The cover of The Beatles “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” features John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and RIngo Starr in front of a collage of life-sized cardboard models of famous people and some of their hero’s. Most of the suggestions came from Lennon, McCartney and Harrison. Harrison opted for a number of Indian gurus to reflect his spiritual leanings while Lennon’s list, thought to be half-joking, included Jesus, Hitler and Gandhi.

Sir Peter Blake who designed the set said,

“Hitler and Jesus were the controversial ones, and after what John said about Jesus we decided not to go ahead with him – but we did make up the image of Hitler. If you look at photographs of the out-takes, you can see the Hitler image in the studio. With the crowd behind there was an element of chance about who you can and cannot see, and we weren’t quite sure who would be covered in the final shot. Hitler was in fact covered up behind the band.”

Check out the cut-out of Hitler set off to the side of the photo shoot.

Here is a photo of the Hitler cut-out on the stage before it was wisely removed and pushed over to the side…

Click below to see where the Sgt. Pepper photo shoot took place…

Photo Location For The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Album Cover