The Bilderbergers - Puppet-Masters of Power? E-Book

Gerhard Wisnewski

• Herausgeber: Clairview Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Since 1954, a discrete and select group of wealthy and powerful individuals have attended a private, yearly conference to discuss matters of their choosing. This group represents European and North American elites, as well as new talent and rising stars, from the worlds of politics, business, media, academia, the military and even royalty, and has included household names such as Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger and even Prince Philip. In recent years their number have featured David Cameron, Tony Blair, Angela Merkel, Bill Clinton and David Rockefeller. These are 'the Bilderbergers', named after the hotel where their secret gatherings were first hosted. What is their purpose, why do they meet, and what do they want? Investigative writer Gerhard Wisnewski explores the numerous claims of conspiracy that swirl around the group, revealing names of participants, their agendas and their goals. The scene opens in the sun-kissed seaside resort of Vouliagmeni, Greece, where Wisnewski attempts to observe and report on a Bilderberg conference. He soon attracts aggressive attention from police and undercover security, and it is made abundantly clear he is not welcome. From this rude introduction, Wisnewski works backwards to the founding of the Bilderbergers in 1954 by a shadowy Jesuit with secret service allegiances. Examining records and hidden reports, Wisnewski uncovers the true history of the organization, the alliances among key individuals and their common interests. Are the Bilderbergers puppet-masters, pulling strings behind the scenes? Are plans afoot to create a global government and a new political system? To what extent do they represent a clandestine super-government? This book offers a unique view into the workings of power, and the secret methods of those who seek to govern and control behind the scenes.

Leseprobe

GERHARD WISNEWSKI was born in 1959. He studied political science, and since 1986 has worked as an author and documentary filmmaker. The author of One Small Step?: The Great Moon Hoax and the Race to Dominate Earth from Space, his other bestselling books (in German) include Das RAF-Phantom (The RAF Phantom), Operation 9/11, Mythos 9/11 and Verschluss-Sache Terror (The secret files of terror). The film Das Phantom, based on the book Das RAF-Phantom, was awarded the Grimme Prize in 2000.

THE BILDERBERGERS

PUPPET-MASTERS OF POWER?

AN INVESTIGATION INTO ALLEGATIONS OF CONSPIRACY AT THE HEART OF POLITICS, BUSINESS AND THE MEDIA

GERHARD WISNEWSKI

Translated by J. Collis

CLAIRVIEW

Published in Great Britain in 2014 by: Clairview Books, Russet, Sandy Lane, West Hoathly, W. Sussex RH19 4QQ

E-mail: [email protected]

www.clairviewbooks.com

First published in 2010 under the title Drahtzieher der Macht by Knaur Taschenbuch, Munich

© Gerhard Wisnewski 2010 This translation © Clairview Books 2014

All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Inquiries should be addressed to the Publishers

All images are from the author's private collection or public domain, with the exception of the following: ‘The Nafsika Astir Palace...’, ‘The crossing in front of...’ and ‘Civilian vans...’, Ch. Klöppner and S. Mahdi and ‘Richard Toibin is arrested...’, Dorneanu

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Print book ISBN 978 1 905570 75 1 Ebook ISBN 978 1 905570 66 9

Cover by Morgan Creative featuring puppeteer image © AG Photographer and flags image © Angelika Bentin

‘... the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.’

Benjamin Disraeli British Prime Minister 1868 and 1874-1880

Contents

Prologue: An Encounter-Greek Style

Introduction

Part 1 Tracking Down the Bilderbergers

The Dorint Sofitel beside Lake Tegernsee

Hotel De Bilderberg

All's quiet at the Bilderberg summit

A non-contact office at Leiden

A book never published

The conspiracy of silence

A top-level clique

Aristocracy and financial aristocracy

‘Look out for three sozzled Americans!’ – In the hornets’ nest of the Bilderbergers

13.5.09: In the globalist paradise

14.5.09: The hunt for Rockefeller's swimming trunks

15.5.09: No Plan B at the checkpoint

16.5.09: The transparent hornets’ nest of the Bilderbergers

17.5.09: Writing and thinking undesirable – a pleasant chat by the wayside

19.5.09: A fax from Leiden

The collective might of the Bilderbergers

Example: Deutsche Bank

Part 2 The Secret Background

A conspirator founds the Bilderbergers

The most important characteristics of a monk

The first globalists

The Pope's fire-brigade

Behind a thousand masks

Life's a game

In the morass of ‘conspiracy theories’

The keyboard of cultures

Monita secreta – the secret instructions of the Jesuits

The path to world domination

Uniting the states of America

A Jesuit kingdom

Uniting the states of Europe

The confidential reports of the Bilderbergers

The ‘Atlantic Community’

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization

The rest of the world

Part 3 Global Mafia?

The grand old man

Excursus: The ‘Council on Foreign Invasions’

The world's greatest locust

The bustling professor

A strategist for Europe

The ‘godfather’

The embarrassing prince

The oil princess

The ‘prince of darkness’

Kosher Nostra

Rummy the Neocon

Wolfensohn, son of a wolf

The proprietors of Sweden

The gerontocrats

The Israel Lobby

Henry Kissinger

Paul Wolfowitz

Richard Perle

Part 4 A German Mafia?

The silence of the Bilderbergers

The rise of Guido W.

Chancellors by grace of Bilderberger

Roland Koch ante portas

‘One can’t not communicate’

The case of Ruhe and Scharping

Sorcerer and sorcerer's apprentice

Mr Kopper's protégé

Klaus Zumwinkel - another sorceror's apprentice

The ‘Global Enterprise’

Part 5 The Global Government

TC - The expansion of the Bilderbergers

A clandestine super-government?

Carter's ‘trilateral’ administration

A minister changes sides

If not corruptible, then perhaps forgetful?

A global government or not?

A form of conspiracy

A form of government

Long live the crisis

Excursus: Barack and the Bilderbergers

Top Bilderberger Kissinger cheers Obama

‘Motive, means and opportunity’ – legal action against the Bilderbergers

The new political system

Power to the philanthropists

An attack on the structure of the globe

A regimen of crises

Away with the boundary

The masked crisis

The mightiest conspiracy on the planet

Acknowledgements

Appendix

Notes

Bibliography

Prologue

An Encounter – Greek Style

Vouliagmeni, 17 May 2009, to the south of Athens. The sea in the bay shimmers blue, sun umbrellas on the restaurant terrace flutter lazily in the hot wind, a few teenagers splash about on the shore. A cool beer and salmon on a bed of spinach are well deserved. For days, together with a handful of journalists, I’ve been chasing after participants at the Bilderberg Conference and letting myself in for a sometimes more, sometimes less amusing game of hide-and-seek with security personnel and police. I’m about to order another beer when my mobile rings. A colleague is telling me that he and the other journalists have just been released from police custody after hours of interrogation. He's in our hotel lobby and I’d better come over straight away.

No more relaxing, then. I pay and leave the terrace via the exit to the street. Just as I’m about to set off for the crossing in the direction of the hotel, I notice two policemen standing there, pointing towards me. As inconspicuously as possible I return to the terrace by the next entrance, switch off my mobile and lock myself in the toilet for half an hour. When nothing happens I leave the restaurant again, this time by the main entrance. On the opposite side of the street a steep stone stairway leads up and over towards the hotel. Surely I can get to it without having to pass the police presence at the crossing, I think. Ten seconds later I’m panting my way up the exceedingly steep stairs. I’m nearly at the top and watching my step when I suddenly glimpse two female feet dangling idly from the parapet. Somehow they remind me of Kaa the snake in the Jungle Book lying in wait for Mowgli. I’ve scarcely reached her when she says ‘Hello’ in English as I pause for breath: ‘Where are you from?’ Germany, I say. ‘Oh, yes? Germany!’ Quite by chance her father lives there, or her brother or a nephew.

A Greek woman all alone accosting strange men at the top of a steep flight of steps? Hang on, I think. She is, moreover, nothing like other charming young Greek women tripping around here in their high heels. She's a rather more austere, sporty type – not unattractive, no, but austere, without make-up and with short hair, obviously dyed blonde.

I ask if she happens to know Litous Street, which is where my hotel is. Oh! Litous Street, sure, she replies eagerly. I’d have to go back down the steps and turn right. She’ll come with me and show me the way! Just a minute – so she wants to escort me directly to her colleagues. Well, no, I declare jokingly, sounding like a harmless tourist, I haven’t struggled all the way up these stairs only to turn round and go down again. I’ll carry on over this hill to my hotel. She rather sees the point, but just then a sporty young man appears from nowhere and settles down, smiling, beside her on the low wall. Our little chat now develops into an interrogation: What am I doing here? What's my ‘job’? She comes to the point immediately. ‘Are you a journalist?’

A journalist? Me? ‘No’, I reply. ‘No?’ she repeats. ‘No!’ I also repeat. Had I heard about the conference, she persists. ‘What conference?’ I ask, sounding decidedly nonchalant. Well, the Bilderberg Conference of course, she says. Bilderberg? ‘Never heard of it’, I counter. ‘What kind of a conference is it, then?’ I want to know, but she doesn’t want to tell me. Well, the one in the Nafsika Astir Palace. That's the conference hotel, is it, I conjecture vaguely. ‘Yes’, she confirms. But what's my job, she insists. ‘Political scientist’, I say. Ah! Political science and Bilderberg; this combination is a wake-up call to her policewoman's brain. What do you do, then, in political science? ‘I write’, I reply. Wrong again. The effect is like dangling a mouse in front of a cat. Political science and writing – this appears to be the greatest crime one can commit in the vicinity of the Bilderbergers. The street might as well be full of signs saying ‘Writing forbidden!’ And of course ‘Thinking forbidden!’ and ‘No questions!’ So what did I write about, then? ‘Marxism’, I say, choosing the most uninteresting answer possible as I turn to leave. I block off further questions with a ‘Nice to have met you’. Such a pleasant little chat by the wayside.

Introduction

Many things can be found on the internet. For example that there's a power group which meets once a year known as the ‘Bilderbergers’. This club is supposed to be much mightier than any government or even the G8 Summit, that annual meeting of eight global giants. If the latter amounts to a circle of elephants, then the Bilderbergers must be a whole herd, 100 to 150 personages: former and future US Presidents, former and current NATO General Secretaries, former and current CEOs, current, and above all future, German Chancellors! From Germany, for example, Josef Ackermann, Joschka Fischer, Guido Westerwelle, Wolfgang Schäuble and Otto Schily. But also Kurt Georg Kiesinger, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel!

Any number of heavyweights, then. And, if one believes the internet, these heavyweights are supposed to belong to a kind of world government. According to some, indeed, to ‘the’ world government. Whatever the case may be, it is interesting to note that while the G8 circle of elephants gallops loudly across the media landscape once a year, the shadows of the Bilderberg pachyderms tiptoe around in silence. Not a word is breathed by the media about them, or if they do come up once in a while, then only as an aside.

So our first reaction has to be one of suspicion: Does this summit really exist? And if so, does it actually have anything important to say?

One hears that this ‘secret world government’ meets annually at different locations around the world in order to discuss, behind closed doors, questions that involve all of us. And because it is indeed significant for all of us when industry bosses meet behind closed doors with ministers, with the military, with monarchs and with international puppet-masters, I decide to get to the bottom of this matter. I will ferret out this secretive annual ‘Bilderberg’ Conference which is said to be much older than the G8 Summit and indeed even the European Union. I shall take up the trail at the Bilderbergers’ first conference hotel where this secret group is said to have been founded over half a century ago, in 1954. Then I shall visit one of the more recent conference hotels, where the Bilderbergers met in Germany in 2005, and endeavour to elicit some information from the hotel's director. And finally I’ll make my way to a current Bilderberg Conference in Athens in order to find out how secretive these conferences really still are and how difficult it is to contact any of the participants.

On my return I shall continue to follow the trail in the relevant literature and look into the origins and background of the Bilderbergers. In doing this I’ll discover that they were founded in 1954 but also that in reality they are merely a subsection of a much more ancient world power. And finally I will myself approach at least the German participants in the Conferences and circulate a short questionnaire among the select band of almost fifty German Bilderbergers. I want to know the purpose of this whole affair, what is discussed during those conferences, and what those questioned consider to be the purpose of it all.

Depending on their answers or non-answers, I shall then look more closely at a number of the Bilderbergers and endeavour to size them up on the basis of what they have done during their membership: What projects or initiatives did they set in train during that period? Did they perhaps found a new large company? Or start a war? In the end I will succeed in gaining some insight into one of the conferences. By examining the lectures given we shall discover the true plans of the Bilderbergers and realize that these plans conform exactly with our prior investigations of individual participants. This will complete our picture of the group and we shall then be able to identify the threat posed by this secret conference.

Part 1

TRACKING DOWN THE BILDERBERGERS

The Dorint Sofitel beside Lake Tegernsee

Tegernsee, 6 May 2005. The medics are at it again! As reported by a daily newspaper, a medical congress is taking place at the luxury Dorint hotel at Rottach-Egern. But you’ll search in vain for a stethoscope or a medical bag among the participants. In fact it's not a question of medics at all. That's a disguise. The supposed medical congress is actually a meeting of the world government. Or at least so the fault-finders say, the critics of the ‘Bilderberg’ group which actually derives its name from its very first venue.

At the end of April 2005 the staff at this exclusive hotel experienced an encounter of the third kind. Quite some time previously an international company had booked the entire establishment for a three-day period. And now that company came clean to the management regarding the actual participants: the Bilderbergers.

26 November 2006. Bright sunshine, an unusually warm autumn day. The cars are grinding to a halt in the narrow Tegernsee valley which is surrounded by mountains and might be compared to a funnel – or a natural fort. From above, arriving from Munich, you drive downwards until the mountains close in around you. And at the bottom, to the south, there is only one narrow exit, in the direction of Austria. Rottach-Egern is situated beside this exit. This is the location of one of Germany's most expensive hotels, formerly the Dorint Sofitel, Seehotel Uberfahrt Tegernsee.

‘The whole valley was full of police’, the hotel's General Director B. remembers. And there were all kinds of security measures within the hotel itself; but B. doesn’t want to be any more specific than that.

I meet him in the lobby bar. Hushed music and hushed conversations accompanied by the gentle splash of a large fountain beneath a sign displaying the name of the hotel. I’ve come because I want to know whether the Bilderbergers actually exist at all – or whether they are nothing more than a phantom spooking about in the internet, consisting of a few rumours, forum entries and out-of-focus photos. I’ve come because some of those unclear pictures were taken here in front of the hotel's main entrance: They show the then president of the World Bank, James D. Wolfensohn, the American milliardaire* David Rockefeller, and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, General Secretary of NATO. I want to know whether the most powerful people on earth really do gather in private once a year in order to take charge of the world's fate. ‘Yes, those pictures were taken here’, says General Director B., a tall, handsome man in his mid-forties, with greying hair. His expression is frank, somewhat boyish even, if not mischievous. The reason why so few photos of the grandees of world politics were taken at this spot is that there is a large, secluded park at the back of the hotel where most of the Bilderbergers strolled when they wanted to stretch their legs.

The Bilderberg club has been touring the world for 60 years. It appears out of thin air, takes over an entire luxury hotel and then disappears again without trace. Not a word escapes from its meetings apart from a condescending press release after a day or two, giving the names of the participants and some vaguely formulated discussion topics. That's it. The Bilderbergers will never return: ‘The Bilderbergers’, says General Director B., ‘are a once in a lifetime experience.’ Between 5 and 8 May 2005, while they were conferring in his hotel, even he and his staff were locked out of the meeting rooms.

B. is above such things; he knows his limits. He doesn’t allow journalists to make him nervous, but he prevents them from becoming too inquisitive by giving a hint here and there. He does not refuse point blank to answer any questions at all but he won’t be pushed beyond a certain point, one which he determines himself. He can chat about the Bilderbergers for three quarters of an hour without giving away any great secrets. But trifling ones, yes. Sure, once in a while forgotten conference papers had been left lying around – but not a word about their content passes his lips. By comparison with other conferences, I ask him, are the topics discussed by the Bilderbergers merely a lot of hot air, or are they purposeful? ‘Purposeful’, he replies curtly. So it's not a matter of a nice party of the elite exchanging first names and business cards. It's a matter of taking decisions. ‘These people are impatient’, B. discloses. Impatient? ‘I can give you a tip: Keep an eye on the media over the first four to six weeks after a Bilderberg Conference, and watch what happens.’ Any details? No, no. Just see generally who loses his job and who gets taken on, which companies are bought and which are sold, who gets elected and who loses out.

Letting my thoughts wander for a moment, I think back to May 2005. The Bilderberg Conference beside Lake Tegernsee took place from 5 to 8 May. But what else happened? Was there anything else? Suddenly I remember: On 22 May, entirely out of keeping with his intentions thus far, German Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder surprisingly announced new elections, which it was only possible to set in train so quickly by applying dodgy constitutional stratagems. Six months later Angela Merkel became Chancellor. So what? Was Schröder a guest at the Bilderberg Conference? Reports say yes – but only for a few minutes. According to rumours: in order to collect the papers. I shall return to this later. And what else? Was Angela Merkel a guest at the conference? Oh, yes – and for rather longer than five minutes. And four months after that she was elected Federal Chancellor. I am beginning to believe that B. is right. I shall scrutinize the weeks following Bilderberg meetings more closely.

We now come to another topic. If we compare these meetings with those of the G8 Summit, do we perhaps gain the impression that the latter are nothing more than distractions while the serious stuff is played out at the meetings of the Bilderbergers? B. squirms a bit, but says nothing, though at least he doesn’t contradict me. I suddenly realize: The G8 Summits and other public events are nothing other than brightly-lit circus arenas in which bridled political performers show off their tricks. Presidents, Federal Chancellors, Prime Ministers are nothing more than circus horses. The ringmasters are elsewhere. They are the Bilderbergers or, more exactly, their hard core.

B. says nothing, but he sees that I have understood. Bright lights shine and cameras click where the circus horses prance. But it's pitch dark where the ringmasters meet: no camera teams, no press conferences, no interviews. Nothing. Or have you ever seen a meeting of ringmasters taking place in a circus arena? Of course not. The Bilderbergers hold their meetings as though in the backroom of our media society. And things become critical when the circus horses suddenly want to play at being ringmasters: ‘In view of certain scandalous cases, an independent observer might well reach the conclusion that the victim in question was obliged to lose his life for the very reason that, although he was a member of the elite circle, as time went on he chose either consciously or unconsciously to oppose its aims’, speculates author and Bilderberg observer Andreas von Rétyi. ‘Murders of this kind have also befallen Bilderbergers, murders that have never been solved nor the perpetrators found.’

There have indeed been several mysterious deaths among the Bilderbergers. Think of people like Alfred Herrhausen. The Director of Deutsche Bank was personally invited to Bilderberg meetings. ‘Herrhausen had presented the Bilderberg Conference, an influential and elite circle of politicians and industry leaders from all over the world, with some truly heretical suggestions,’ wrote Der Spiegel on 3 October 1988 in one of those quite casual mentions of the conference: ‘The banker recommended that participants should consider the matter of a debt reduction for the third world.’ As time went on the conflict about the debt reduction became increasingly bitter, especially between Deutsche Bank and some American finance institutions. About a year after the report in Der Spiegel, the banker was dead. He was suddenly murdered by ‘terrorists’ on 30 November 1989. The perpetrators have never been caught. Can there be any connection? Other Bilderbergers have also been killed, for example the boss of Dresdner Bank, Jürgen Ponto, murdered by ‘terrorists’ on 30 July 1977. Or Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, shot by an unknown killer on 28 February 1986. That culprit has also never been caught.

The air at the Dorint Sofitel suddenly feels bitterly cold; I order a coffee. ‘Mmm, the air up there is thin,’ says B., seemingly guessing my thoughts. ‘Even I feel it to some extent as the director of this hotel.’ Business cards go out of date quickly – his says ‘Deputy Director’. Yet he's already the General Director.

You feel the power these people have, says General Director B. And however unclear this whole thing is, the manager of this hotel, who moves among alpha men on a daily basis, is in no doubt at all as to the identity of the leader of the pack: ‘Kissinger’. Even though he's so small – uncannily small. Yes, I say, like Napoleon. B. laughs. I want to know more about Kissinger's influence. B. blocks. We’re back at his professional limit: no details. Despite this I note: Kissinger is the boss, the others are more likely to take orders. Apart from certain exceptions, such as David Rockefeller, who has been Kissinger's friend and mentor for decades.

I take my leave of Director B. and of the Dorint; in 2007 B. was made Director of the Dorint in the Baltic resort of Wustrow. A final look at the hall and the splashing, halogen-illuminated fountain. I’m still in the early days of my investigations, but I already know that the Bilderbergers really do exist. And I have breathed the same air – air that feels somewhat chilly.

Hotel De Bilderberg

Bilderberg: what an odd name. Initially I couldn’t imagine what it meant. Until I discovered that it was the name of the hotel at which this global elite had held its first ever conference: the Hotel De Bilderberg at Oosterbeek in Holland. So off I went to Oosterbeek. Not because I expected to find any great secrets still lurking there, but because I was a victim of that sense of unreality engendered by the total lack of any kind of reporting. The Bilderbergers felt like something virtual, almost resembling an organization in a novel, and I wanted to rid myself of this feeling. So one fine summer's day I extended a business trip to Düsseldorf northwards to Arnhem in Holland, of which Oosterbeek is a suburb. You drive northwards along the A57 towards Duisburg, Goch and Cleves where the landscape becomes ever flatter, flat as a pancake, interrupted only by geometrically laid out poplar groves. After passing the Hanseatic city of Nijmegen you carry on towards Arnhem, site of one of the last Allied defeats in World War II. The Rhine crossing was fought over bitterly here. In September 1944 the Allied military operation Market Garden failed in the face of fierce German opposition.

Today Arnhem bears little resemblance to the pretty post-card scenes found on Google Images. Combined with Nijmegen it's more of a great conurbation with 700,000 inhabitants, an uncouth urban landscape with concrete viaducts and bizarre multi-coloured high-rises. Two pale blue to pale green tower-blocks stand out; like New York's twin towers, they also house a World Trade Centre. I wind my way to Oosterbeek through the city chaos. Whether intentionally or not, the choice of a suburb of Arnhem for the location of the first Bilderberg Conference feels significant. In World War II the Allies had important headquarters here in their battle against Germany and for the globalized world which emerged from that war.

The British general Robert ‘Roy’ Urquhart, for example, who commanded the British First Airborne Division during the battle for the Rhine bridges, lodged at the Hartenstein Hotel, an old villa at Utrechtsweg 232 which is now an aviation museum. Another high-class villa on Utrechtsweg (no. 261 today) was the generously proportioned De Bilderberg country house. Built in 1918 in the midst of a beautifully wooded area, the property changed hands several times before being purchased by the hotel company De Tafelberg in 1925. Baths were installed in the bedrooms, and in the spring of 1926 the De Bilderberg Hotel opened for guests. Its capacity was doubled in 1933. During the battle for Arnhem and its bridges in September 1944 the De Bilderberg found itself between two fronts. Occupied by the Germans on 5 September, it was considerably damaged during the ensuing battles. Nevertheless, as it was still the largest building in the area it was from there that the post-war reconstruction measures were organized. In 1946 half the building reopened as a hotel with makeshift furnishings.

The hotel's sign at the roadside

Carpark for guests

When I arrived at the Utrechtsweg in 2008 my impression was that the De Bilderberg still values its seclusion. I drove along the street from Oosterbeek towards Doorwerth and back several times without finding any trace of it. I was about to give up when I noticed its ‘camouflaged’ signboard amongst the trees. A brown notice among brown tree trunks. You could hardly do a better job of hiding it, I thought. But is camouflage really the deeper purpose of a lodging such as this? Not really. So as I drove slowly up the narrow lane to the hotel complex I decided I’d have to give the management a hint about matters of marketing.

But that was a plan I immediately abandoned when I saw the hotel's carpark: row upon row of Dutch cars with bike racks on the back. Today, Hotel De Bilderberg is a favourite destination for cyclists looking for relaxation on their two-wheeled steeds. The hotel itself is an extended two-story complex with characteristic front-facing gables.

With its glass annexes and old winter-garden it has a whiff of the ‘magic mountain’. And in the interior, history and tradition are much in evidence. In part the furnishings might still belong to the 1950s when David Rockefeller and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands shook hands here in their bid to transform the military commander's hill on Utrechtsweg into a civilian one. You can picture the industrial directors of the economic miracle seated at the long conference table of burnished wood while animated ladies chat in the brightly-lit winter-garden with its impressive bar rather reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

A Chess game of the old world-order: The Hotel De Bilderberg – starting point of the Bilderberg conspiracy

Since the De Bilderberg is now a family hotel for (rather wealthy) day-trippers, the conference table looks positively antediluvian. Hardly anyone in today's hotel trade is interested in the establishment's history. But for the few who are inquisitive enough to ask, the reception desk does hand out an A4 page of information which even has a paragraph about the Bilderberg Conference:

The first Bilderberg Conference was held at the De Bilderberg Hotel in 1954. About one hundred influential heads of state, heads of government and industrialists were present. The aim of the Bilderberg Conference was to improve the strained relationship between Europe and America. The meeting was not public.... The initiator of the conference was Dr. Joseph H. Retinger from Poland who travelled a great deal in Europe and was acquainted with every important individual in Western Europe. Among others, he initiated collaboration with Prince Bernhard, who participated in the first conference and subsequently became the permanent chairman, a position he held until 1976. The success of the first Bilderberg Conference was such that the organizers decided to continue the conferences.

The old conference table at Hotel De Bilderberg

The winter-garden at Hotel De Bilderberg

Even in those days, over half a century ago, the place was ‘surrounded by guards, so that no journalist could approach within a kilometre of the hotel’, the information sheet declares.

Unbelievable! And what of nowadays?