The Centre - History of the Houses and Plaque

The houses on the site of the Centre were built around the turn of the 20th century. Initially they were surrounded by vineyards, the Ticino being well-known for its rich local red wine.

The plaque on the small pink house adjacent to the large rambling house of the actual Centre commemorates the secret negotiations for the surrender of the German forces in Italy in 1945 at the end of World War II, whereby it is calculated that thousands of lives were spared.

Dr Edmund Stinnes, from a prominent German entrepreneurial family, made his home in Ascona in neutral Switzerland available for these delicate meetings which Major Max Weibel, Director of the Military Intelligence in Lucern, helped organise. Edmund Stinnes’s brother-in-law, Gero von Schulze Gaevernitz, was the special assistant of Allen W. Dulles, head of the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) at the time. Gero von Gaevernitz, who was renowned for his diplomacy, tact, humor and powers of persuasion, had a crucial mediating role during the negotiations that took place between representatives of the Allied Forces and the German emissaries.   

The Centre’s orientation to ‘Encourage Understanding, Respect and Peace Internationally’ is in tune with the ideals held by the Stinnes-Gaevernitz family. These resonate with aspirations of human beings found in all strata of society who labour, often quietly and invisibly, to bring together the people of the Earth.