Frans Goedhart

Frans Johannes Goedhart (25 January 1904 – 3 March 1990) was a Dutch journalist, politician and during World War II member of the Dutch resistance.

Goedhart was born on 25 January 1904 in Amsterdam.

His father, also named Frans Johannes Goedhart, was a masseur who died when he was six years old.

His mother was Catharina Gerarda Loep.

After his father's death Goedhart spent time in several orphanages.

He followed his early education in Dieren.

Goedhart became an apprentice journalist in 1922 when he started working for the Velpsche Courant.

One year later he became a full journalist for the Arnhemse Courant where he worked until 1924.

In that year he joined the national newspaper De Telegraaf.

In 1926 he was fired due to his asthma.

Having spent most of his youth in orphanages and having received little formal education Goedhart became a journalist for several local and regional newspapers in the 1930s.

During this period Goedhart became a fierce anti-communist and anti-fascist and became wishful of political reform based on socialism.

Goedhart was active in the Dutch resistance to the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.

Under the war pseudonym Pieter 't Hoen he founded a newsletter which later became the illegal newspaper Het Parool.

He then moved to Belgium where he worked for Het Laatste Nieuws in Brussels until 1931.

He worked as a journalist for between 1932 and 1934.

In 1938 he became a correspondent for the Belgian daily newspaper Vooruit.

Goedhart became a fierce critic of the declared neutrality of the Netherlands in the interwar period, being an antifascist himself.

Shortly after the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany in May 1940 Goedhart became active in the Dutch Resistance.

He found the attitude of Dutch newspapers to the occupation unbearable and decided to write his own material.

On 25 July 1940 he published his first illegal newsletter, the Nieuwsbrief van Pieter 't Hoen.

Pieter 't Hoen was Goedhart's war pseudonym.

A total of 27 editions of the newsletter were produced between July 1940 and April 1941.

The newsletter became the resistance newspaper Het Parool in February 1941.

With the namechange the newsletter also stopped being a one-person production and developed a board of editors of which and Koos Vorrink became members.

Goedhart served as publisher of Het Parool between January 1941 and 1945.

In January 1942 he tried to flee to England but was captured, although he was sentenced to death he managed to escape in August 1943.

He then returned to his newspaper which obtained widespread circulation during the later years of the war.

After the war Goedhart became more politically active and sought a reform of the political system in which he tried to use Het Parool as a political vehicle.

On 18 January 1942 Goedhart tried to flee the Netherlands by escaping on a boat to England.

This attempt near Scheveningen, together with Wiardi Beckman failed and both were captured by the Sicherheitsdienst.

In December 1942 he stood trial with 22 others in what became the first Het Parool-trial.

Goedhart was subsequently sentenced to death.

He was imprisoned for over a year and a half, he managed to escape during a transport in Kamp Vught on 2 August 1943.

After his escape Goedhart resumed his activities for Het Parool, where during his absence Gerrit Jan van Heuven Goedhart and three others had kept the newspaper going.

He became member of the House of Representatives for the Labour Party (PvdA) in 1946 and would stay member until the early 1970s.

In the House he developed himself as a supporter of Indonesian independence of the Netherlands and became a staunch supporter of anti-communism.

Goedhart became a conflictual figure, clashing both at his newspaper and with his party members.

The namesake of his pseudonym was an 18th-century Dutch journalist whom he admired.

The first newsletter was stenciled and reproduced 500 times, Goedhart had it distributed to several well-known Dutch people as well as barber shops in the hope they would put it in their reading material.