THE WILD FARM

The hamlet of Woeste Hoeve originated at a crossroads of old country roads. An extension was already built there in the Middle Ages. The extension, rebuilt in 1771 after the old inn burned down, still stands. Almost nothing remains of the hamlet now, the hamlet consists of a restaurant, a hotel and a few houses.
Near Woeste Hoeve, the attack on Hans Albin Rauter, the highest German police general and head of the SS in the Netherlands, took place on the night of 6 March to 7 March 1945. Rauter was severely wounded but survived the gunfight.
In retaliation for the "attack" on Rauter on 8 March 1945, the Germans had 117 men executed at Woeste Hoeve. The victims were mostly resistance fighters and people in hiding from prisons in Apeldoorn and Doetinchem. The youngest was 17, the oldest 75.
In the footpath to the monument in memory of the victims, a poem by the German theologian Dietrich Bonhöffer has been incorporated. Dietrich Bonhöffer took part in the struggle against National Socialism and was murdered in the Flössenburg concentration camp on 9 April 1945.
 

Biker