On Saterday 11 november 2017 We visited Hotel de Wereld in Wageningen after the Airborne day in Oosterbeek. We knew it only from television, because we looked at the annual parade in Wageningen, once in the presence of Prince Bernhard. We thought it would be a bit bigger and more impressive, but the 5 Mei Plein was not great at all and neither was the hotel. It surprised us that the square offers space every year to so many people and the big parade. There was nothing to see in the hotel that reminded of the historic event that took place there on 5 May 1945. The German capitulation and with it the formal liberation of the Netherlands.

Only the Grand Conference Room is located on the door of the restaurant. But only on the outside there were plaques. The hotel has in fact not changed much.

Then and Now picture of the Great Conference Room. In 1945 the hotel was severely damaged, but the wooden walls still exist.

On 5 May 1945 General Charles Foulkes chose on behalf of the allies Hotel de Wereld for the negotiations with the German Colonel General Johannes Blaskowitz on the surrender of the German occupiers in the Netherlands. Foulkes would have chosen this place because of the location of Wageningen on the then front, the absence of citizens because of the evacuation of the place and the symbolism of the name "De Wereld". Prince Bernhard was present at the negotiations.

Capitulation talks at Hotel de Wereld in Wageningen. Left On the back seen the chief of staff of the German 24th Army Paul Reichelt. On the other side of the table Prince Bernhard 5 May 1945

On 1 July 1945 Prince Bernhard unveiled a commemorative plate on the wall of the city in the presence of Lieutenant-General Foulkes on the wall of ‘De Wereld'.