Niels Mathijssen
2025

It is an incontrovertible fact that Poncke Princen deserted the Dutch army during the war in Indonesia (1945-1949). Also incontrovertible is that he defected to the Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI), with whom he fought against Dutch troops. Yet how much is true of all the other rumours and allegations circulating about his person is hard to say with any certainty. 

The furore about his actions only intensified over the decades, and the line between fact and fiction became increasingly blurred. Everyone seemed to have their own truth about Princen. This in turn reflected the Netherlands’ problematic handling of the war in Indonesia. He thus became a symbol and symptom in one. Princen himself offered anything but clarity on the matter; he fabricated freely about his own life. 

The Indonesian perspective on him, moreover, differs strongly from the Dutch one. After the colonial war, Princen became a human rights activist and joined the fight against Suharto’s autocratic regime (1966-1998). How effective and prominent Princen really was in this regard, though, is equally unclear. This study sharpens, where possible, the historical record of Poncke Princen's past, separates fact from fiction, provides the essential social-historical context, and in doing so unravels this historical tangle.

Since January 2025, Niels Mathijssen has been conducting his research on Poncke Princen at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. In addition, he is affiliated as a PhD candidate with the VU Amsterdam and as a research fellow with the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision. Previously, Mathijssen studied history and media studies in Amsterdam and New York, and journalism in Rotterdam. He specialized in colonial history and historical representation. Currently, he is a staff writer for De Groene Amsterdammer, where he writes about colonialism, the Dutch slavery past, the Indonesian War of Independence, and colonial looted art.