Its full title was the Reich Commissariat for the Occupied Dutch Territories (German: Reichskommissariat für die besetzten niederländischen Gebiete).

This was quickly disbanded however to be replaced by a civil administration under the authority of the newly appointed Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who was named Reichskommissar für die besetzten niederländischen Gebiete.

The wholly unconstitutional evacuation of the monarch and her government before the advancing German forces meant that there was no longer any functioning civil authority left in the area.

However, Wilhelm's wishes never to return to Germany until the restoration of the monarchy were respected, and the German occupation authorities granted him a small military funeral, with a few hundred people present.

The mourners included August von Mackensen, fully dressed in his old imperial Life Hussars uniform, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, and Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart, along with a few other military advisers.

The Nationaal Socialistische Beweging, or in English the National Socialist Movement (NSB), had existed for years before the Germans arrived in the Low Countries.

[2] Leading up to the German invasion, the National Socialist Movement spent much of the 1930s loudly denouncing the government's inability to protect the Dutch people from economic suffering, social chaos, and the expanding influence of Marxism-Bolshevism.

[1] The group separated itself as an internal force, gaining a small degree of importance during that mid-1930s, and eventually contributing to the German efforts to nazify the occupied Netherlands.

[3] The NSB began to admire the "achievements" of the German Reich by 1936 and broadcast their own warnings that "International Jewry" had taken a hold of the Netherlands and would conquer Europe.

[7] The control which Seyss-Inquart was supposed to have was almost non-existent in practice due to overlapping and contradictory competences and a series of unresolved conflicts between party and state organizations, as well as the individuals listed above.

However, he was aware of the limited support that the Netherlands' future as a German province would necessarily receive, and adjusted his style of rule accordingly so as not to cause any unwanted unrest among the Dutch people.

He was also aware that the local Fascist and Nazi movements in the Netherlands, particularly the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging (NSB) led by Anton Mussert were nothing more than minority groups generally despised by the vast majority of the Dutch.

After its invasion, the Netherlands was temporarily placed under the authority of a German civilian governor (a Reichskommissar) until a final decision would be made on the next form of government to "facilitate" the Dutch nation for its intended assimilation into Germany.

Its then-eleven provinces were to be replaced by five new gewesten (historical Dutch term for a sub-national state polity) and Reichskommissar Seyss-Inquart appointed as Reichsstatthalter und Gauleiter for the entire country as the first step in this process.

[10] This proposal originated from a document created by the Hanns Albin Rauter, the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Netherlands, who subsequently submitted it to Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann in November 1942.

Fighting broke out in which members of the WA were injured, the collaborationists then called in the support of the German Army which assisted in turning the neighbourhood into a ghetto surrounded by barbed wire and armed positions, non-Jews were not allowed to enter the area.

As German authorities took hold of the Netherlands, they hoped to find substantial groups among the Dutch who were prepared to accept National Socialism and collaboration.

[13] Public servants were to stay on the job and carry out their duties to the best of their ability, so those who remained at their post had to judge for themselves whether the contents of each order they were given were substantively and procedurally legitimate.

[14] Prime Minister Gerbrandy, exiled to London along with members of his cabinet and the royal family, announced in his speech, Commentaar op de Aanwijzingen (Comments on the Instructions), the guidelines of how public servants were expected to behave, stating that they were not to cooperate with the occupying force in any way, especially in the Nazi persecution of the Jews.

[17] The civilian administration in the Netherlands enabled the Germans to exert much tighter control over Dutch citizens than military occupied countries like the French government in Vichy.