THE DUTCH POLITICAL CONFLICT

WITH THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA, 1945-1949

PART 3: THE GENERAL-COMMISSION (COMMISSIE-GENERAAL) FOR THE NETHERLANDS INDIES,

1946-1947

Part 3.3. Papers of P. Sanders (secretary)

National Archives of the Netherlands, The Hague

on microfiche

Pieter Sanders drawn by Henk Ngantoeng, November 1946

(from Part 3.3. Papers of P. Sanders)

Short biography

Pieter Sanders was born in Schiedam in 1912. He studied law and then went into private practice. In July 1945, Prime Minister Willem Schermerhorn brought him into the government as secretary-general of the war ministry, a position he held for a year. In September 1946, Schermerhorn, no longer prime minister, asked Sanders to become secretary-general of the Commissie-Generaal voor Nederlandsch-Indië, which Schermerhorn has been called upon by parliament to form in order to negotiate with the Indonesians. He fulfilled this function until his resignation in July 1947. Returning first to a private law practice made difficult by his association with Schermerhorn’s Indonesian policy, he later entered higher education, becoming professor of civil law at the Economische Hogeschool in Rotterdam, predecessor of the Erasmus University of that city.

The papers

The most important document among his papers is his diary covering the period of his tenure on the commission from September 1946 until July 1947. Cast in the form of letters sent to his wife back in the Netherlands, it is in fact a report on the vicissitudes of the Commission written for himself and a few close relations. It is published here for the first time in any form. In addition to the diary, his papers contain contemporary correspondence with prominent Dutch politicians and others, and various other documents.