The Threepence Novel series was published in 1943 and 1944: thrilling detective stories with national socialist connotations. Hidden propaganda, cloaked in the adventures of Philip Raack. The magazine was commissioned by the Reichskommissariat and made by Louis Thijssen and Willem van den Hout, with illustrations by Frans Mettes and Karel Thole. The first three issues did not have an explicit political message but subsequently it became increasingly clear what Philip Raack stood for.

In the fourth issue, Dr. Kramer unmasked, a resistance group was eliminated; The man in the motor boat describes the atrocities committed by Spanish communists and in The amateur murderers Jews in hiding were nastily prosecuted. In the double issue Philip almost murdered/Settling the score a group of Jews assaulted Philip Raack, “as he was responsible for some Jews ending up in prison”. The other parts of the series are of a more harmless nature.

The official title of the magazine was De Drie-Stuivers-Roman (The Threepence Novel), with the subtitle The adventures of Philip Raack, or a variant thereof. Many of the adventures in the magazine were translations or adaptations of stories that were originally from America.

In The quest in the Turkish bath (volume 2, no. 24), Philip Raack set off on his last adventure and was tragically killed. The magazine was continued under the name Flits. It was published five times and then in September 1944 it quietly ceased to exist. Apparently they had envisaged continuing: the last issue, Coffee from Brazil, was part of a series that had promised a sequel.

The National Library of the Netherlands (KB) has more than 50 copies of De Drie-Stuivers-Roman and Flits, all of which have been digitized for the Memory of the Netherlands. The material is part of the Groeneveld collection.