TRANSLATED SURRENDER
preter and the aid of maps, Montgomery impressed upon the officers the hopelessness of the German position and told them to return the next day with the necessary authorisation.
By May 4 the story had gone around the world.
At Lüneburg Heath a carpeted tent had filled with war correspondents. Montgomery, sitting at the head of the table, read out the instrument of surrender.
Each of the delegates – Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, General Eberhard Kinzel, Rear Admiral Gerhard Wagner and Colonel Fritz Poleck – was ordered to sign in turn.
Two weeks after the surrender was signed, Cpt Knee was one of the group who went to arrest Dönitz and the rest of the German government in Flensburg.
Directed to take him into custody, it was here that he saw the body of Heinrich Himmler – one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany – who had committed suicide in British custody.
Later that year, in August 1945, Derek also worked as a translator during the Potsdam Peace Treaty.
Derek was the last surviving member of the military staff who negotiated the surrender at Luneburg Heath in north Germany.
Derek Knee died on March 2014, aged 91.
Nine years before his death, Derek told the Western Mail about the “extraordinary” surrender of Germany army chiefs to Monty in a tent at his headquarters near Hamburg, which set off a chain of events culminating in Victory in Europe Day on May 8, 1945.
“We were all a bit taken aback,” said Captain Knee, who had been chosen to act as translator after studying French and German at Cambridge University before becoming caught up in the conflict.
“We couldn’t really grasp the significance of what was happening.
“It appeared to be much less important than it really was.
“It didn’t occur to us it was the end of the war.”
Captain Knee said his colonel came over to him and said the delegation needed a German-speaking officer.
“To start with I didn’t know who 18, they were,” he said.
He remembered having to translate Monty’s often brusque words during the two days of negotiations in the woods.
“If you had been there at the time you would have thought he was addressing a group of vacuum cleaner salesmen because he just said, ‘What do you want?’ really very abruptly, very sharply,” Mr Knee said.
“He was not prepared to make any concessions.
“They said they’d come to discuss certain matters which (Admiral) Dönitz, who had taken over from Hitler, thought they should discuss.
“They presented a letter which they were supposed to read to Montgomery but, of course, he couldn’t understand it so it found its way into my hands.”