Clarification

Demolition

A swath of coastal construction with a combined surface of 35.5 hectares was stripped for the Atlantic Wall. To improve the field of fire, over 1,800 houses had to be cleared creating a desolate wasteland. The old Ouwe Helder district was most affected by the demolitions. Save for an occasional street and a few isolated buildings, the entire neighborhood was dismantled. Not only was the city government made responsible for hiring the demolition contractors, it also had to advance money to pay for the work. A total of eight firms were hired to carry out the demolitions with a daily labor force of 400 to 1,300 men. A system of fines and rewards was in place to press workers to complete the work within set deadlines. The German Wehrmacht, however, failed to remove reusable building materials and rubble in time, forcing the wreckers to interrupt their activities. The streets became filled with debris, leaving no room to work. At times, the rubble in the streets was piled so high that the last standing parts of buildings were buried under the rubble.

The Central Bureau for Building Materials [Centraal Bureau voor de Bouwmaterialen] supervised the collection of all reusable materials from condemned buildings and redistribution of these materials to the German military command. The city was allowed to keep leftover rubble, but when the city needed a small quantity of roof tiles to repair bomb-damaged residences, the Bureau charged a hefty price.

The highest authority in the eviction and demolitions hierarchy – and spokesman for the German Wehrmacht – was the clearance commissioner, or Räumungskommissar. His primary assignment was ensuring that the civil authorities carried out the demolitions properly and expeditiously. Original Dutch government bodies, such as the Finance Department, the National Building Service and the Historic Preservation Agency, also did their share of clearance-related paper pushing. Widespread fragmentation of civil government and short demolition timelines often caused buildings to be listed as intact when they were in fact already torn down.

Reconstruction

Den Helder emerged from the war heavily damaged. The old Oude Helder quarter had been totally destroyed in 1944 to create a field of fire for the Germans in the event of an allied invasion. With more than two thousand houses irreparably damaged, it meant that over one fifth of the total housing stock had been wiped out. Nevertheless, the municipal housing association was relatively lucky; out of 945 units in their pre-war inventory, 892 were still standing after the war.

The first post-war council meeting in September 1946, revealed quite a matter-of-fact attitude among city fathers and mayor G. Ritmeester. The war had taken care of old, undesirable housing and presented an opportunity for sanitation and infrastructure improvements. The city saw the availability of reconstruction monies from The Hague as a chance to transform Den Helder into a modern city and turn its back on the pre-war situation. The Oude Helder wasteland was ideal for such a plan.

Amsterdam urban planner Wieger Bruin was commissioned to draw up a new plan for the area. Being more or less isolated from the rest of the city, Bruin did not have to take existing development into account. Initially, he did not even have to indicate what little construction had survived because the city council was more than happy to see the old military barracks and the garment warehouse on the Van Heemskerckstraat disappear as well. The presence of these historic elements in the post-war neighborhood is by no means due to any attempts to preserve the Den Helder of old, but solely due to lack of state funds.

Immediately following the war, the Ministry of Public Works and Reconstruction created a regional agency for the redevelopment of the area, [Streekbureau Den Helder-Texel], located on the Spoorgracht and headed by Mr. J.J. de Boer. De Boer wanted to restore the Oude Helder district in a traditional style with emphasis on community spirit and intimacy. De Boer produced a set drawings which breathed nostalgia, with secluded streets and architects idyllically working shoulder to shoulder on individual houses. The regional office’s lofty vision was not for an instant taken seriously. Mayor Ritmeester, Councilman P.S. van der Vaart, Public Works Director J.F.A. Alozerij and urban planner Wieger Bruin summarily dismissed such considerations. The core concept of Bruin and the city administration was “renewal”, albeit on a scale befitting Den Helder – a geometric layout with affordable houses within the means of the locals’ modest budgets.

Between 1945 and 1946, Wieger Bruin designed a whole new village within the boundaries of the exiting town. It included the plan “Noord-West”, which pre-dated the war. It was to be a quiet residential neighborhood of generous dimensions, with a centrally-located square and a large, prominent church. The city council approved the plans and submitted them directly to the College of General Commissioners [College van Algemene Commissarissen], the body in charge of reconstruction subsidies. In doing so, Den Helder bypassed the Provincial Planning Board [Provinciaal Planologische Dienst - PPD], which proved to be a regrettable mistake. The board’s chairman, the engineer E.F. van den Ban, made it clear that Den Helder was not to circumvent his department. The reconstruction plan underwent another critical review and the PPD’s Municipal Planning Board was merciless. After a series of remarks about the plan’s monumental style, the committee concluded that the plan must be revised.

The new plan was presented to the city council in the fall of 1947. The revision shows the contours of Old Den Helder as it looks today, and the housing density was greater than in the earlier plan. The Hague still did not consider this enough, prompting Den Helder to propose construction of five apartment blocks, to meet the required number of units. Construction of the new Old Den Helder was set to start in 1947 but this was not to be. After several calls for tenders failed, the city changed its mind and opted for pre-fabricated construction. This was due, in part, to the fact that The Hague permitted more units to be built if cities agreed to use prefabricated construction. At long last, the formal reconstruction plan for Oud Den Helder was approved by the Hague in 1950. A scant two months later, one of its core elements was taken out. The wardens of the Dutch Reformed Church reneged on their commitment to build a church in the area. The central square was scrapped and the church was replaced by a retirement home with assisted living units. Victim of all these modifications – the demand for economy, the constant call for a higher housing density, the loss of the church – was not only the village-like feel of the plan, it also caused what little remained of Wieger Bruin’s inspiration to disappear entirely.