This is the only color photographs of German soldiers who surrendered to the Allies in World War II. Sixty-four years ago this photo was taken by a lowly clerk who hid behind a tree, he was Ronald Playforth General Bernard Montgomery's clerk since D-Day. This relic remained in the family Pak Playforth before finally published for the first time when he was putting it.
In May 1945, the highest Nazi command Montgomery arrived at the headquarters in Luneburg Heath, near Hamburg to sign the papers to the German surrender in Europe. Until now the only image of the event that there is a formal black and white photos in the War Museum. Playforth when it was too low in rank to be present so he crept into the trees and bushes around the tent and took four photographs using color slides.
Shows a picture of Admiral Hans Georg von Friedeburg, the most senior member of the delegation, General Eberhard Kinzel, chief of staff of the German army north west, and Major Friedl, a 6ft 6ins Gestapo chief. They were received by Field Marshall Montgomery, with the customary black beret and military fatigues, which, when Germany tried to negotiate, reportedly gave them a 'tongue hit' about the bombing of Coventry and the horrors of Belsen. The delegation reported back to their headquarters and Admiral Karl Doenitz - Hitler's successor - and were given permission to sign the surrender documents, which they did the next day, May 4. When it's all over Montgomery is said to have sat back and just said: 'That concludes the surrender.' Two of the German delegation - Kinzel and Friedeburg - suicide weeks later by taking cyanide while Friedl died in a car accident.