Having watched the re-enactment of celebrations by the civilians when the Allies entered their cities and towns in Band of Brothers, and assuming the Dutch did in fact kill "collaborators" during that short time, did the Germans punish the civilians after the withdrawal?
One result on Google (hard to get the right search terms) was:
This isn't homework, I'm just curious as the Dutch seemed so friendly in this episode :) I hope it wasn't even worse for them after the retreat =/
(P.S. Searched /r/history and /r/askhistorians for "market garden" and only came across military consequences for the forces involved, nor did I find it in the FAQ, so I hope this isn't spam/repost)
The civilian cost came to more than 20,000 deaths as a result of the ensuing famine. Some studies have suggested that the effects were felt for a long period through the health of the Dutch populace, especially of the children of pregnant women who survived the famine.
Long story short, the Dutch government in exile in London ordered the railway strike to coincide with the airborne landings of Market Garden. The theory was that the Germans would need the railway workers to help move troops around the country to defend against any Allied attacks. About 30,000 railway workers went into hiding, but, unfortunately, the strike was not entirely effective. The Germans were able to use their own railway stock and workers to transport their troops, decreasing the effect of the Dutch strikers. More importantly, Allied troops were not able to successfully take the bridge at Arnhem, disallowing a crossing of the Lower Rhine (and thereby free access into the North European plain).
Taking a look at this map will show you that the Netherlands is crossed from East to West by three major rivers. The border between liberated and occupied Netherlands, after the failure of Market Garden, but before the spring 1945 offensive that crossed the Rhine, was between the Waal and Neder Rijn (Lower Rhine) rivers. The city of Nijmegen was liberated in Sept 1944. The city of Dordrecht was in a sort of limbo land between, while the cities of Rotterdam and Arnhem were not liberated until after Allied troops crossed the Rhine at Wesel (just over the German border in the county of Cleves) the next spring. So in the fall of 1944, the southern part of the Netherlands had been liberated, up to the Rhine river, but the northern and eastern part of the country remained under German control.
After the failure of Market Garden and the coordinated railway strike, the Germans reacted harshly, disallowing all food transports to the West Coast for six weeks, but that was enough to do the damage. The backlog, exacerbated by the damage done to the Dutch railway network in preparation of the invasion and the general shortage in agricultural products combined to create the so-called Hongerwinter or Hunger Winter of '44/45. As I stated above, about 20,000 Dutch men and women died as a result of the famine.
The famine began to be abated in April, when Allied air forces dropped food parcels over the Netherlands (the Germans didn't shoot the down). In late March, Allied troops crossed the Rhine at Wesel, and then proceeded to circle counter-clockwise to liberate the Netherlands from the East. German troops did not surrender until May 5.
Some online sources: Verzetsmuseum - Dutch Resistance Museum, The Dutch Birth Cohort Study (the study that suggests certain long term effects of the famine).
