
Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery signing the Instrument of Surrender of the German Armies in the northern part of Germany at Lüneberg Heath 4th May 1945. Image: Malindine E G (Capt), No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit. Public Domain. From the archive collections of the Imperial War Museum.
It is not widely known that a senior Goldsmiths lecturer played a key military and translation role in the surrender of Germany and bringing an end to the Second World War in Europe.
Norman Kirby was a valued member of General Bernard Montgomery’s headquarters’ military security. He was fluent in French and German and he was selected by ‘Monty’ to be the British soldier who translated and provided the words in German to Field Marshal Keitel delivering the Allies’ final terms for the surrender of all their armed forces.
Norman also witnessed and experienced the worst of war’s cruelty in France, Belgium and Germany which would, he poignantly observed, endure through the mutilation of minds as well as bodies.
At Goldsmiths he was a leading figure in the Education Department. He wrote a memoir which stands out as one of the most thoughtful and humanitarian accounts of the Second World War.
His writing is eloquent and memorable, and it can be argued his work deserves wider recognition.