German occupation of the Channel Islands

Anticipating a swift victory over Britain, the occupying German forces initially experimented by using a moderate approach to the non-Jewish population, supported by local collaborators.

The Battle of France was reaching its climax on Empire Day, 24 May, when King George VI addressed his subjects by radio, saying, "The decisive struggle is now upon us ... Let no one be mistaken; it is not mere territorial conquest that our enemies are seeking.

The legislatures met in public; smaller executive bodies that could meet behind closed doors enabled freer discussion of matters such as the extent of compliance with German orders.

[1] In Guernsey, the States of Deliberation voted on 21 June 1940 to hand responsibility for island affairs to a controlling committee, under Attorney-General Ambrose Sherwill MC, age 50, chosen because he was younger and more robust than the 69-year-old Bailiff, Victor Carey.

In St. Peter Port, the main town of Guernsey, some lorries lined up to load tomatoes for export to England were mistaken by the reconnaissance flights for troop carriers.

[16]: 7 While the Wehrmacht was preparing Operation Grünpfeil (Green Arrow), a planned invasion of the islands with assault troops comprising two battalions, a reconnaissance pilot, Hauptmann Liebe-Pieteritz, made a test landing at Guernsey's deserted airfield on 30 June to determine the level of defence.

Feldkommandantur 515 headed by Colonel Friedrich Schumacher arrived on 9 August 1940 in Jersey to establish a civil affairs command structure, with a Nebenstelle in Guernsey (also covering Sark), an Aussenstelle in Alderney, and a logistics Zufuhrstelle in Granville.

"[21] Controlling Committee President Sherwill seems to have expressed the views of a majority of the islanders on 18 July 1940 when he complained about a series of abortive raids by British commandos on Guernsey.

Had the island leaders, he said, "simply kept their heads above water and done what they were told to do by the occupying power it would hardly be a matter for censure; but they carried the administrative war into the enemy camp on many occasions.

He accused both Jersey's police and government of going unpunished despite collaborating with the German occupation by reporting the island's Jews to the Nazis, many of whom were subsequently sent to Auschwitz and Belsen.

Paid foreign labour was recruited from occupied Europe, including French, Belgian, and Dutch workers, among whom were members of resistance movements who used the opportunity to travel to gain access to maps and plans.

In the face of threats of conscription and deportation to France, resistance to the demands led to an ongoing tussle over the interpretation of the Hague Convention and the definition of military and non-military works.

As many of the islands' young men had joined the armed forces at the outbreak of war, there was a shortfall in manual labour on the farms, particularly for the potato crop; 150 registered conscientious objectors associated with the Peace Pledge Union and 456 Irish workers were recruited for Jersey.

The Nazi Organisation Todt operated each camp and used a mixture of volunteer and forced labour to build bunkers, gun emplacements, air raid shelters, and concrete fortifications.

[51][52] The Minotaur, carrying 468 Organisation Todt workers including women and children from Alderney, was hit by Royal Canadian Navy motor torpedo boats near St Malo; about 250 of the passengers were killed by the explosions or by drowning, on 5 July 1944.

Local officials made some effort to mitigate anti-Semitic measures by the Nazi occupying force, and as such refused to require Jews to wear identifying yellow stars and had most former Jewish businesses returned after the war.

[62] Using this cell, Norman Le Brocq helped create an umbrella organisation known as the Jersey Democratic Movement (JDM), to unite both communist and non-communist resistance across the island.

[11] Willmott estimated that over 200 people in Jersey provided material and moral support to escaped forced workers, including over 100 who were involved in the network of safe houses sheltering escapees.

As a sign of resistance, he incorporated into the design for the 3d stamp the script initials GR (for Georgius Rex) on either side of the "3" to display loyalty to King George VI.

The illegality and injustice of the measure, in contrast to the Germans' earlier showy insistence on legality and correctness, outraged those who remained behind and encouraged many to turn a blind eye to the resistance activities of others in passive support.

The RAF carried out the first bombing raids in 1940 even though there was little but propaganda value in the attacks, the risk of hitting non-military targets was great and there was a fear of German reprisals against the civilian population.

[1] Twenty-two Allied air attacks on the Channel Islands during the war resulted in 93 deaths and 250 injuries, many being Organisation Todt workers in the harbours or on transports.

[76] Sir Donald Banks felt that there must be an informed voice and body of opinion among exiled Guernseymen and women that could influence the British Government, and assist the insular authorities after the hostilities were over.

[77] In 1942, he was approached by the Home Office to see if anything could be done to get over a reassuring message to the islanders, as it was known that, despite the fact that German authorities had banned radios, the BBC was still being picked up secretly in Guernsey and Jersey.

[81] In August 1944, the German Foreign Ministry made an offer to Britain, through the Swiss Red Cross, that would see the release and evacuation of all Channel Island civilians except for men of military age.

Churchill made a radio broadcast at 15:00 during which he announced that: Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight tonight, but in the interests of saving lives the "Cease fire" began yesterday to be sounded all along the front, and our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed today.

The UK Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, visited Guernsey on 14 May and Jersey on 15 May and offered an explanation in person to the States in both bailiwicks as to why it had been felt in the interests of the islands not to defend them in 1940 and not to use force to liberate them after D-Day.

As a result of resentment by the local population about not being allowed to control their own land, the Home Office set up an enquiry that led to the "Government of Alderney Law 1948", which came into force on 1 January 1949.

[citation needed] After World War II, a court-martial case was prepared against ex-SS Hauptsturmführer Max List (the former commandant of Lagers Norderney and Sylt), citing atrocities in Alderney.

[97] Unlike in the rest of Europe, German collaborators who had given information which led to the deportation of the Island's Jewish population to Belsen and Auschwitz were never punished by the British government.

As part of the Atlantic Wall , between 1940 and 1945 the occupying German forces and the Organisation Todt constructed fortifications around the coasts of the Channel Islands such as this observation tower at Battery Moltke .
Memorial in Saint Peter Port: "This plaque commemorates the evacuation of children and adults ahead of the occupation of the island by German forces in June 1940. Four-fifths of the children and altogether almost half the population of Guernsey were transported to England so that scarcely a family was undivided. À la perchoine."
1940: A group of girls evacuated from the Channel Islands to Marple , on mainland Britain, try on clothes and shoes donated by the United States.
German soldiers in Jersey
German soldiers marching before a Boots pharmacy in the British Channel Islands, 1940s
Orders of the Commandant of the German Forces in Occupation of the Island of Jersey , 2 July 1940
An identity card issued to an islander in January 1941.
Bunker in St Ouen's Bay, Jersey
Plaques: "To Republican Spaniards victims of Nazism 1942–1945" – "In memory of Polish people who lost their lives in Jersey in the war against Nazism 1942–1945"
Plaque on bench "In memory of Clifford Joe Gavey who died 27/8/2006 aged 85 years from 1939–1945 worked as a labourer on this road Route du Nord during the German Occupation", Route du Nord, Saint John, Jersey
Entrance to the German Underground Hospital in Jersey
Alderney is still covered in German fortifications built by camp slave labour
Plaque in Saint Peter Port to the memory of three Jewish residents of Guernsey who were deported and murdered in the Holocaust at Auschwitz
This plaque in Saint Peter Port commemorates 1,003 illegally deported people from Guernsey, and in particular, 16 individual deportees who died in captivity and others who died in prisons and labour camps
Plaque: "From the rear of this building 1,186 English born residents were deported to Germany in September 1942. In February 1943 a further 89 were deported from another location in St. Helier."
Memorial, St. Helier: "In memoriam: between 1940 and 1945, more than 300 islanders were taken from Jersey to concentration camps and prisons on the continent, for political crimes committed against the German occupying forces."
Plaque: "During the period of the German occupation of Jersey, from 1 July 1940 to 9 May 1945, many inhabitants were imprisoned for acts of protest and defiance against the Occupation Forces in H.M. Prison, Gloucester Street, which stood on this site. Others were deported and held in camps in Germany and elsewhere from which some did not return."
During the German occupation of Jersey , a stonemason repairing the paving of the Royal Square incorporated a V for victory under the noses of the occupiers. This was later amended to refer to the Red Cross ship Vega . The addition of the date 1945 and a more recent frame has transformed it into a monument.
Plaque on war memorial, Saint Ouen, Jersey , to Louisa Mary Gould, victim of Nazi concentration camp Ravensbrück : Louisa Mary Gould, née Le Druillenec, mise à mort en 1945 au camp de concentration de Ravensbrück en Allemagne .
Louisa Gould hid a wireless set and sheltered an escaped Soviet prisoner. Betrayed by an informer at the end of 1943, she was arrested and sentenced on 22 June 1944. In August 1944 she was transported to Ravensbrück where she died on 13 February 1945. In 2010 she was posthumously awarded the honour British Hero of the Holocaust .
British newspaper dropped on the islands shortly after the occupation, in September 1940
A low-level oblique photograph taken from one of 3 Bristol Beauforts of No. 86 Squadron RAF, attacking shipping in St Peter Port, Guernsey. The aircraft are passing over St Julian's Pier at its junction with White Rock Pier: bombs can be seen falling from the aircraft in the left-hand corner, which was itself nearly hit by bombs dropped from the photographing aircraft (seen exploding at the bottom).
"Let 'em starve. No fighting. They can rot at their leisure." Winston Churchill, 27 September 1944. This quote is displayed at Jersey War Tunnels
Plaque in the Royal Square, St Helier: On 8 May 1945 from the balcony above Alexander Moncrieff Coutanche , Bailiff of Jersey, announced that the island was to be liberated after five years of German military occupation. On 10 May 1985, the Duchess of Kent unveiled this plaque to commemorate the Liberation.
A scene on board HMS Bulldog during the first conference with Kapitänleutnant Zimmermann prior to the signing of the surrender document which liberated the Channel Islands on 9 May 1945. Left to right around the table are: Admiral Stuart (Royal Navy), Brigadier A E Snow (Chief British Emissary), Captain H Herzmark (Intelligence Corps), Wing Commander Archie Steward (Royal Air Force), Lieutenant Colonel E A Stoneman, Major John Margeson, Colonel H R Power (all of the British Army) and Kapitänleutnant Zimmermann (German Kriegsmarine).
10 May 1945: The restoration of British administration is proclaimed
Arrival of British troops at St Peter Port , Guernsey in May 1945