On warm summer days, the Mookerheide Hunting Lodge stands proudly in the sun. This impressive building has a rich and varied history. At the beginning of the 20th Century, the woods around the Lodge were the scene of many hunting parties organised by His Royal Highness Prince Hendrik.
Waffen-SS
In June, 1940, a month after the Netherlands capitulated, Reichskommissar Seyss-Inquart (Nazi administrator of the occupied Netherlands) commandeered the Lodge, and it was taken over by the feared Waffen-SS. Himmler himself is said to have visited on a couple of occasions. In the Netherlands, around 22000 Dutch volunteers served in this ruthless branch of the German armed forces ruthless to the enemy, but also, as it later turned out, to its own members.
Prisoner-of-war-camp
In September 1944, the hunting lodge and its estate were taken over by the Americans as a temporary prisoner-of-war camp, and as an assembly point for glider crews after the airborne landings. At the end of the war, when the ammunition dump was cleared, 20 railway wagons were needed to carry away the munitions.
