Bert Brandt

This remarkable Type 1 silver gelatin press photograph captures one of the most unusual and humane moments of the Normandy campaign. Seated quietly on a bench outside a war-scarred building near Cherbourg, a group of German military nurses await transportation—not into captivity, but back to their own lines.

Taken only days after the fierce Allied capture of the port city, the image records a rare pause in hostilities. During the fighting around Cherbourg, Allied forces captured nine German nurses. Lacking clear precedent for handling non-combatant female medical personnel in this context, Allied commanders made an extraordinary decision: the nurses would be returned.

As documented on the original verso caption, hostilities temporarily ceased while two ambulances crossed no-man’s land, carrying the nurses from Allied-held Cherbourg back across the front lines, where they were formally received by a German (Nazi) major. In the midst of total war, this fleeting act of restraint stands as a stark contrast to the destruction surrounding it.

The women’s expressions—some fatigued, some faintly smiling—reveal the human dimension of war often lost in grand strategy. Behind them, armed Allied soldiers remain alert, underscoring how fragile this moment of mercy truly was. The photograph freezes an instant where the laws of war, humanitarian convention, and battlefield improvisation converged.

Bert Brandt was an Allied War Pool photographer whose images were nationally distributed during World War II. Working under military censorship, he documented frontline and humanitarian moments of the European campaign. Brandt’s surviving Type 1 press prints are valued for their authenticity, rarity, and historical importance.