Michael Trede, director of the surgical clinic at Mannheim, was a world-renowned surgeon, a world authority on pancreatic and liver surgery. He was born in Hamburg, Germany on 28 October 1928, the son of two musicians, Hilmar Trede and Gertrud Trede née Daus. His mother was from a Jewish family but converted to Christianity. Because of her background, in March 1933 she was forced to leave her post teaching music in Marienau and was advised to move to Hamburg. By then she had separated from her husband and she attempted to obtain a place for Michael in an Alpine school, however it was scheduled to close and six months before the start of the Second World War Michael fled with his mother to England. The rest of his mother’s family perished in concentration camps. Michael attended Bunce Court School in Kent, a private school mainly attended by the children of Jewish expatriates from Germany. He was educated there during the war years and then attended what he described as ‘various elite schools’, ultimately gaining a scholarship to Cambridge to study medicine, qualifying in 1953. By this time he was a naturalised Briton and had to undertake National Service. He became a captain in the RAMC in West Berlin, where he met Fritz Linder, director of the surgical clinic at the Free University of Berlin, who remained a mentor, guide and friend throughout his life. It was in Berlin that he also met his wife, Ursula Boettcher, a church musician who over the years enchanted many delegates attending conferences organised by Michael with her piano and organ recitals. Linder and Ursula persuaded Michael to return to Germany and this he did in 1959. Michael remained with Linder between 1959 and 1962 in Berlin and accompanied him to Heidelberg, where the latter had been appointed professor of surgery in 1962. There he stayed until 1972, although he took a year out between 1959 and 1960 to study extracorporeal circulation under the direction of William P Longmire at the University of California. In 1972 Trede became director of the surgical clinic at Mannheim, finally retiring in 1998. During his professional career, Michael practised a wide spectrum of surgery encompassing thoracic and open heart surgery, vascular surgery and kidney transplantation, but his main interest was pancreatic and liver surgery, on which he was a world authority. His reputation as a master surgeon was sealed by his publication of a report of 118 pancreaticoduodenectomies without mortality (‘Survival after pancreatoduodenectomy. 118 consecutive resections without an operative mortality’ *Ann Surg.* 1990 Apr;211[4]:447-58). He published widely and for almost 30 years (from 1968 to 1997) he was editor of *Langenbeck’s Archives of Surgery*. Of unique interest was his use of drawing to record his operations, 100 of which were illustrated in his book *The art of surgery: exceptional cases – unique solutions* (Thieme Medical Publishers, 1999). He was an honorary member of 20 surgical societies including all four surgical Royal Colleges in the British Isles. During his career, he held the several presidencies, notably the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chirurgie (German Society of Surgery) and the International Society of Surgery. He summarised his career in his autobiography Der rückkehrer: skizzenbuch eines chirurgen (Ecomed, 2003). Although he had to flee from his country, he remained a German and ultimately proud of his country’s culture and scientific reputation. Still, however, he modelled his persona on the archetypal British gentleman, some would say aristocrat. Always immaculately dressed and perfectly groomed (apart, perhaps, after few days climbing in the Alps, which he adored), he spoke perfect English, and was always ready to play his violin. In 1994, when it was his turn to organise the German meeting of the International Surgical Group, a society he cherished, the banquet was in the magnificent Schwetzingen Palace, which Mozart had visited three time to perform before the Electors. Also held on that occasion was an informal social evening in a country inn, where the guests were greeted by a fanfare of trumpeters and a knight in armour rode into the courtyard, a display somehow befitting this remarkable man. Michael Trede died on 11 May 2019 at the age of 90.