then on the provincial council could not remain deaf towards the direct capitalist interest of keeping the petroleum companies inside the municipality of Rotterdam.31 Some days later the ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, responsible for border changes and annexations, ultimately declined Rotterdam’s great annexation plan following the advice of the provincial council, and with it erased the foundation of Witteveen’s AUR, but approved the annexation of Pernis. On April 15, 1929, the decision was discussed by the Rotterdam municipal council and it accepted the ultimate demise of the Great Annexation Plan in favor of an immediate annexation of Pernis, as fighting back would also lead to a delay of the latter. Even though there were other forces working against the great annexation plan, the attitude of the municipality illustrates clearly that it had prioritized securing the interest of major petroleum companies inside its municipal boundaries over a well-structured expansion of Rotterdam as a Zuid-Holland metropolis. In short, the wish of the municipality to retain the industry within their city limits gave the petroleum companies an extremely favorable position in negotiations about the location and the contract for construction. The result of the negotiations proved the power that petroleum companies could exert on governmental institutions and as such on the spatial development of something as large and unwieldy as a city. Finding a balance between moving a potentially disastrous industry out of the city and securing a long-term profit from it simultaneously, the municipality allowed the petroleum companies to embark upon a complete colonization of the Meuse’s left bank spanning almost fifty years, until the first ships moored on the Maasvlakte I in 1973.
Rotterdam as represented on the national topographical map in 1940 (before the bombing of the center), with the new Eerste Petroleumhaven and its industrial sites on the far left.
31. Rotterdam en Pernis : De petroleumhaven wordt gegraven. De Tribune: socialistisch democratisch weekblad. 16-04-1929.
35