Dark cloud

In 1939 Anton Philips handed over the day-to-day running of the business to Frans Otten, the brother-in-law with whom Frits was always to maintain a friendly relationship. Frits Philips himself was appointed managing director. Life on the Wielewaal estate, built in 1934 on the northern outskirts of Eindhoven to the family’s own specifications, was good. Philips flourished. By that time a total of 45,000 people were working at the factories now located around the world.

But a dark cloud was beginning to cast its shadow over Europe. Developments in Nazi Germany were becoming unsettling. The threat of war drew closer to Eindhoven. The Dutch were worried; the Philips managers took precautionary measures.
On Thursday evening 9 May 1940 Frits Philips was on the tennis court when he received a telephone call from his brother-in-law Otten, to say that the Germans were to invade the Netherlands the following day. Philips immediately initiated a large-scale evacuation. Machines were dismantled and driven west in convoys to temporary safety behind the Water Defense Line. A column of sixty vehicles full of Philips people, including Frits Philips and Frans Otten, were bombed at Numansdorp, but eventually reached The Hague unharmed. None of the machines made it to the ‘Dutch Settlement’.

The Dutch capitulated. For Frits Philips and his wife this was a moment of truth. Should they stay put or escape to England? In his memoirs he writes: ‘Soon we felt a great certainty that we were meant to stay in Holland. And as we sat there on the edge of the bed, God said to us: ‘Don’t look on the task ahead of you as a heavy burden. You have been chosen to bear this responsibility.’
In Eindhoven, the family moved to De Laak, Frits’ parental home. De Wielewaal was requisitioned by Luftwaffe officers.