Reading will be celebrating 75 years of friendship between Dusseldorf and Reading following the ending of the second world war.

At the end of the second world war, Europe was left in ruins, with Dusseldorf headquarters of the British-administered zone. This was largely reduced to rubble with starvation and disease rife amongst the population.

Although Reading had suffered a series of bombs throughout the war, it had largely remained intact. Lives were lost in the war and Britain had suffered from privatisation but the town had survived relatively unscathed.  

Following the eye-witness accounts and details of Victor Gollancz' In Darkest Germany, the Mayor of Reading felt compelled to visit having made an appeal of food and clothing for the destitute population.

After the first visit and the beginning of a 75 year relationship, the two cities set up a regular exchange programme. This began when Reading’s mayor, Phoebe Cusden, invited six children to stay with Reading families.

Cusden is said to be supported by several individuals around the UK and Germany. This includes the Minister in Charge of German Affairs, The Bishop of Reading, Lord Pakenham, and the Regional Commissioner of North Rhineland and Westphalia, Mr. W. Asbury.

She referred to the scheame as a ‘goodwill mission’. The collection of food and clothing that was collected prior to her first visit for German children was a kind of philanthropic endeavour to support the relationship between the two towns.

During the development of the Reading-Dusseldorf Association, world politicians were encouraged to ‘meet the elementary needs of the people of Europe.’

When the mayor and her husband Mr Albert Cusden took the trip to visit Dusseldorf, their experiences were repored in the Reading Standard in 1947. They were apparently struck by some of the conditions that some Germans were living in.

Families were said to have been living in bunkers or basements with bare feet and the barest of nessesities.

With the hope that some children were able to get away from the living condition the Foreign office got involved to allow people in Reading to take children into their homes for a while’

The relationship between the two towns are going strong and is considered to be the longest continuous history of any friendship between Anglo-German cities.