Nazi name for giant Dutch ship draws outcry

updated 4:31 p.m. ET Nov. 7, 2008

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - It ought to be a proud milestone in the Dutch seafaring heritage — the construction of a new ship its owner claims will be the world's largest. But there's one problem: its name.

Edwin Heerema, founder of the company that has commissioned the $1.7 billion vessel, wants to name it the Pieter Schelte after his late father, Pieter Schelte Heerema, who was renowned as a maritime engineer but was condemned for his service in the murderous Nazi Waffen SS.

The choice of name has provoked outcry and has revived painful questions about Dutch collaboration with the country's World War II occupiers.

"For people who know his pitch-black history, this ship should not be named for him. Not now, not ever," said Ronny Naftaniel, director of CIDI, which monitors anti-Semitism in the Netherlands. He said Edwin Heerema's desire to honor his father was understandable up to a point, but the choice of name was "tasteless and unethical."

Edwin Heerema's company, Swiss-based Allseas Group SA, rejected the criticism.

"Pieter Schelte Heerema was widely appreciated in the industry during his life and the companies that came from his heritage have an excellent name in the offshore industry," spokesman Jeroen Hagelstein e-mailed in response to questions.

Switched sides
But it's an awkward matter for the government. It gave Allseas' Netherlands subsidiary a $1 million tax break for its part in designing the ship, and now acknowledges it didn't notice the name until a Dutch journalist, Ton Biesemaat, raised the issue.

Hagelstein said Heerema joined the Nazis out of opposition to communism rather than enthusiasm for national socialism. He said he then switched sides and joined the resistance in 1943 "as he could no longer associate himself with the ideas of the Nazis."

He noted that Heerema was tried and released shortly after the war, which shows he "cannot have been seriously delinquent."

The respected Netherlands Institute for War Documentation said that's technically accurate. Heerema was sentenced by a Dutch court to three years in prison but quickly released, the courts having recognized his unspecified but "very important" services to the resistance between August 1943 and March 1944.

"You have many different kinds of collaborators: some are passive and some are active. This man was prominent, a leader," said NIOD spokesman Fred Reurs.

Truus Menger, who was a prominent member of the Dutch resistance, called the naming of the ship "an open display of disdain and aggression."

In an interview with The Associated Press, she acknowledged that Heerema ended up aiding the resistance, but said: "Oh, I know how that goes — he had a change of heart. But in the end, he wore the suit and he served Hitler."

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