Thanks guest. Colour footage of German Battleships is quite rare.
Good spot regarding Lütjens. It does look very like him and probably is him. He would have been a full Admiral by the time of Operation Berlin in 1941 so the footage is almost certainly from early to mid 1940. 'Battleships of the Scharnhorst Class' by Koop & Schmolke report the turret tops as having been painted yellow in February 1940. They were changed to red during the invasion of Norway so that would appear to be the timeframe?
Screenshot posted for discussion purposes, copyright remains with the original owner:
Attachment:
Gneisenau April 1940 11.jpg
Interesting that there appears to be very little difference between the hull and superstructure colours when most sources report that they were different shades of grey as per German pre-war colour schemes, Dunkelgrau 50 Hull, Hellgrau 50 Superstructure. Of course it is possible both have faded to more closely resemble each other or that it is a quirk of the particular type of colour film used? Granted they were not massively dissimilar to start with either.
Also the waterline is very obviously dark grey and not black, compare it to the black trousers worn by the crew on deck. And the yellow turret tops are very consistent and properly painted on, not just a slapdash temporary effort. All in all a very interesting little piece of film I think.