Levie Jacob "Louis" Fles (1872–1940) was a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 businessman, activist and author. He was a member of the organizing committee of the 1928 Summer Olympics

1928 Summer Olympics

The 1928 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the IX Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1928 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Amsterdam had bid for the 1920 and 1924 Olympic Games, but had to give way to war-victim Antwerp, Belgium, and Pierre de...

. Louis Fles is best known for writing and broadcasting against Zionism

Zionism

Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...

 and organized religion.

Fles was a strong supporter of Jewish

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 assimilation and had a complex relationship with the Dutch Social Democratic Workers' Party

Social Democratic Workers' Party (Netherlands)

The Social Democratic Workers' Party was a Dutch socialist political party and a predecessor of the social-democratic PvdA.-1893-1904:...

. He was a strong criticizer of Nazism

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

, for example in his work from 1933 Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

, hervormer of misdadiger? (Dutch: Hitler, reformer or criminal?) and committed suicide at the conquest of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

.

Biography

• Vrijdenkers in verzuild Nederland : de Dageraad 1900-1940 : een bronnenstudie
• Biography of Levie Fles at the Biographical Dictionary of Socialism and the Labor Movement in the Netherlands

External links

• Louis Fles family page at Akevoth