World War II · Film · 1977
Soldier of Orange
Soldaat van Oranje
A group of carefree Leiden students is torn apart by the German invasion: some collaborate, some die, and one escapes to London and returns by night to the beaches of occupied Holland as a secret agent.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 4 places.
Stop 1: Leiden University
Key location
Freshman Erik survives a brutal hazing and joins a tight circle of friends whose lives the invasion will scatter in opposite directions.
Stop 2: Waalsdorpervlakte dunes, The Hague
Captured after a failed escape, Erik's friend Jan refuses to talk, and the Germans take him to the dunes to be shot.
Stop 3: London
Erik and Guus reach London, meet the Queen's intelligence chief and volunteer to bring Resistance leaders out by sea.
Stop 4: Scheveningen beach
Landed at night from a British boat, Erik slips into a German party at a beachfront mansion to warn his comrades of a trap.
What really happened
The film is based on the 1971 memoir of Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, a Leiden student who escaped to Britain in 1941. Germany invaded the neutral Netherlands on 10 May 1940 and, after the bombing of Rotterdam, the country capitulated five days later. In November 1940 Leiden University was closed after Professor Cleveringa publicly protested the dismissal of his Jewish colleagues.
From London, Hazelhoff took part in Contact Holland, landing agents by motor gunboat on the beach at Scheveningen in 1941-1942. German counterintelligence meanwhile turned captured radio operators in the Englandspiel, betraying dozens of agents. He later flew as an RAF bomber pilot, became adjutant to Queen Wilhelmina and returned with her in 1945. Verhoeven turns his friends into composites.
Where to watch
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Full details
- Original title
- Soldaat van Oranje
- Directed by
- Paul Verhoeven
- Countries
- Netherlands
- Languages
- Dutch, English, German
- Released
- 1977
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Western Europe
- Themes
- Resistance
- Espionage
- True story
