Dutch investigative journalist, autobiographer and publisher who won a lengthy legal battle with the Dutch state.
Oltmans was the son of Antonie Cornelis Oltmans (24 June 1894 – 21 April 1966), a chemical engineer and lawyer and Alexandrine van der Woude (21 June 1896, Maarssen – ?), the daughter of a rich Quinine producer, a medicine used against malaria (bad air) disease. His parents were very wealthy thanks to the Dutch East Indies colonies where malaria was endemic. Oltmans grew up in the villa “De Horst” and had a formal elite education, with luxury and music, but he lacked the warmth from his as distanced perceived parents.
The very intelligent and rhetorically gifted Oltmans attended the Lyceum in Baarn and studied at the economic school Nijenrode (1946) and at Yale University (1948-50). He wanted to become a diplomat for Foreign affairs. But both studies failed, he got not the desired job and arrived into an identity crisis.
In 1953 he worked as a foreign affairs journalist for the “Algemeen Handelsblad” and in 1954 for United Press, in 1955 he was writing for the newspaper “De Telegraaf” in Rome. on 12 June 1956 he interviewed the Indonesian President Sukarno in Rome. The Dutch Government was not pleased with it as it wanted to keep New Guinea as a colony. “De Telegraaf” fired him for this contact with the hated president. In 1957 Oltmans argued to hand New Guinea over to Indonesia, but he was now regarded by the Dutch government as a traitor and persona non grata. The influential Minister of foreign affairs from 1952-1971 Joseph Luns decided in 1956 to boycott “deze eenmotorige mug” (this one-motored mosquito) in all possible ways. Of course this decision was not proclaimed in the official Staatscourant, it was just an internal notice for all civil servants on Foreign AFfairs.
During the following 40 years Oltmans felt that he secretly was boycotted and opposed by the successive Dutch governments in whatever he did. But he could not prove it as “De wet openbaarheid van bestuur” or WOB (Freedom of information on Governmental documentation law) of 1980 only arrived in its present by journalists useful format on 31 October 1991. Before that Dutch journalists had to beg Dutch politicians and civil servants for required information.
Oltmans went to New York and started a relation with a ground stewardess Josephine Anna Friederike Westerman. They divorced after 2,5 years as Oltmans was homosexual.
On 2 January 1974 criminals fired on Oltmans when driving. The left behind tire of his sports car was hit. He survived the assassination attempt.
In 1991 Oltmans started a process against the Dutch government asking for 2.8 miljon guilders for “veertig jaar getreiter en gesar van het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken”.
In this process that took years Oltmans made use of his extensive archives and his memoirs that can still be found on-line. But using the WOB he could also retrieve the secret documents that could prove his claims. During the process he asked some 50 ex government leaders and even members of the Dutch Royal family to witness. It became painful for the Dutch government that spent two million of guilders in it. But also Oltmans investigated all he had it it, so he could not permit to lose it.
His first step was to ask the department of Inner Affairs to retrieve his dossier of the Dutch secret service Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD) and to make sure nothing would be destroyed. Minister Dales refused, but in October 1994 the the highest Dutch court of appeal the “Raad van State” (council of state) decided that the retrieval of secret service Oltmans files was not a danger to the Dutch state.
In his book “Vogelvrij” (1992, outlawed) he wrote about his seemingly mission impossible “Don Quichote” case. He got many publicity with it. Spring 1997 Theo van Gogh interviewed him (De Jeugd van Willem Oltmans). Many interviews are found on Youtube.
On 11 August 1994 Ruud Lubbers offered Oltmans 100.000 guilders plus access to the WAO. The same Lubbers had on 3 September 1990 proclaimed that “Nederland is ziek” because of abuse of the same law for disability insurance, a bad habit that Lubbers wanted to chance.
In May 2000 he settled with the Dutch government with a compensation of 8 million tax-free Guilders (16 million without taxes). Two million went to his lawyers and Oltmans spent the rest of the money in a penthouse at the Singel of Amsterdam that he called “Huize Kok-Van Aartsen” and a large Steinway piano. He considered Joshua van Aartsen (born 25 December 1947, Den Haag 23.40 MET) as fair.
Personal facts and other trivialities
The autobiographer Oltmans (literately meaning: old man’s son) was raised by wealthy parents at the “De Horst” in the place of Huizen (Houses). The Dutch word “De Horst” refers to a high place, a mountain that arises on a Wikipedia: Geological fault:
“In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock, across which there has been significant displacement along the fractures as a result of earth movement. Large faults within the Earth’s crust result from the action of plate tectonic forces, with the largest forming the boundaries between the plates, such as subduction zones or transform faults. Energy release associated with rapid movement on active faults is the cause of most earthquakes.
A fault line is the surface trace of a fault, the line of intersection between the fault plane and the Earth’s surface.”
Maybe because of these remarkable or just accidental facts studying Oltmans well documented biography might be interesting for astrologers.
Oltmans married 19 December 1957 Josephine Anna Friederike Westerman, a ground stewardess. He divorced 5 July 1960 and had no children with her. Since 26 January 2004 he got a registered partnership with Petrus Antonius Josephus van de Wouw (1945 – mid Febr 2014), a male photo model with whom he had since 1967 a platonic relation.
Oltmans was a very courageous person and also an emotional breakthrough person, who was a freedom of press fore-fighter without doubt, but he also had many Narcissistic and some paranoid traits. He was easily offended, seemed arrogant and made many enemies. But at the same time his lifelong search for governmental transparency and justice inspired many journalists and others to do the same. And he could prove that the grounds of his personal paranoia was actually initiated by others: Being an act of the Dutch Foreign Minister and General Secretary of the NATO Joseph Luns.
Oltmans played the role of George DeMohrenschildt (17 April 1911, Mozyr, Belarus – 29 March 1977) in the movie JFK of Oliver Stone. Oltmans met him several times as a journalist and suspected that he was murdered instead of the official judgement suicide. He testifies about it in the “Willem Oltmans, De Eenmotorige Mug” of Theo van Gogh (1977).
Oltmans died 30 September 2004 at age 79 in his penthouse in Amsterdam. He got begin 2004 incurable cancer, but he did not want to wait for the end and preferred euthanasia via the “Nederlandse Vereniging voor Vrijwillige Euthanasie” (NVVE).
Link to Wikipedia