For centuries, the Netherlands functioned as a “political dwarf” in Europe but a “colonial giant” on the world stage. To be sure, the Dutch colonies in the East and West Indies were smaller than those of Britain and France. Still, generations of Dutch political and military leaders boldly proclaimed that their possession of the resource-rich East Indies afforded the small continental nation a disproportionately prominent position alongside the larger imperial powers. This book explores the inner workings of this self-styled colonial giant, as seen during a pivotal moment in its history: the wartime years of 1940 to 1945. Occupied by the Germans in May 1940, the Dutch metropole would spend the remainder of the war essentially cut off from its overseas colonies in the East and West Indies. The West Indies would remain under the formal jurisdiction of the Dutch government-in-exile located in London for the duration of the war, whereas colonial officials in the East Indies governed the archipelago until their surrender to invading Japanese forces in March 1942. These circumstances may have separated metropolitan society from the nation’s traditional overseas colonies, but despite this break – or perhaps because of it – the Dutch became extremely attached to their empire and, above all else, the East Indies. Wartime discussions of the colonies emphasized both continuity and change, a desire to forge a future that both resembled and improved on the country’s colonial past. For this to happen, however, the Dutch would need to look beyond their present circumstances of foreign domination and oppression, and instead set their sights on the liberation of both metropole and colony. Liberation held out the promise of the “resurrection of the Netherlands,” although the precise contours of this purported resurrection were subject to heated debate in occupied Holland. Leading the charge to create this new “imperial consciousness” was a small but authoritative group of anti-Nazi resisters who specialized in clandestine press work.