Steyning's Wilton Park at 80: rebuilding from the rubble of war

As crowds celebrated VE Day in 1945, the idea for Steyning's 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. Follow the link to listen to him tell that story in his own words: Wilton Park at 80: rebuilding from the rubble of war - Wilton Park

Wilton Park, now an executive agency of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, brings together experts and policy-makers to engage in genuine dialogue with a network of diverse voices, in order to to address the most pressing challenges of our time.

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