De verantwoordelijkheid van de schrijver in bezet Nederland: Objectieve verantwoordelijkheid, subjectieve verantwoordelijkheid en de processuele dimensie van de naoorlogse zuivering

This article investigates the processual dimension of the purge of the Dutch literary field in the aftermath of WWII. On the basis of a systematical analysis of the archives of the Board of Honor for the Letters and the Central Board of Honor for the Arts, the two bodies carrying out the purge, it describes how the purge process as a whole and the proceedings against collective and/or individual cases were given shape on the respective levels of the Board of Honor for the Letters and the Central Board of Honor for the Arts so as to determine the amount of subjective and/or objective responsibility of groups of writers and/or the individual writer. Moreover, the article determines what the processual positions taken by the respective boards reveal about the autonomy of the literary field (vis-à-vis the political and juridical fields) directly after the War. As the analysis shows, the Board of Honor for the Letters employed procedural norms that differed markedly from the decidedly juridical norms that the Central Board of Honor for the Arts applied. However, the assertively autonomist position of the Board of Honor for the Letters turned out to be untenable when parts of the cultural, juridical and political fields took a stand against it.