lived.

The article ‘Between Queen and Rasputin’ gave a lengthy account of the problems afflicting the Dutch royal marriage. It described German-born Prince Bernhard as being trapped between the queen and her confidante Greet Hofmans. He had ‘lost’ his wife to the faith healer.

New revelations followed, particularly in the foreign press, about the conflict between followers of the prince and the circle surrounding Queen Juliana. The Netherlands was in uproar. The affair had far-reaching implications. In the summer of 1956, a divorce, the abdication of the queen and a constitutional crisis were all serious considerations.

Concealed archives

The affair has recently resurfaced because a book by historian Cees Fasseur on the marriage of Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard is to be published on Tuesday afternoon. The book, which covers the marriage in the period 1936-1956, includes information from long-concealed archives about Hofmans.

The marital difficulties of Prince Bernhard and Queen Juliana are attributed to the influence which faith healer Hofmans had on the queen. Greet Hofmans was brought to the royal court in 1948 by Bernhard, the man who was later to become her arch enemy. He hoped she would be able to heal an eye disease suffered by their new-born daughter, Princess Marijke.

Although the baby was not healed, Hofmans developed a friendship with the queen and became her most influential and trusted adviser. Juliana, prominent members of her court and many of her friends were fascinated by the faith healer who described herself as an instrument of contact between supernatural forces and mortals. She advocated modesty and a sober lifestyle. But her political influence on Juliana, and especially her advocacy of pacifism during the Cold War period, was extremely controversial.

Charlatan

Prince Bernhard was greatly upset by the queen’s friendship with Hofmans. The last straw came when she advised him to feed milk and meat juices to his horses to improve their performance. Bernhard ordered her to leave the palace, convinced she was a charlatan.

However, Queen Juliana retained her friendship with Hofmans and dismissed from her circle those who did not like her.

The crisis simmered on, erupting finally in 1956 with the publication of the article in Der Spiegel.

To save the marriage and avoid a constitutional crisis, Prince Bernhard and Queen Juliana agreed to the appointment of a commission. This was headed by the former prime minister Louis Beel and included Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy (prime minister in exile during the Second World War) and one of the last governor-generals of the Dutch Indies, A.W.L. Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer.

Three wise men

These three ‘wise men’ were charged with investigating who had leaked the story to the press and how much influence Hofmans exerted on the queen.

As a result of the investigation, Queen Juliana was forced to break all contact with Hofmans and the most trusted members of her court were dismissed. The findings of the Beel Commission were, more than fifty years later, still the subject of speculation.

The report disappeared in the archives of the royal house and was not released in spite of repeated requests by historians. The queen, who was in charge of the archives, said the affair was private.

Despite a parliamentary motion in January 2005, the current queen, Juliana’s daughter Beatrix, too refused to release the archives. However later that year Queen Beatrix granted the historian Cees Fasseur permission to read and publish from the Beel report. The report will be made public on Tuesday afternoon as an appendix to his new book Juliana & Bernhard. The story of a marriage, 1936-1956.