London - Photographs of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler taken by a British secret agent two months before the outbreak of World War II were disclosed for the first time Wednesday, Britain's Press Association reported.

The snaps were taken by Charles Turner, a former British secret agent, at the Bayreuth Music Festival in July 1939.

Like Hitler, Turner was a regular visitor to the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth and was given unprecedented access to the Nazi leader, the report said.

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He was allowed to take whatever photos he liked because Hitler thought he was no more than a fellow music lover and had no idea he was a spy, Turner's family said.

His son, David, aged 64, made the photos, until now mere family mementoes, public for the first time.

They have been special in a sentimental way in the way many people have memorabilia which are priceless to them," said Turner, of West Bridgford, in the central county of Nottinghamshire.

"He regarded these photos as an extraordinary souvenir of a remarkable and fortuitous event," Turner said of his father, who died in 1977.