Frank Keizer

What role did (anti-)communism play in Dutch postwar cultural policies? The relationship between the art world and security in the Netherlands, 1945-1952

by Laurens Ham and Frank Keizer

International Journal of Cultural Policy, 2025

This paper is the first to map the role of anti-communism and communism in Dutch postwar cultural... more This paper is the first to map the role of anti-communism and communism in Dutch postwar cultural policies. We study the networks and relations between governmental cultural policymakers, the Dutch domestic security agency (Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst or BVD), and artists in the realm of culture and cultural policy. Citing policy documents, intelligence reports and correspondence between various government agencies, we aim to show how anti-communism, more than previously assumed, influenced the debate in the Netherlands on a (visual) arts policy between 1945 and 1952. The BVD reviewed the relations between artists, artist organizations and the Communist Party, but seemed reluctant to advise ministries directly. Instead, the agency was used as an instrument by anti-communist artists and informants to lobby for direct anti-communist action or better cultural policies. We discuss two cases in more detail: the attempt by the Dutch Federation of Visual Arts Organizations to leak incriminating facts about alleged communist artists to the BVD and the ministries, and the case of a journalist who used his position as a BVD informant to advise both the BVD and the ministries on cultural policy.

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