Derek Knee

Knee attended Cheltenham Grammar School, where his father was the headmaster, and he spent a summer with a family in Germany which helped him to become fluent in the language.^[1] He then read Modern Languages at Christ's College, Cambridge for a year until he was commissioned as an officer in the Dorset Regiment. His language skills led to postings to a course on the interrogation of prisoners of war and to a censorship unit in London. After D-Day he served at Second Army Headquarters under General Miles Dempsey, identifying German units and estimating their strengths.

On 2 May 1945, Knee was told to report to Field Marshal Montgomery's 21st Army Group Tactical Headquarters on Lüneburg Heath the next day, where a German delegation arrived with a letter from Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel which he translated for Montgomery. The delegation said they did not have authority to agree to the unconditional surrender terms stipulated by Montgomery; they were provided with a lunch with wine and brandy. The next day they returned with another delegate and signed the surrender document in a carpeted tent, witnessed by war correspondents. Knee was later directed to travel to Flensburg to take into custody Karl Dönitz – at that time Germany's head of state – and transport him to the airport. Upon his return to Lüneburg, he saw the body of Heinrich Himmler who had committed suicide in British custody.