Johan Furstner

Johannes Theodorus Furstner (16 January 1887 – 15 September 1970) was a Dutch naval officer and politician. Reaching the rank of lieutenant admiral , he served as Minister of the Navy during World War II in the Second Gerbrandy cabinet.

Furstner was a naval theorist and a central figure in the Royal Netherlands Navy from the late 1930s through the end of World War II in 1945. Rambonnet's version called for the maintenance of a Dutch fleet in the Netherlands East Indies large enough that it would outnumber the Japanese fleet when operating with the forces of a friendly power — which the Dutch hoped would be the United Kingdom or the United States — and be sufficient to deter or block any Japanese invasion. Shipyards in the Netherlands lacked the ability to construct ships larger than a cruiser, so the plan called for the construction of the superdreadnoughts in foreign yards. The work of Rambonnet, Furstner, and others resulted in the construction of the light cruisers, six coastal submarines — three each of the and classes — and 12 larger patrol submarines of the , , , , and classes.

Furstner received a promotion to lieutenant commander on 1 September 1918.

From 1925 to 1927, Furstner served as gunnery officer on the light cruiser in the Netherlands East Indies.

Furstner submitted a note in December 1938 about naval defense needs in the Netherlands East Indies calling for the construction of the three battlecruisers The effort was successful, and on 17 February 1939 the Dutch Ministry of Defence proposed the construction of the three battlecruisers, envisioning 26,000-ton ships armed with nine guns constructed in Nazi Germany British plans were compatible with Furstner's "risk theory" ideas, and Furstner and Helfrich agreed to place their naval forces in the Far East under British control for combat against Japan. After March 1942 the Royal Netherlands Navy never had the ability to fight as an independent force again during World War II. When Dutch resistance members Peter Tazelaar and Gerard Dogger — who worked with Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema and Chris Krediet in , an effort directed by Queen Wilhelmina and the British secret service to transport agents from the United Kingdom to the Netherlands and extract people for the return journey — visited Furstner, van der Zee recounts that he was gruff and dismissive of them and, when Tazelaar noted that Contact Holland's operations were by order of Queen Wilhelmina, Furstner responded that "The Queen signs the documents; we rule." Van der Zee also writes that Furstner spent lavishly in England, charging it all to the Royal Netherlands Navy budget; at a time when Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Eelco van Kleffens subsisted on a salary of 45 British pounds a month plus an allowance for expenses, Furstner rented a country home near London for 3,000 pounds a year and assigned five servicemen to act as his servants at a cost of 2,500 pounds per year. As early as 1942, he was reprimanded by the Extraordinary Court of Audit, which deemed financial expenditures he and his officers incurred in England "contrary to the necessary austerity and the impoverishment in which the Dutch people found themselves" during the German occupation of the Netherlands.

On 23 February 1945, Furstner resigned his position as Minister of the Navy. He continued to serve as Commander-in-Chief of Naval Forces until August 1945, when the close of hostilities between the Allies and Japan brought World War II to an end. He retired from the navy on 25 August 1945.

Post-World War II After World War II, Furstner was a board member of the Nationaal Comité Handhaving Rijkseenheid , an extra-parliamentary action group in the Netherlands opposed to the independence of Indonesia.

On 25 August 1945, Furstner received a lifetime appointment to the Council of State. During his tenure of more than 17 years, he was a member of the Council of State′s General Affairs, Defense (War), Shipping, Finance, Social Affairs, Navy, Transport, and Foreign Affairs departments. He retired from the Council of State either in 1962 or on 1 January 1963, according to different sources.

Death Furstner died on 15 September 1970 in The Hague.

Publications Furstner published articles in the Marineblad and in the organ of the Association for Martial Sciences.

Honors and awards SOURCE

Dutch

Foreign