Eighty years ago, as people around the world celebrated victory in Europe, the idea for Wilton Park was already taking shape.
Amid the post-war destruction that engulfed Europe, Wilton Park’s founder Heinz Koeppler, along with British planners and other German Social Democrats in exile, was considering how Germany could be rebuilt – not just physically but in the minds of a people who had been living under a fascist regime and absorbing its propaganda for years.
Next year, in January 2026, Wilton Park will also celebrate its 80th anniversary. The very first sessions, aimed at re-educating and rehabilitating German prisoners of war, took place in Beaconsfield in 1946.
The programme opened to the public from 1948 and its organisers set out to find people who would be suitable to attend the sessions.
In 1950 a young man from Germany, Karl Freudenstein, was invited to attend Wilton Park and write a report on the programmes to help inform the selection of future participants.
Karl jumped at the chance to travel to England and learn more about Wilton Park.
Now in his nineties, Karl got in touch with us to share his story of attending those historic first sessions. Below, you can listen to him tell that story in his own words:
