War heroine, 91, sells dress she made from liberated Nazi flag... so she can buy flatscreen TV

A wartime heroine who made a unique evening dress from a huge Nazi flag seized from the Reichstag has had to sell it after 66 years.

Beatrice Jackman - a secret agent in World War II - wore the exquisite red garment at parties and balls held to celebrate the end of the war.

Her soldier fiancé had liberated the flag that was hung from a balcony at the prominent Nazi building in Berlin before it was turned into ruins.

After cutting out the black and white swastika emblem, she had the red fabric made into the full-length dress which she kept in her wardrobe ever since.

Red flag: Beatrice Jackman made the unique evening dress from a Nazi flag seized from the Reichstag but, with failing eyesight, she has had to auction the gown to buy a larger television

Wartime heroine: Beatrice, pictured here in 1945, wore the exquisite red garment to parties and balls held to celebrate the end of the war

But now aged 91 and with failing eyesight, Beatrice has sold the gown at auction for 2,100 pounds - and intends to buy a huge flatscreen TV with her windfall.

Beatrice, who moved to England after the war to marry, had been living in Denmark at the outbreak of the conflict in 1939.

As a teenager, she was tasked with taking messages around local villages on her bike and was so successful she was recruited by the Danish government as a Special Operations Executive.

She risked her life by working for the resistance, hiding Allied airmen who had been shot down, and was involved in attacking the Nazi HQ records department in 1942.

Jackman cut the Nazi emblem out of a flag like this one, using the red fabric to make the dress

In 1943, she was forced to flee to Sweden after assisting Danish Jews and worked there as a translator until the end of the war.

After moving back to her home country she was visited by her then-fiance, a Major Parsons, who drove a Mercedes car he had taken from Herman Goring himself.

The romantic US major gave Beatrice the enormous Nazi flag he had swiped from the Berlin Reichstag balcony in September 1945.

She had the striking red material sent away to a dressmaker, who turned it into an elegant scoop necked gown.

Tragically, the major died of pneumonia just four months before the young couple were due to marry.

Beatrice, from Surrey, later met and married an Englishman and had one daughter.

She kept the dress, made from a high quality cotton, carefully stored for decades until it was sold by Bosleys Military Auctioneers in Marlow, Bucks.

Her friend and neighbour Philip Douetil, a 62-year-old antique restorer, said: 'Beatrice is an amazing lady and has had a truly remarkable life.

'She's very modest and doesn't think her exploits are terribly special, but the tales she has to tell are incredible.





'This dress is made out of a Nazi flag given to her by her fiancé after the war.

'Back then material was very hard to come by and she had it made into this gown.

'She said she wore it to balls and galas in Denmark, as well as parties to celebrate the end of the war.

After the war: A soldier surveys the Reichstag building in Berlin, after it was destroyed in May 1945. The flag which became Beatrice's dress hung on the outside of the historic building



'She was very shocked and surprised at how much it sold for.

'She has mentioned buying a big new television with the money because her eyesight is too poor now to see her little old one.'

Auctioneer Stephen Bosley said: 'In the war, luxury goods were at a premium and material was incredibly difficult to get hold of.



'If an airman came down with a parachute, for example, the ladies would be in there like a rat up a drainpipe to make things out of the fabric.



'So while this may have come from an enemy she hated, it was a lovely bit of material.



'Ladies were often accomplished dressmakers back then and this is a wonderful dress - you can imagine it in the pages of a fashion magazine.



'It is quite literally unique. To have a dress made from a Nazi flag taken from the Reichstag is something in itself, but this is exceptionally stylish piece.



'It's a beautiful cut and I'm sure she would have looked stunning in it at the time.