15 Facts About Willem Banning

Willem Banning was a Dutch theologian, philosopher, sociologist and politician, who played an important role in Dutch 20th-century politics.

Willem Banning was active in the Kweekelingen Geheelonthoudersbond.

Willem Banning met his future wife, the teacher Henrietta Johanna Wilhelmina Schoemaker, whom he married on 9 October 1915.

Willem Banning started his studies in theology at Leiden university in 1913.

Willem Banning had not been politically active before the outbreak of the First World War, but that event motivated him and his future wife to start studying the works of Karl Marx and Karl Kautsky, as he blamed capitalism for the war.

Willem Banning became a member of the SDAP in 1914.

In 1929 Willem Banning had been appointed executive director of the Woodbrookers society.

Willem Banning organised a Congress of Christian socialists in this period that attracted 600 participants.

The leadership of the SDAP was keen to encourage this development and Willem Banning was elected a member of the party's governing body in 1931, and of its executive committee in 1935.

Willem Banning remained a member of the governing body until 1939 when he became editor of the party's ideological publication Socialisme en Democratie.

Willem Banning was chairman of the founding Congress of this party on 9 February 1946, and he gave the main address.

Willem Banning coordinated the formulation of several of the PvdA's political manifests in 1947 and 1959, and drafted the official reaction of the party to the Dutch bishops' 1954 advice to Dutch Roman Catholics to vote for the Catholic People's Party.

Willem Banning wrote a book that he published after the war under the title De dag van morgen.

Willem Banning took the initiative to the foundation of an institute for the promotion of the renewal of the Dutch Reformed Church that received the name Kerk en Wereld ; he became its director for many years.

Willem Banning was appointed in a chair for Sociology of Religion at Leiden University.