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VE-Day countdown: Germans destroy Dutch seawall

Broadcast Date: April 19, 1945

April 19, 1945: ZUIDER ZEE, Netherlands — Dutch farmland is underwater and people are fleeing for higher ground after retreating Germans blew out a seawall at the Zuider Zee dike. Years of work reclaiming Holland from the sea have been undone. The loss of the dike and the ruined farmland could be devastating to a country where millions are starving. Blowing up the seawall wasn't a military tactic, explains the CBC's Matthew Halton; the Germans have done it "for no reason but bloody-mindedness."

VE-Day countdown: Germans destroy Dutch seawall

• The Zuider Zee (Dutch for "southern sea") was formerly a shallow inlet of the North Sea in Holland's northwest. Seawalls at towns along its edge have held back the water since the Middle Ages.
• In the early 20th century the Dutch undertook a massive project to push back the Zuider Zee and reclaim the land for farming. A 32-kilometre-long dam was completed at the mouth of the inlet in 1932, and the resulting lake was dubbed the Ijsselmeer.

• Reclaiming the land involved pushing back the water from submerged sections of land called polders. Engineers built dikes to hold back the Zuider Zee, pumped water from the enclosed areas, drained the land and prepared the soil for cultivation.
• The first polder, a 200-km square area called the Wieringermeer, was begun in 1927. By 1945 it was home to four villages and many farms. It flooded when Germans ordered the dike blown up in April 1945.

• No one died in the flood, but many of the polder's roads, bridges and buildings were lost due to a storm shortly thereafter.
• Reconstruction began immediately, and by the end of 1945 the polder was successfully drained once more.

VE-Day countdown: Germans destroy Dutch seawall

Medium: Radio

Program: CBC War Recordings

Broadcast Date: April 19, 1945

Guest(s):

Reporter: Matthew Halton

Duration: 4:46

Photo: National Archives of Canada / PA-175772

Last updated:
March 11, 2008