Bureau Nationale Veiligheid

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The Bureau Nationale Veiligheid (BNV) was a Dutch security agency created in late May 1945 to protect the country and stay in touch with the Allies after World War II.

What it did
- Its tasks included tracking down the remaining German security and stay-behind networks, cleaning up police and administrative bodies, watching Indonesian activists, and investigating collaborators.
- Many BNV workers came from the resistance, so the agency was seen as a continuation of wartime activities. The government used resistance members to help with information about war criminals and traitors.

Staff and problems
- By November 1945 the BNV had about 1,356 employees, which proved too many to vet properly. This led to chaotic situations where former resistance fighters behaved as if wartime conditions still applied.
- The BNV also absorbed the Political Crimes Service, led by Wim Sanders, which caused a power struggle with Louis Einthoven, the BNV head.
- Sanders secretly copied hundreds of BNV files. Einthoven had him arrested in September 1946; Sanders was released but could not return to the BNV.

Inquiry and reforms
- The to-be-corrected issues led Prime Minister Beel to set up the Wijnvelt Committee. Its 191-page report (May 12, 1948) found policy mistakes and that the BNV’s setup wasn’t well planned, though Einthoven stayed on as a leader and later headed the CVD and then the BVD.

Dissolution and successors
- In January 1946 the government decided to dissolve the BNV on December 31, 1946, because there was no longer a need to fight German sabotage.
- For future internal security work, the Centrale Veiligheidsdienst (CVD) was created in April 1946 and was renamed Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD) in 1949.