Marius Cornelis van Houten

Marius Cornelis van Houten (10 November 1879 - 8 February 1953) was a Dutch army officer and museum director.
Life
Early life
Born in Gorinchem, he studied HBS there and later in Arnhem before joining the Cadettenschool in Alkmaar in 1896 and the Koninklijke Militaire Academie in Breda in 1899. He graduated from the latter as a 'land artillery' (artillerie hier te lande) commander in July 1902 and at the end of that month was made a second lieutenant in the 3rd Garrison Artillery Regiment. In July 1906 he was promoted to First Lieutenant.
Royal Marechaussee
In May 1913 he transferred to the Koninklijke Marechaussee, the country's gendarmerie, within which he was promoted to Captain in December 1916. On 10 December 1919, whilst a district-commander in Eindhoven, Van Houten sent a personal invite to the leaders of various foreign police forces to come to a conference intended to set up an international policing organisation, possibly to be overseen by the League of Nations. The organisation was intended to encourage international cooperation between forces to fight non-political international crime. With the First World War barely over, the initiative proved unsuccessful, though Van Houten was later in touch with Basil Thomson, of the Metropolitan Police and on 16 September 1921 with Robert Heindl, a leading criminologist in Dresden, Germany.
In 1920 he was put in charge of the Marechaussee detachment guarding Wilhelm II, German Emperor in exile in Doorn after his escape to the neutral Netherlands. The former Kaiser had initially been housed in Kasteel Amerongen but in 1920 was transferred to the Huis Doorn estate. Van Houten held this position in Doorn until his retirement in September 1936, during which time he was promoted to Major (July 1927), Lieutenant-Colonel (October 1931) and Colonel (just before his retirement). He also remained active as an intermediary between the Dutch authorities and Wilhelm's court-in-exile.
Interpol
In 1923 Vienna's chief of police Johann Schober organised a five-day congress in his city based on Van Houten's original 1919 idea. The Netherlands was represented by Van Houten himself as well as K.H. Broekhoff (head of the Nederlandse Centrale inzake falsificaten) and A.H. Sirks (chief police commissioner in Rotterdam). The three men were the usual Dutch representatives at future congresses until Sirks' retirement in 1933, on which he was replaced in the trio by Hendrik Johan Versteeg junior, chief police commissioner of Amsterdam.
The 1923 congress founded the Internationale Kriminalpolizeiliche Kommission (IKK), now known as Interpol. Van Houten became its honorary vice-president in 1934. The 1935 Police Congress in Copenhagen decided to set up an international centre to deal with gypsies and Van Houten personally committed the Netherlands to set up a central registration office for gypsies and a national branch of the centre - the latter was established in 1937. The IKK and its activities were temporarily suspended by the outbreak of World War Two.
Wilhelm II
Museums
In October 1936, just after his retirement, Van Houten opened his private collection on the Marechaussee's history to the public as the Royal Marechaussee Historical Museum.
In 1939 Van Houten became the director of the Nederlandsch Legermuseum in Kasteel Doorwerth, following the previous director F.A. Hoefer's death the previous year and replacing J.W. Wijn, who had been acting director in the interim. It was decided to move that museum to Leiden due to problems with the existing building, but the actual move was delayed by World War Two and much of the collection was lost in the Battle of Arnhem, during which the Kasteel Doorwerth found itself on the front line.
In 1946 Van Houten became chairman of the Genootschap voor Militaire Traditie en Uniformkunde, a military history society and in summer 1949 the Legermuseum finally reopened in the Pesthuis in Leiden. About a week after the North Sea flood of 1953, Van Houten died in Leiden aged 73. He was replaced as director by C.A. Hartmans, previously deputy director.
Bibliography
* Henk Pors, Marius Cornelis van Houten : marechaussee par excellence ( Museumbrochure nummer 4 ), Stichting Vrienden van het Marechausseemuseum, Buren, 1994

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