Hendrikus "Hendrik" Colijn (22 June 1869 – 18 September 1944) was a Dutch politician of the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP; now defunct and merged into the Christian Democratic Appeal or CDA).

Colijn's letters to his wife from his period on Lombok reveal that his participation in acts of brutality which by modern standards would be considered severe war crimes: I have seen a mother carrying a child of about 6 months old on her left arm, with a long lance in her right hand, who was running in our direction.

[2][better source needed] After his return to the Netherlands in 1909, Colijn was elected as an Anti-Revolutionary Party Member of Parliament for the district of Sneek (before 1918, the Dutch voting system was the same as the British).

[3] In 1925, Colijn also became prime minister,[3] but a year later, he had to step down when the House of Representatives accepted a resolution by Gerrit Hendrik Kersten of the Protestant Reformed Political Party that called for diplomatic mission to the Holy See to be recalled.

Colijn's government responded to the economic crisis with a strict protectionist policy, which continued to weaken the Dutch economy.

Colijn's decision to adhere to the gold standard until 1936, long after most of the trading partners of the Netherlands had dropped it, was very unpopular with those in favour of government fiat money.

After the Dutch defeat in the Battle of the Netherlands in 1940, Colijn published an essay entitled "On the Border of Two Worlds" (Op de Grens van Twee Werelden)[8] in which he called for accepting German leadership in Europe immediately after the Royal House had fled to England and left him behind.

Late in the war, according to a grandson, after the tide had turned against the Germans, Heinrich Himmler wanted to keep Colijn available as a possible intermediary with the British, as he had done earlier for Wilhelm II.

The very fact that the Gestapo allowed the visit suggests that Himmler was already making contingency plans in case of a German loss.