Jan Hartman

Jan Hartman (1887–1969) was a Dutch fascist and collaborator during World War II. After the war, he was active in far-right politics, and was one of the two founders of the Stichting Oud Politieke Delinquenten ("Foundation of Former Political Delinquents"; abbreviated SOPD), a right-wing organization founded by and for formerly jailed and convicted war criminals and collaborators.

Biography Until 1945 Hartman was born in Beilen and as a young man spent time in Germany. In the 1930s he joined the NSB and worked in propaganda, and in 1941 he volunteered with the Waffen-SS and (like Paul van Tienen) saw action at the Eastern Front. and the largest of the collaboratist organizations in the country, "numbering perhaps a hundred former internees." In 1952 he and Wolthuis played a never fully explained part in the escape of seven convicted war criminals from the Koepelgevangenis in Breda, including Klaas Carel Faber. An attempt to found a Jan Hartman House in the 1970s (as a kind of Bronbeek for Eastern Front volunteers) were unsuccessful.