Two original letters by the Dutch lieutenant-general Henri Nicolas Alfred Swart (1836-1946), formerly governor and "pacifier" of Aceh (North Sumatra) for ten years, where he managed to bring the conquered province to peace again, and vice president of the Council of the Dutch East Indies. Back in The Netherlands, Swart became involved during the interbellum in Dutch right-wing politics in the 1920s and 1930s. He became secretary of the general committee of the VNH (Verbond voor Nationaal Herstel), an authoritarian, conservative, anti-parliamentary and monarchist splinter part with fascist sympathies, founded in 1933 by his correspondent in these letters, Horace Hugo Alexanders Gybland Oosterhoff (1887-1937). After the death of Gybland Oosterhoff in 1937 the party faded away and Swart quitted. In October 1936 Swart stayed at the Touring Hotel at Brussels, probably to have secret talks with the Belgian far-right Catholic, totalitarian and later fascistic political party of Léon Degrelle (the Rexisten). Swart wrotes about this to Gybland Oosterhoff and also about some members of the committee of the party and on the financial difficulties of De Rijkseenheid, the partys journal.
Both letters with the stamp of the archives of the political party VNH (Verbond voor Nationaal Herstel) and with some notes in blue pencil and some underlinings with red pencil. Slightly browned, oterhwise in good condition. Cf. M.H. du Croo, General Swart, pacificator van Atjeh (1946); A. Zwaga, Verbond Nationaal Herstel: een konservatieve groepering in Nederland tijdens het Interbellum (unpublished paper, Utrecht University, 1985).