War over Holland - May 1940: the Dutch struggle

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  • 1.1: Recent updates
  • 1.2: News - blog
  • 1.3: Sources
  • 1.6: The author
  • 1.7: War Over Holland - the Book

Sources

The content of this website has been composed by making use of numerous primary and secondary sources. We have made use of available battle-reports, reputed analyses, personal histories, books and studies.

Already the total number of battle-reports goes well into the hundreds. It is not worth listing up all these individual sources. The list of battle-reports of Dutch origin is the longest, but also a few dozen German battle-reports [mainly so called KTB's] and a handful of French reports were available.

Also numerous case studies - some shortly after the war, others of recent date - were applied. Well known studies are those of Jacobsen, Dr. Weiss, General von Speidel and Oberst Langmann. Dutch studies by the Generals van Hilten and Nierstrasz were used where applicable. But also less known studies by Military Institutes were applied.

Memoires of German key-players, like Kurt Student, Albert von Kesselring, Franz Halder and Manteuffel formed practical guides.

Recently published work from Karl-Heinz Golla - on the Fallschirmjäger actions in the period 1939-1941 - as well as the excellent book on the secrets of genuine Blitzkrieg by Karl-Heinz Frieser enlightened specific matters. With author Golla a very frequent exchange of mutual research topics is maintained, enriching the both of us with new information and facts.  

The most valuable and frequently used secondary sources are listed hereunder, with their original title and an English translation / clarification attached to it. Individual reports and memoirs were already referred to in the summary itself and are as such not listed below.

In total a library of over 200 books related to the May war, or incorporating that episode, have been used to some extend. Some to lead the way to other sources, others providing unknown facts and figures. Secondary sources feed and lead the researcher there where primary sources fail or proof unreliable.

The two sources that have been most important are the series of books written by Lieutenant-Colonel (ret.) E.H. Brongers and the official Dutch military study to the events in May 1940, which was editted by Major-General (ret.) V.E. Nierstrasz [and others]. Both sources contain a lot of information; the first being written in a popular fashion, the latter in a purely factual and historical manner. Although both sources have their own typical short-comings, they generally present 75% of the picture in a most reliable fashion. In particular when the micro details matter little or not, these sources could be regarded as leading.

The following secondary sources were frequently used:

Sources