Early life Becking was born in
Mojokerto,
Java,
Dutch East Indies on 4 November 1887. His father, Salomon Wessel Becking, was a
civil engineer born in
Varsseveld, and his mother Johanna Maria (née Rijkens) was born in
Surabaya. He joined the
Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) and was originally posted as second infantry
Lieutenant in the colonial reserve at
Nijmegen, and left for the Indies in July 1911.
Military career Becking served in various parts of the Indies over the next decade and a half, and was promoted to first infantry Lieutenant and eventually to Captain. He was a key figure in the repression campaign against the failed communist uprisings of 1926. After the rebellion broke out, Becking was sent to
Bantam Residency in November 1926 with a company of
Menadonese soldiers and helped put down the unrest in that area. When the
Governor-general of the Dutch East Indies de Graeff decided to exile hundreds or thousands of Communist Party members, Becking was sent to scout a location for their exile. He identified a location 450 kilometres up the
Digul river in
New Guinea, a barren, sparsely populated area with endemic
Malaria. The initial camp site was called
Tanahmerah; Becking was sent with KNIL soldiers and convict laborers to prepare the site for construction. The first group of fifty internees arrived in March, accompanied by thirty family members, and Becking became the first camp administrator. It was his idea to establish a second, more remote camp upriver at Tanahtinggi to separately intern the most rebellious detainees. The largest school built for children of detainees in the camp, which could accommodate 7 grades, was named after Becking. Becking continued to serve in KNIL in various parts of the Indies for the 5 years after he left Digoel. He gave a lecture to the right-wing
Vaderlandsche Club in May 1930 about the establishment of Digoel. Although he admitted he had to watch his words as a still-serving KNIL officer, he suggested that the site had not been well chosen because it could not support the health or agricultural needs of the residents. He continued to lecture about Digoel, the 1926 uprising and anti-communism at events put on by the club around Java. In March 1932 he cofounded a Dutch-only shooting club, which he sat on the board of. In 1932 he retired from KNIL and was honourably discharged.
Post-military career and politics After retiring from the military, Becking continued to support himself by giving lectures about Digoel, the rise of Japan, and other topics, primarily to the Vaderlandsche Club. He was also interested in
Theosophy, but soon turned towards Fascist politics. He joined the
Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging (NSB), a Dutch fascist party; by the time of NSB leader
Anton Mussert's visit to Java in 1935, Becking already held a prominent role. With the funding of German interests, he also led some gold prospecting expeditions and developments in New Guinea starting in 1937, including one that worked for two years near Tanahmerah and which brought a lot more ships and airplanes to that remote area. Socialist newspapers like
Het Volk accused the effort of somehow being tied in with NSB activities, as it employed several of the party's members. However, the Tanahmerah exploration closed in 1939 when yields of gold were insufficient.
Exile to Surinam and death On 10 May 1940, the day of the
German invasion of the Netherlands, authorities in the Dutch East Indies enacted martial law and carried out mass arrests of German nationals and supposed German sympathizers living there. They also detained Dutch citizens who were NSB members; despite having left the party, Becking was also detained. These prisoners were initially detained on
Onrust Island, Ngawi, and other sites in
East Java; none faced trial or were charged with any crimes. After the Netherlands declared war on Japan in 1941, the Indies government found that the Indies was no longer a secure place to imprison them and began to make plans to deport them. German nationals were sent to
India and
Siam whereas Dutch citizens were sent to
Surinam. Becking was identified as one of the "irreconcilable" political figures who would have to be exiled;
Louis Johan Alexander Schoonheyt, the former Digoel doctor and an active NSB member, and
Ernest Douwes Dekker, and Indonesian nationalist, were among them. They were put aboard the
Tjisedané in
Surabaya in January 1942 and arrived in
Paramaribo, Surinam on 21 March 1942. An internment camp called
Jodensavanne was built for them, but it wasn't ready when they arrived; the internees spent six months at
Fort Nieuw-Amsterdam. The prisoners were considered traitors for their support for the NSB and Nazi Germany, and therefore the guards treated them mercilessly. The first camp commander, Gebuys, was later said to have told prisoners that they would only be sent to hospital if they died. They were regularly beaten with clubs or had their hands and feet shackled together; two went on hunger strike and died as a result, while others were tortured and killed by guards after an escape attempt. Becking became quite sick under these conditions, and Schoonheyt, his former Digoel colleague, tried his best to treat him. The detainees were not immediately released upon the
liberation of the Netherlands in May 1945. Becking's health was quite poor and he died in a hospital in
Paramaribo in 1945 while still having the status of prisoner. == References ==