Provo (movement) - The End

The End

Tensions with the police peaked in June 1966, when the construction worker Jan Weggelaar died during a demonstration. The official autopsy stated heart attack, but it was widely believed that Weggelaar had been killed by the police. De Telegraaf reported that he had been killed by a co-worker. A strike was called by construction workers and large numbers of workers and their sympathisers, including Provos, marched through Amsterdam. Demonstrators fought the police in the streets (on the Dam and Damrak) and attacked the offices and vehicles of De Telegraaf.

At the same time, the Provos participated in left-wing student protests against the Vietnam War. Demonstrations were banned, resulting in an increase in their size and popularity. The police responded with increasing force, and by mid-1966 hundreds of arrests were made every week. Police brutality led to increasing sympathy for the Provos and the anti-war demonstrators among the general public. An official investigation into the crisis was opened.

These events eventually led to the dismissal of Amsterdam's police chief, H. J. van der Molen, in 1966 and the resignation of mayor Gijsbert van Hall in 1967. After van Hall had been removed, Grootveld and Rob Stolk (printer of Provo magazine) decided to end Provo. Stolk said: “Provo has to disappear because all the Great Men that made us big have gone”, a reference to Provo’s two arch-enemies, Van Hall and Van der Molen.