Living with the Enemy-The Story of the German Occupation of the Channel Islands 1940-1945, with eye-witness accounts from both sides. Foreword by Jack Higgins

163 Pages·2005·3.84 MB·English

by  Roy McLoughin

LIVING WITH THE ENEMY
An outline of the German Occupation of the Channel Islands with first hand
accounts by people who remember the years 1940 to 1945
Roy McLoughlin
CHANNEL ISLAND PUBLISHING
www.channelislandpublishing.com
First published by Starlight Publishing in 1995 This edition published in 2005
Channel Island Publishing Unit 3B Barette Commercial Centre La Route de Mont Mado St John, Jersey,
JE3 4DS
Cover design and overall production by Simon Watkins Page design and typesetting by Seaflower Books
Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
Printed by Cromwell Press
Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England
© 1995 and 2005 Simon Watkins
All rights resevred. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without prior permission of Simon Watkins.
ISBN 0 9525659 0 0
Publisher’s Note
Efforts were made to obtain permission to quote two shoirt excerpts from Islands in Danger by Alan and
Mary Seaton Wood amounting to five and twenty-one words respectively. The copyright was originally
held by Evans Brothers of 2A Portman Mansions, Chiltern Street, London, W1. The firm advises that it
does not possess records relating to the original publication in 1955 of Islands in Danger and that, in place
of its authorization, this proviso should be published here.
To
Ada and Donald Le Gallais
whose many recollections inspired this book.
For historical supervision
the publisher’s thanks are due to
Michael Ginns M.B.E.
of the Channel Islands Occupation Society. ...the tumult and the shouting dies;
the captains and the kings depart...
Kipling’s Recessional
...the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong...
Ecclestiastes IX
Time and the hour run through the roughest day...
Macbeth. Act 1, Scene 3.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements 8 Foreword by Jack Higgins 9
Part 1: THE PEOPLE Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
11 Opening Moves 13 Raiders from the Sky 21 Churchill’s Missionaries 28
Ways and Means 60 The First Year 66 Secret Radios & Deportations 74 The
Year of Fate 98 Islands Under Siege 108 Liberation and Aftermath 119
Part 2: THE BACKGROUND 147 Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Storm Warnings 149 The Sinews of Government 156 Food and Health 162
Bargaining and Compromise 167 Hitler’s Island Projects 173 Moves behind the
Scenes 179 End-Game 183
Part 3: THE GERMANS 195
Chapter 17 Close-up of the Occupiers 197
Chapter 18 Arguments and Conclusions 208
About the author 218
Bibliography 219
Index 220
Acknowledgements
Plates: Pages 2, 36-59, 88-97, 126-146, 188-193.
The publishers acknowledge, with thanks, permission to reproduce photographs
supplied by:
Bundesarchiv, Germany
Carel Toms Collection
Channel Islands Military Museum Imperial War Museum
Jersey Evening Post
Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive Channel Islands Occupation Society
Priaulx Library, Guernsey
Richard Mayne Collection
Franz Zurhorst Collection
Foreword
by Jack Higgins
T
he Channel Islands hold a unique place in British history, not least because
during the Second World War they were the only part of the British Isles to be
occupied by the Nazis. For five long years the Swastika flew here in place of the
occupied by the Nazis. For five long years the Swastika flew here in place of the
Union Jack and all the worst excesses of Nazi rule were present in some form or
other.
The iron fist in the velvet glove policy did not last long. The Secret Field Police
employed Gestapo operatives on secondment and many Islanders soon
experienced the horror of the early morning knock on the door leading to brutal
interrogation in a manner familiar elsewhere in occupied Europe.
Only those who experienced the Occupation know the anguish of it and it has
always been particularly distressing to those who lived through it when outsiders
complain that there was no resistance movement in the Islands. Logic alone
makes it clear that such action was simply not possible in so small an area and
yet many thousands of Channel Islanders received prison sentences of one kind
or another for contravening the law of the jackboot. To be a Jew was a crime
under the anti-Semitic laws and even keeping a radio to listen to the BBC news
broadcasts meant a stiff prison sentence.
Many Islanders went further, assisting Russian slave workers and others on the
run, eventually being sentenced to terms in French prisons or concentration
camps such as Ravensbruck and Belsen. In some cases they died there.
As in all occupied countries a small number of people collaborated with the
enemy. That fact is meaningless when considered in the context of the unfailing
loyalty of the vast majority of Channel Islanders who stubbornly persisted in the
face of armed might and brute force in fighting their own war of non co-
operation. They never lost faith in their belief that one day liberation would
come.
Living with the Enemy is a stunning account of how a small population with a
belief in themselves, their own integrity and loyalty to the Crown were able to
stand up to a country which at the time controlled the whole of Europe but most
importantly played their own part in the eventual destruction of the Third Reich.
About Jack Higgins
Master thriller writer and international bestseller Jack Higgins has written many
political and war novels totalling nearly seventy titles. Many have been
translated into 60 languages and 13 of these have been transformed from page to
screen in the form of films or series. Arguably the most successful is The Eagle
has Landed which has sold well over 50 million copies to date. Jack Higgins has
lived in Jersey for over 24 years and in which time has taken a special interest in
the German Occupation of the Channel Islands. He is also the Patron of The
Jersey Film Society.
Part 1
The People
with grateful acknowledgements to all persons interviewed
Chapter 1
Opening Moves
T
he year 1940 is simply a date in the history books for most people of the
generation born since the war. For them it stands for a list of historical events -
the evacuation from Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain and the blitz on London. But
for others living at the time 1940 marked the beginning of a new chapter in their
lives. There are men and women in the Channel Islands whose memories will
always go back to the Nazi Occupation in all its phases, from the invasion under
the blue skies of midsummer to the dramatic last days five years later as Hitler’s
army collapsed in the ruins of Germany.
army collapsed in the ruins of Germany.
Islanders who were then children or teenagers will never forget the sight of
German soldiers marching in the streets of St. Helier and St. Peter Port,
accompanied by the blaring brass of military bands. A few Sarkees still speak of
troops in uniform kit strolling along the Avenue or patrolling the Sark cliffs.
It all happened long ago and now seems as insubstantial as a dream. With the
passing years more and more people disappear from the ranks of the living and
their memories of the German Occupation go with them. Yet it seems that an
account of the years 1940 to 1945 should contain the personal experiences of
individuals in the Islands while relating them to the wider perspective of Europe
at war. Victories and defeats as great armies pursue each other across the
Continent and in Africa provide a matrix for the main events of the time but a
closer view of what the conflict did to life in the Channel Islands shows what is
now history in human terms. The realities of daily life under an alien military
power, with all its rules and regulations, brings into focus both Islanders and
Germans in this ill-assorted wartime community.
It was in the nineteen thirties that the first signs appeared of the storm to come
when a tidal wave of conquest would sweep over western Europe and eventually
engulf the Channel Islands. Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933.
Almost at once the new Nazi administration took over the Army and civil affairs,
extending to total control of newspapers, books, radio and films, thus ensuring
that Hitler’s message went out loud and clear to everyone in the land.
As if this were not enough, the new Minister of Propaganda, Dr Joseph
Goebbels, devised the spectacle of the mass rally where marching troops,
speeches and patriotic songs aroused a wild adoration of the Führer among the
thousands assembled on these occasions and spread a powerful nationalism
throughout the country among millions listening to the radio.
Every Nazi rally had as its climax the appearance of Hitler himself, stage
managed by Dr Goebbels to look like a miraculous visitation. When Hitler spoke
he mesmerised his people as if gifted with a strange power even though his
actual words were hardly more than an hysterical repetition of boasts, threats and
accusations against the leaders of neighbouring countries. At the Berlin Sports
Palace in 1937 he addressed the rally in his typical theatrical style.
Germany will take its rightful place in the world. I make this promise to the
German people. I shall never submit my destiny and the destiny of Germany to
the dictates of those in Europe who call themselves statesmen. These small-
minded nonentities cannot even provide their own people with the necessities of
life and yet they rule three quarters of the world. They are the men of 1918 who
betrayed the German nation. I will not allow Germany to contribute to the
profits of the London Stock Exchange and international Jewry. This infamous
plutocratic clique would condemn us to starvation. But such crimes cannot go
on. Our army will have the greatest, the most modern weapons in the world. I
promise this. We shall be united in our struggle for a greater Germany. Ein
Volk. Ein Reich. Ein Führer.
The applause, the shouts and the fanfares which always followed a Hitler speech
and the well-drilled chorus of Sieg Heils should have warned the Governments
of Britain and France that a dangerous beast was stirring the heart of Germany.
But disagreements between politicians, both British and French, caused a
paralysis among those trying to work out a policy for dealing with the Nazi
menace.
In the meantime, the German Army was on the move. It had marched into the
demilitarised zone of the Rhineland against the provisions of an international
treaty. To Hitler international treaties were merely scraps of paper to be torn up
when inconvenient. Austria was the next to be taken over - then the German
speaking area of Czechoslovakia and finally the entire country from end to end.
The governments of France and Britain preferred to condone the German
expansion into Central Europe rather than risk a war. By the summer of 1939
Hitler was demanding the port of Danzig and on September 1st German forces
crossed the frontier of Poland.
At last action had to be taken because Poland’s frontiers had been guaranteed
jointly by Britain and France. On Sunday morning, September 3rd, people all
over Britain switched on their radio sets to hear the Prime Minister, Neville
Chamberlain, make his fateful announcement to the nation.
I am speaking to you from the cabinet room in Downing Street. This morning the
British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note
stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were
prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland a state of war would
exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been