Why Holland?
Why do they mention Holland?
As far as I can tell nothing happens there, but in North Brabant and Gelderland.
Holland (North and South) are not even on the path to Germany...
Most people use "Holland" and "The Netherlands" interchangeably.
shareIt's sad (and I'm not even dutch), I knew about that but I expected that kind of movie to be better than most people.
shareDuring WW2, 'Holland' would have been used by British and American military personnel even more than 'The Netherlands' to refer to the country. Using anything else would have been totally unrealistic. It's no more inaccurate than using 'America' (which is the name of an entire continent when all's said and done) instead of 'The United States'. Then there's 'England' instead of 'The United Kingdom', etc etc.
shareDuring WW2, 'Holland' would have been used by British and American military personnel even more than 'The Netherlands' to refer to the country.
Why would it have been the case then? share
The legal name of the United States is the United States of America. That is why we use America to define the United States. If the legal name of Mexico would be Mexico of America or of Canada would be Canada of America then you could be in a better place to argue that Americans are wrong to call themselves Americans.
Plus Americans sound better, like Canadians or Mexicans. What would you rather have Americans calling ourselves? Unitesians? Statists?
People called The Netherlands Holland because it was composed of the most prominent two provinces of the Dutch Republic. It is much like calling the U.K. either England or Great Britain.
Germans were once known for their Prussian military even though that was just part of the country. In WWI, Germans were called the Huns for some reason. The Huns were pretty settled in the Danube Valley by then. I guess they linked Germans to Austria Hungary.
The official name of Mexico is "United Mexican States", so I guess they can say they are from the United States because it is their name.