German tanks enter Woold

On Thursday, 29 March 1945, due to the advancing Allied forces, fanatical German troops had fallen back to the hamlet of Woold. These were mostly young and inexperienced recruits, deployed in a desperate attempt to delay the inevitable. They took cover in the fields, armed with large quantities of anti-tank weapons, including the feared Panzerfaust. Each Panzerfaust contained 800 grams of explosive charge, enough to penetrate and disable a tank.

The border
The border between the Netherlands and Germany predates the German nation itself. The boundary stones in this area, now marking the border with the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, originally marked the edge of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the former Kingdom of Prussia. The numbering of the boundary stones starts in southern Luxembourg, which at the time still belonged to the Netherlands. Stone number 862, the final one, is not located in Groningen, but near Enschede. This marks the historical end of Prussian territory, which only became part of Germany in 1871.

In some places, 18th-century stones still exist, bearing the coats of arms of the Duchy of Guelders and the Bishopric of Münster. Others are more modest, marked simply with the letters “G” and “M”.

New boundary stones
After the Napoleonic era, new European states emerged, including the Kingdom of Prussia to the east of the Netherlands. It was decided that the border through the Achterhoek, defined in 1765, would remain unchanged. New boundary markers were installed, this time using painted wooden posts instead of stone, likely due to cost considerations. A century later, these were replaced by durable stone markers in the form of obelisks. Just behind the bench here, you can see boundary post number 762A.