Five Brothers and a War

The van Pelt Automobile

During the course of the war, there was no petroleum available for civilian use— everything produced had to go to the German armed forces. Of course, Germany was not rich with petroleum, and therefore had to find it elsewhere. It initially found supplies in conquered Romania. One of the major reasons for Hitler’s colossal mistake to invade Russia was to gain access to that country’s enormous oil reserves. It did manage to extract significant oil in the months following the invasion of Russia, but as Russia pushed German forces back, access to those fields was cut. Hitler also directed that synthetic petroleum production be increased dramatically, through the conversion of the energy found in coal. This process was in its infancy, and also relied on massive imports of coal from the east. The Allies knew all of this, and made destruction of the refineries and rail systems top priorities. In the end, Germany’s top commanders admitted that the shortage of petroleum was one of the major causes of the defeat of Germany. For Leendert, this meant that the car at his disposal had to be hidden, because had it been left on the street, it would have been taken by the Germans, who even took bicycles from the Dutch. He found an acquaintance who had a small garage on the Sinaasappelstraat (“Orange [fruit, not color] Street”), which is a side-street to the Tomatenstraat, just about one kilometer from the Margrietstraat. The car remained there for the duration of the war.

Margrietstraat

van Pelt

Tomatenstraat

Sinaasappelstraat

Five Brothers and a War

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