Revisiting the ‘Menten Affair’: Poland’s 1950 Extradition Request to the Netherlands

This article analyses the Dutch legal response to Poland’s 1950 extradition request of Pieter Menten and the questions underpinning the reasoning of the authorities and courts, along with other less visible issues then in play. The article begins with an overview of Menten’s activities in pre- and WW2 Poland, which include his involvement in massacres in 1941, as well as the looting of art. The Dutch court’s position on the matter reveals larger questions about the Dutch approach towards accountability for war crimes in the immediate post-WW2 period. The article adopts an international historical methodology in its analysis to demonstrate how concepts of extradition and war crimes were underdeveloped in the post-WW2 period. In this case, the intertwining of constitutional, criminal, and international laws provided a way for the political decision to prevail. Extradition, because it is an interplay between law and politics, was at odds with international criminal justice discourse during this period.