By Dean Austen
Marton artist Robin Coleman will next month bring residents of a small German town face to face with their New Zealand saviour, Geoffrey Bedding.
After meeting one of Mr Bedding's daughters last year and hearing the story of how her father saved two villages from destruction in the Second
World War, Mr Coleman, a regular visitor to Germany, made a trip to the towns of Ahl and Bad Soden.
There he met civic leaders who commissioned the bronze sculpture which will be mounted as part of a memorial in Ahl built in the New Zealand soldier's honour in 1995.
"It will be moving for me and for them," said Mr Coleman, who leaves for Germany on May 10. "It's something very special between our two countries and I feel honoured to be involved in it."
Captured on Crete, Mr Bedding was imprisoned at a camp in the historic town of Bad Soden, about 80km from Frankfurt.
As the war drew to a close he managed to get a message to advancing American troops pleading for them to go easy on the tiny village after civilians feared their town would be destroyed.
He later saved neighbouring Ahl, which was under orders to be flattened after a German SS party had fired on American soldiers, killing a general's son. Mr Bedding convinced the American commander that this isolated incident should not bring massive retaliation on the civilian population, an act that earned him the everlasting gratitude of townspeople.
Mr Coleman worked on the sculpture using two photographs of Mr Bedding who died last year aged 87. One was taken in Egypt, the other of him later in civilian life.
"I looked at those photos and blended them to make someone a bit sad in the eyes after four years in a prisoner of war camp with the features of an old man. His wife saw it and immediately said `That's him'."
Sculptor Robin Coleman created the bronze after blending two photos of Geoffrey Bedding "to make someone a bit sad in the eyes after four years in a prisoner of war camp."HERALD PICTURE / MARK MITCHELL
