Greet Hofmans

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Greet Hofmans (23 June 1894, Amsterdam – 16 November 1968, Amsterdam) was a faith healer and hand layer. For nine years she was a friend and advisor of Queen Juliana, often residing at Palace Soestdijk.

Hofmans was introduced on the initiative of Prince Bernhard in 1948 to treat the eye sickness of Princess Marijke Christina. This illness arose after Juliana was infected with rubella during the pregnancy. Hofmans developed a great influence on the queen, encouraging pacifist ideas. In the period of the Cold War this caused a crisis in the royal household. Reputedly it reached the point where it threatened the marriage of Juliana and Bernhard.

Outside the Netherlands a great deal was written over the Hofmans affair. On 13 June 1956 an article appeared in the German magazine Der Spiegel with the title Zwischen Königin und Rasputin, literally meaning Between queen and Rasputin. Reportedly it was Bernhard who provided the information for the article, by which means he hoped to have Hofmans removed from the court.

The cabinet of Willem Drees banned the import of that edition of the magazine and on 28 June 1956 appointed a commission of enquiry of former ministers Louis Beel and Gerbrandy and former governor-general of the Dutch East Indies A.W.L. Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer, the Beel Commission. The outcome was the termination of Hofmans' contacts with the court and the reorganisation of the royal household.

Through the secrecy imposed on the official side and the self-censorship of the Netherlands press, the Hofmans affair took on a life of its own. Some have speculated that the affair was simply a mask for a looming divorce of the royal couple.

Hofmans retained until her death followers of the higher circles, who saw in her the personification of the ideal life: sober, peaceful, free of self-interest, and directed at the fellow man. Others viewed her however as a charlatan, an intrigante and a dangerous witch, or at best a naive figure.

As of 2004 the report of the Beel Commission is still secret. On 7 February Bernhard in an open letter to the Volkskrant newspaper wrote "with respect to the so-named Hofmans affair, I recall that the Beel Commission in 1956 conducted an exhaustive investigation. The report of this commission is for formal reasons still not public, therefore I express here my confidence that the eventual publication will place all those involved in this complex affair in the correct light".

The Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij (association against charlatans, or quackery) has ranked Hofmans in the 14th place of the top twenty charlatans of the 20th century.