Kent School, Hostert

Background

The school was based in a former Franciscan priory, St. Josefsheim, built in 1913, that closed in 1937 and was then used by the Nazis, as Waldniel Institute, as part of their child euthanasia programme.^[3] In 1952, the Allies were establishing a new headquarters in Hardt Forest just outside the city of Mönchengladbach which became a major base for both British and NATO forces - notably the HQs of the 2nd Allied Tactical Air Force, Northern Army Group and British Army of the Rhine. The base was known as the Joint Headquarters and effectively became a suburb of Mönchengladbach. NATO referred to it as JHQ Rheindahlen. It was the families of these personnel that Kent School was to serve as a day school; it also had a boarding facility for children whose parents were in other locations that were not served by secondary schools.^[4]

School history

Initially, however, the buildings were rented by the British for use as a hospital, the British Military Hospital Hostert.^[4] It was not until 1963, when the existing Queens School in Rheindahlen was "bursting at the seams" that the requirement for another secondary school arose.^[5]. What became RAF Wegberg, south of JHQ Rheindahlen, was identified as a better site for the hospital, so the medical facilities were moved there and the site at Hostert became Kent School, a secondary, co-educational, boarding school for the British Forces in Germany and worldwide.^[6][5]

This involved a major redevelopment: a gymnasium and swimming pool were constructed, as well as a bus park for school buses. During the redevelopment work, human remains were uncovered - the bodies of patients who had died - or been killed - at the Nazi-run Institute which had been housed here during the war.^[5]

The school numbers burgeoned, even reaching 6,000 at one point, but were generally around 850-1000. The Gothic appearance of the school led to it being nicknamed Colditz by the British, after the infamous prisoner-of-war camp in East Germany.^[5]

In 1987, as part of a re-structuring, Kent School was merged with Queens School in Rheindahlen to become a single campus, known as Windsor School.^[7] In 1993, as a result of the end of the Cold War and the reduction of Allied Forces in Germany, the site at Hostert was closed and it was returned to the German authorities.^[5]