Transcription
My name's Dan Snow and I wanna tell you about History Hit TV, it's like the Netflix for history. Hundreds of exclusive documentaries and interviews with the world's best historians. We've got an exclusive offer available to fans of Timeline. If you go to History Hit TV, you can either follow the information below this video, or just Google History Hit TV and use the code Timeline, you get a special introductory offer, go and check it out. In the meantime, enjoy this video.
(majestic music)
- [Alexander] John Nettles is one of TV's best known detectives. Yet, apart from being an actor, Nettles is also a historian and he's long been intrigued by a little known chapter of World War II.
(intense upbeat music)
The British Channel Islands have been a peaceful summer resort until in 1940, they came under the jackboot of Hitler's wehrmacht. For five years, the islanders had to endure the rigors of occupation. It's a unique story of British soil under German rule, of war and of love, of Hitler's England told by John Nettles.
(intense upbeat music)
The Channel Islands were the working home of John Nettles for more than a decade.
(waves crashing)
In the 1980s, the British actor found fame in the long running TV series "Bergerac", playing the title character of Jersey Bay's detective sergeant, Jim Bergerac. When the final episode was completed in 1991, Nettles had spent 11 years on the Channel Islands.
(lively music)
Today, to audiences the world over, he's chief inspector Tom Barnaby of "Midsomer Murders".
- [Walking Man] I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name this morning.
- This is DC Jones, by the way, my name is Barnaby. Tom Barnaby. And we'd like a little chat with you in private, please.
(birds squawking)
- [Alexander] Before becoming an actor, Nettles had studies history at the University of Southampton. Born in 1943, the history of World War II, and in particular, the fate of the Channel Islands during those years, hold a special fascination for him.
(birds squawking)
- The most extraordinary experience that's happened in the history of the Channel Islands was, of course, the second World War and the occupation by the Germans, and it gave them a special status in the history of the United Kingdom. And it was an experience which was, one can only say, pretty awful.
- [Alexander] For years, Nettles has been digging into the islands' archives and collecting accounts from contemporary witnesses.
(upbeat music)
He finally published the results of his efforts in the book titled "Jewels and Jackboots". We follow him as he retraces his search for the scars the war has left on the islands, and on its inhabitants.
(upbeat music)
Before the war, Jersey was famous for its potatoes,
(light music)
whereas on Guernsey, farmers were proud of their succulent tomatoes. Another typical feature of the Islands were the Jersey and Guernsey cattle, both small and hearty breeds.
(cows mooing)
Tourism was a more recent source of income. Affluent visitors from Britain flocked to the islands in summertime.
(bright music)
(water splashing)
(plane engine roaring)
May 1940, Hitler strikes in the west.
(tank engines roaring)
The German Army crushes France in a mere six weeks. By mid June, the remnants of the British Army, sent to fight alongside the French, has been driven from the continent. German units are patrolling the French Channel coastline, the aggressor is at the doorstep of the British Channel Islands.
(engines roaring)
Situated of the coasts of Brittany and Normandy, the islands are separated from the mainland by just 14 miles of open water. There's Jersey, the largest island, and seat of the capital, St. Helier. Then slightly smaller Guernsey, and smaller still, Sark and Alderney.
(intense music)
Now they're in the sights of the fieriest soldiers eager to raise their flag on English soil. At least, that's how the Germans view it.
(intense music)
- We're not part of the United Kingdom, we are the last possessions of the English Crown as apart from the government in Europe, and we have been autonomous since 1204. It's not something recent.
- [Alexander] But the Islanders are loyal subjects of The Crown, and proud of it.
(bright music)
- They certainly, being part of the British Empire, if you'd like, had a propaganda value, and this value was very much appreciated by Hitler, and Goebbels of course, who saw that if they could get a foot inside the door of the British Empire, this will be one of the most tremendous propaganda coos ever.
(intense music)
- [Alexander] There's no way of defending the islands by military means. Even Britain's pugnacious prime minister, Winston Churchill, must accept the strategic facts, and orders the withdrawal of island garrison. The British public are not informed about this move, nor are the Germans. To the islanders, the writing is on the wall. Fear spreads through the streets.
(intense music)
Around 23,000 of the inhabitants seize the opportunity, and board the last ships to England, a quarter of the islands' population.
(intense music)
19 year old Bob Le Sueur is one of those who decide to stay. He's working as an office boy for an insurance company on Jersey. Since all his colleagues have left, he's now alone to look after the office on St. Helier's Hill Street. He calls the main office in Southampton, and asks to be put through to the company's director.
(intense music)
- And I was trying to tell him what was happening, and he did not believe me. And he said, "Are you trying," He had one of those very authoritative voices. "Are you trying to tell me "that the British government "is abandoning British territory "without a shot being fired?" And I said, "Yes, sir. "That is what is happening." "Have you been drinking?" He then demanded that I fetch the Jersey bus, who we hadn't seen for days. I tried to tell him that already. He decided, I think, that I was not drunk, but clearly I was deranged out of my mind, possibly dangerous, and in any case, he was far too important to listen to such rubbish, and he put down the phone.
(plane roaring)
- [Alexander] June 28, 1940, three German bombers are approaching the Channel Islands. Their orders? To attack the harbor installations of St. Helier on Jersey, and those of St. Peter Port on Guernsey.
(plane roaring)
When they turn away, 44 islanders lie dead in the rubble, all of them civilians.
(explosions booming)
Molly Bihet witnessed the attack on Guernsey as a 10 year old school girl.
- There was a lot of fright after that. The Guernsey people didn't know what was going to happen. They'd heard from refugees that are called from France, and the refugees were so upset that their town, they were saying, Cherbourg, had been flattened completely. So, there was that fright, "Are the Germans gonna come and bomb again?"
- [Alexander] Three days later, another flight of German aircraft approaches the islands.
(intense music)
They're Junkers 52 transport planes. On July the 1st, they touched down on the small airfields of Guernsey and Jersey.
(intense music)
- Five planes, with about 30 Germans at the airport had just landed. No firing. There was nothing there to stop them, although I think some animals were put on the airport to try and deter them, but they didn't.
(intense music)
- [Alexander] An easy victory. English looking towns under the heal of German jackboots. It's triumphant news for the Reich's propaganda machine.
(engine roaring)
(triumphant music)
- When the Germans arrived, far from being the uncivilized hoard of barbarians that were expected, they turned out to be men, as one person remarked in surprised fashion, men just like us, you see. And I remember a dancer telling me, she was a young dancer in Guernsey, and I said to her, "What was it like when you first saw "the German soldiers marching through St. Peter Port?" And she said, "They were so smart, "so young, so handsome, "and so sexy." And indeed, indeed they were. They were a victorious army. They'd swept through France in a matter of weeks.
- [Alexander] And the Germans are already planning their next move, the invasion of Great Britain. It's code name, Operation Sea Lion. Will London, after Warsaw and Paris, be the next capital to come under Hitler's rule? Meanwhile, German newsreels are busy painting a friendly picture of life under German occupation. It's supposed to be business as usual.
(light music)
- So, from being initially frightened and scared out of their wits, they gradually got around to talking to them, and it was thought, "Well, this isn't too bad after all. "Maybe we can get along, rub along, "quite nicely, being the circumstances, "and it'll be a model occupation."
(upbeat music)
- [Alexander] John Nettles did not confine his research on everyday life under German occupation to accounts of personal memories by the locals.
(car engine humming)
To get an insight into the inter workings of the occupation, he frequently visited the Jersey archive in St. Helier.
(intense upbeat music)
- The German commanders who came over here, they were good men, and most of them were very clear and very assiduous in their attempts to help the islanders, and they stood between a lot of heat between Berlin and St. Helier and St. Peter Port, and tried to remove the sting from many of the edicts and the regulations that were handed down through Paris. The most famous of them, of course, was Von Schmettow.
- [Alexander] Janu Rudolf Von Schmettow was appointed commander of the Channel Islands garrison in August, 1940. His personal reputation, even today, is that of a gentleman.
(soft music)
But he's just he military commander. All civil matters lie in the hands of the so called field headquarters on Jersey, which is subordinate to the occupational authority in France. Still, its Jersey branch is given some leeway in handling matters. The German officials who work here are uniform civil servants. The local authorities have been advised by the British government to cooperate as much as needed in the interest of the islanders. It's walking a tightrope. Resistance, however, seems no option.
(intense music)
On orders of the field headquarters, a register is set up, holding an identity card for every single inhabitant. It's a classic example of German bureaucratic thoroughness.
(light music)
It's also a means of filtering out those whom Nazi ideology labels as unworthy of existence. Regulations from Berlin on this matter are unequivocal.
- This is their passport to death.
- Potentially, yeah, for him
- To death.
- [Alexander] The first restrictions against Jews are imposed in October, 1940, affecting all those who couldn't get away.
(soft music)
- Some of them were quite old men and simple men. Sir Grocer, for example. His weekly income was 50 schillings, small time man, and he, of course, according to the orders against the Jews, was deprived of his means of livelihood, he wasn't allowed to go out between certain hours, he wasn't allowed to work or consort with Aryans, and he wasn't allowed to keep pets. And under the great strain of all of that, well, the effects were devastating.
- [Alexander] There are 18 Jews officially registered as residents of the Channel Islands. Out of fear and desperation, some of them take their own lives.
(intense music)
For most of the islanders, however, life goes on. Farming has its demanding daily routines.
(cow mooing)
Encountering the visitors, as they call the Germans, soon becomes a common experience.
- And the ones that used to pass in the canushers, where we live, they got to, sort of, recognize us and with a half a smile sometimes of good morning.
- [Alexander] It's the ordinary face of occupation.
♪ Heili heilo ay ja ♪
♪ Heili heilo ay ja ♪
♪ Heili heilo ay ja ja ja ja ja ja ♪
♪ Heili heilo ay ja ♪
- The one we heard mostly was heili heilo ay ja, and they did it with such gusto
♪ Heili heilo ay ja ♪
♪ Heili heilo ay ja ♪
♪ Heili heilo heili heili heili heilo ♪
- Whenever they marched past, we small boys used to tail on behind, and we used to sing, of course, their famous marching song, which was "Heili, heilo, heili, heilo, "heili, heilo, heilo."
- [Alexander] The German soldiers settled down. The islands are far from the battle grounds of the war.
(intense music)
- [Translator] We were sitting in the sun, as if on holiday. It was great, marvelous. We were being served, and we got everything we needed. Simply gorgeous.
(birds squawking)
- [Translator] We thought we were in paradise. Everything was so beautiful, colorful, friendly. Yes.
(intense music)
- [Translator] We used to say that sending us to the Channel Islands was the best thing that Hitler could have done for us.
- [Alexander] Not least, because there's time and occasion for amorous adventures.
- More conservative historians, anxious to maintain the good names of the islands, say that, of course, these are very rare occurrences, and no such thing happened, and the chastity and the virtue of the local women remained in tact throughout the war. This is a gross lie. There was a great deal of consorting between the handsome German soldiers, of course, and the young ladies. They had a great time. And they were called Jerrybags, they were called, and they indulged in what was laughingly called (speaking in foreign language).
(cannon blasting)
- [Alexander] June 1941, Germany drives east. Hitler sends his armies into the Soviet Union to conquer new living space, or "liebens roun" for the German people.
(motors rumbling)
Great Britain is no longer considered as being the main enemy. All plans for an invasion are shelved.
(suspenseful music)
In the west, all along the mainland coast, the Reich goes on the defensive. The Channel Islands, which Hitler sees as his tiny bit of England, are to be kept at any price.
- And he turned his face towards the east, he wants to make sure that his bum wasn't bit in the west, and so, he built a wonderful Atlantic Wall.
(car engine rumbling)
This huge, defensive wall was going to stretch all the way from the coast of Denmark, the coast of Belgium, down through France, to the northern frontier of Spain. It was going to be a mighty enterprise, and at the center of this enterprise was going to be the Channel Islands. These islands, thought to be of no strategic importance, by the Brits and by most of the general staff on the German side, nevertheless, Hitler was going to make them into fortresses.
(intense music)
- [Alexander] It's the beginning of the Atlantic Wall, a chain of gigantic bunkers. Yet, the sheer size of the project soon defeats the construction units of the army and their semi civil counterparts into taught organization. Volunteers, lured by high wages, as well as conscripted civilians from all over the western Europe, are brought in. However, the work force is nowhere near big enough.
(intense music)
- Somebody had the bright idea that if they were going to build this huge defensive wall all the way down the west coast of Europe, then they'd need labor to do it, and the labor, they thought, could be provided by Russian soldiers, POWs.
- [Alexander] To the Nazi regime, Soviet POWs are sub human. At first, their captives just let them starve to death by the hundreds of thousands, but from 1942 onwards, they're herded on to the Reich's building sites as slave workers. Soon the first transports reach the Channel Islands, too.
- The islanders had never seen people being treated like this. They were unloaded from the boats, stinking, in rags, and marched in full view of the civilian population, very unpolitic for the German commanders to do, march through the streets of the capitals of the island, St. Helier and Peter Port, and the civilians, the islanders, got their first view of true cruelty, of true inhumanity.
- [Alexander] The Atlantic Wall is to keep the allies from opening a second front in the west.
(intense music)
- 1/12th of all the material used to build that huge Atlantic Wall, going all those hundreds of miles down the western coast of Europe, 1/12th of the material used was used here in the Channel Islands. There was a time when the Channel Islands, particularly ordinary, were the most fortified places on Earth.
(intense music)
- [Alexander] John Nettles has found proof that the Germans, protected by the Atlantic Wall, rigorously implemented their racial goals on the Channel Islands, too.
(car engine rumbling)
In this hospital on Guernsey, Therese Steiner worked and lived as an auxiliary nurse.
(intense music)
- Therese was a vivacious, lovely girl by all accounts, full of fun and joy. She was a gifted pianist and she used to play to the patients, and the staff, at Castel Hospital. She was a much, much loved lady.
(sullen music)
- [Alexander] Therese was a Jewess from Vienna. In 1942, her room is up there in the nurses' dormitory.
- Therese, herself, came to England and was employed as a nanny by Potts family, and she found herself in Guernsey because she came over with the Potts family, who were there to escape the war. But when it became clear the war, in fact, was going to come to the Channel Islands, and when you could actually see and hear the guns on the Cotentin Peninsula, 14 miles away from the Channel Islands, then people started to get frightened and the Potts family decided to go back from Guernsey to London, and they, of course, wanted to take Therese with them, but war had been declared and Therese had a Viennese, a German, passport, and therefore, she was classed as an enemy alien, and as such was refused permission to travel with the Potts family back to the safety, relative safety, of London.
- [Alexander] The registry in the field headquarters lists Therese as a German. While Jews with a British passport are exempt from deportation, Therese must leave Guernsey in April 1942.
- This young 26 year old Jewish lady, who committed no crime apart from being Jewish, was put on a list by the Guernsey authorities. She was visited when her deportation order came though by Guernsey policemen, and taken by a Guernsey policeman down to the docks to be transported. There was a degree of collusion, collaboration, call it what you will, with the Germans there by the Guernsey authorities, which enabled this to happen.
- [Alexander] In July, 1942 she arrives here, in a vast complex of barracks called Auschwitz. Being a healthy young woman without children, she probably was selected for forced labor. We don't know for how long she survived, merely that her life, like that of so many, ended in this factory of death.
(melancholic music)
On the Channel Islands, like here in St. Peter Port on Guernsey, all this seems far away. But it's not only Jews who are threatened by deportation.
- A notice appeared in the Guernsey paper, laying in effect by order of higher authority, all men up to the age of 70 of English birth were to be evacuated with their families to Germany, and further instructions would be given in due course. This, of course, caused great alarm on the island. The island authorities said to the Germans, "Why are they being evacuated? "Where are they going? "Are they going to be put as protective shields "in German cities against bombing? "Are they going to be used for work?" And there were no answers, basically.
- [Alexander] In September 1942, the Germans round up 2,000 civilians from Guernsey and Jersey. Whole families, men, women, children, are deported into the Reich.
(movie reel humming)
What awaits them is documented by this unique footage. It shows the internment camp of Biberach in southwestern Germany. The guards are provided by the army until they're relieved by auxiliary policemen.
(bell chiming)
- And although there were Nazis amongst them, there were some very, very good guards as well who we got on pretty well with.
- [Alexander] All internees had been born in the United Kingdom. As such, they were classified as enemy aliens by the Germans. Hitler personally ordered the islanders' deportation as a reprisal because German civilians had been deported from Iran to Australia after the allied invasion of Persia.
- From, really, from February onwards, we were recognized as being prisoners of war and we got a Red Cross pass roughly every 10 days, which came from Switzerland and Portugal. So, we'd just settle into a routine. We went to school. Initially the boys and the girls of a certain age went in the morning, the younger ones in the afternoon, and we started getting Red Cross, and other teaching aides from the YMCA and the YWCA.
- [Alexander] The internees from the Channel Islands would have to sit out the war in camp Biberach until their liberation in April 1945.
(intense music)
In 1942, the outcome of the war is anything but certain. Since the fall of France, the British Army has been raising special forces whose brief is to keep the Germans on their toes by hit and run operations against selected targets on the continent. The Commandos, as they're called, have already undertaken several raids against the Channel Islands, albeit without tangible results.
(intense music)
On October the third, 1942, they embark for Operation Basalt.
(boat buzzing)
A motor torpedo boat is to set them ashore on the island of Sark.
(intense music)
A troop of 12 highly motivated Commandos prepare to strike. Their mission? To bring back prisoners for interrogation.
(tense music)
They come upon a small hotel whose antic serves as a billet for about 20 German soldiers. The sentry is killed before he can cry out a warning. The other Germans are aroused from their sleep, lined up outside, and tied up.
- And the stories vary about what happened on that night, but it is certainly true that they were bound in some way, they were tied up in some way.
(muffled yelling)
- [Alexander] When the Germans become aware of their own superior numbers, a struggle ensues.
(muffled yelling)
(gun bangs)
- These were bound prisoners shot in the back.
(gun bangs)
Hitler was enraged by this and gave out the order that all allied prisoners from henceforth should be in chains. They should be kept bound.
- [Alexander] Yet, events take an even darker turn. From now on, Commandos will no longer be treated as regular soldiers. Hitler decrees that they be regarded as terrorists and saboteurs who are to be summarily executed when caught behind the German lines. It's the infamous Commando Order.
- This marked an escalation in the savagery of the war. It wasn't going to be polite. It was gonna be more like the eastern front from now on. That's what happened. And Basalt was a big sign post pointing in that awful direction.
(intense music)
- [Alexander] But there are also other sides to the war. On Sark, by far the smallest of the inhabited islands, German soldiers, and the few islanders who have remained, are living side by side.
(bright music)
(Werner speaking in foreign language)
- [Translator] In March '43, my unit were given orders to deploy to Sark for six months. I went along as my company's medical sergeant.
- [Alexander] Young Phyllis Baker has been learning German in school, and her command at the occupants' language now proves most useful.
(intense music)
- The German doctor was the only doctor on the island. Our doctor had left the day before the occupation.
(intense music)
- [Alexander] Phyllis assists the army doctor as an interpreter, since he's also treating the civilian population of the island.
(bright music)
- They had the surgery for the Germans, the soldiers, from eight to nine, and the civilians from nine to 10. So, I used to go up to the hospital every morning for nine o'clock, and then after that, I did the rounds with the doctors.
(lively music)
- [Alexander] Then one day, she falls ill herself.
(light music)
- So, my sister called the German doctor and he came down in the morning and diagnosed it tonsillitis, and he said that he'd send the orderly down in the afternoon with the medication I needed. And so, that's what happened. At two o'clock, the front doorbell rang. My mother went to answer the door, but she couldn't speak German, Werny couldn't speak English.
- [Alexander] The medical orderly is Werner Rang, the doctor's new assistant.
(Werner speaking in foreign language)
- [Translator] So, I went up there, I knocked the door, and a female voice said, "Please, come in" in perfect German. She turned out to be my patient. I was very surprised. We talked. I gave her the medication and then left. I still hear her saying, "Thank you very much. "Goodbye." in German.
- So, that was how we met each other, on the end of the bed, and chatted a little bit, and then off he went. And apparently that's when he fell in love with me, but I didn't realize that. I didn't know anything about this until, what, 1947.
- [Translator] I found her most impressive. I thought, "that is a very nice girl."
(bright music)
- [Alexander] In September 1943, Werner's unit is redeployed to Guernsey.
(waves crashing)
- As on Jersey, too, the Germans turn the island into a gigantic building site.
(intense music)
- In both islands, there are tunnel complexes, massive tunnel complexes. They go for hundreds of thousands of yards underground. They're storage units for ammunition and so forth, and also used as hospitals. And some of the scale of the ambition of the Third Reich can be seen in these tunnels.
- [Alexander] Thousands of Russian POWs must toil under the most severe conditions. The harsh treatment meted out of them horrifies the islanders.
(intense music)
- The acts of cruelty are too, numberless, really, too itemized, but they were very, very cruelly treated. And the islanders, they'd never seen people treated like this before.
- [Alexander] One day, in autumn 1942, one of the slave workers on Jersey manages to escape.
(intense music)
(dog barking)
His name is Theodore Buery. The Germans are determine to track him down.
(sullen music)
A farmer affords him provisional shelter, an act of resistance out of meer decency. It's not the only one on the islands.
(sullen music)
Louise Gould doesn't live far from the farm.
(bright music)
She runs the village shop in this house.
- Two weeks later, a farmer neighbor asked her if she could take a young man for a week or two, he was an escapee from a camp, while this farmer found a safer place further away. And her words to me were, and I don't think this farmer knew that she'd lost her eldest son, but her words to me were, "I had to do something for another mother's son." And she took him in, and she bathed his wounds, and she fed him, and she mothered him, and he was the same age as the dead son.
(bright music)
- [Alexander] Her son, Edward, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, had been killed in 1941 when his ship was torpedoed in the Mediterranean. Now, Theodore is wearing his clothes. Louise just simply calls him Bill. An English-Russian dictionary helps them to communicate after a fashion.
(bright music)
(moves into intense music)
Yet, Louise is denounced by a resentful neighbor. Bill manages to slip away just in time. Louise, however, is arrested, and there is evidence that incriminates her.
(car engine rumbling)
- And she was tried, and instead of being given what is expected, a jail sentence, she was transported to France, and from France, to Ravensbruck. Incredible. And there, she was, we don't know, but it is thought that she was worked to death, and then when she became too ill to work, she either died or she was gassed, and then, in either case, was put into the ovens. That's what happened to Louise Gould, who, for an act of sheer humanity, and for another mother's son, as she said, well, suffered that terrible, terrible fate.
(sullen music)
This is for Louise Gould, a fine Jersey lady.
(melancholic music)
- [Alexander] The man, whom she's been protecting for more than 20 months, finds another hideout.
- Afterward, I took him, and he on the bicycle, following me at some distance, to my office, of which I was in charge, and he spent that weekend in the filing room.
- [Alexander] But Theodore cannot stay in the office when there's public business. Friends of Bob Le Sueur share the risk of hiding him until the war finally ends. Theodore Ellius Bill survives, unlike many of his comrades. There's documentation on the death of at least 400 slave workers and POWs, there may have been even more.
(heavy intense music)
June 6th, 1944.
(squawking)
(waves crashing)
Allied troops storm the beaches of Normandy.
(intense music)
It's D-Day at last. The second front in the west, Hitler's strategical nightmare, is now a reality.
(intense upbeat music)
The fortifications on the Channel Islands are being readied for all around defense. But no attacker appears on the horizon.
(intense music)
The Ally planners have decided to leave the islands alone. The division's strong German garrison can merely sit things out, and tighten their belts.
- After D-Day, everything changed because all the supply ports for the islands on the Cotentin Peninsula, the Cherbourg Peninsula, were occupied by the allies, and they quickly moved inland and the front moved away from the Channel Islands. And when those suppliers coming through, therefore, to the Channel Islands, and almost immediately there were shortages of medicine, food, and fuel.
- [Alexander] When autumn approaches, there's hardly any food left in the shops.
(sullen music)
- We were all trying to eat on what 116 square kilometers, not all of which are fertile, could produce. So, it soon became real privation. And in other ways, too, I mean, there was no heating of any kind unless you could get hold of wood, but that was illegal. We were cold. We were hungry. Our clothing was threadbare.
- [Alexander] For the German soldiers, too, the good life is a thing of the past. Shortages are the order of the day.
(horse trotting)
The army's horses provided with meat for awhile, but locals must resort to different means.
- Cats and dogs were eaten by the locals, come the end, so, people lost their pets.
- [Alexander] Only the cows have spared the butcher's knife. Germans and islanders have agreed to keep them so at least the children will have milk.
- The islanders themselves appealed to Churchill, cause they were starving, they wanted food, they said, "Please allow a Red Cross ship, or something, "to bring us help, to bring us aide, "to bring us food and medicine, "cause we are dying." Simple as that. There was a famous minute at the side of a paper at the meeting of the Wall Cabinet, when this proposition was put to Churchill, that he should, indeed, send a boat full of goodies to the Channel Islands, and the note at the side says, "Let them starve." Charitable commentators say this merely referred to the German soldiers.
- [Alexander] In late December 1944, after months of negotiations, the S.S. Vagor, a Swedish Red Cross ship, delivers badly needed supplies.
(intense music)
Her cargo is for the civilian population. The Germans come away empty handed.
- They never, never took a parcel, to their credit, because they were literally starving.
- [Alexander] There's not even fish to augment the meager diet.
(waves crashing)
The mistrustful Germans weren't allowed the island's cutters to put out to sea since, once out of sight, the fishermen could make contact with the enemy.
(intense music)
The German soldiers resort to the most primitive measures in their search for food.
(Fritz speaking in foreign language)
- [Translator] Our company had three platoons. One was sent to collect the edible leaves of stinging nettles. The second one was ordered to the cliffs where they were to scrape off muscles. So, only 1/3 of our unit was on actual duty. The muscles were made into meatballs with sand grinding between your teeth.
(birds squawking)
- [Translator] In the end, we shot seagulls, which we plucked like chickens and then cooked and ate.
(bright uplifting music)
(bells ringing)
- [Radio Announcer] This is London Court. Here is a news flash. The German radio has just announced that Hitler is dead. I'll repeat that. The German radio has just announced that Hitler is dead.
- [Alexander] May the 9th, 1945. The German garrison has held out right to the end, isolated, and half starved. Now, they surrender.
(uplifting music)
- We thought, "Well, this has gotta be it. "Mom, dad, come on. "We're going down to the harbor."
- [Alexander] Five years after their withdrawal, the British Army returns to Guernsey.
(crowd cheers and applauds)
It's an emotional moment for everyone.
- And we just loved these soldiers. Their hats were tipped off, their rifles were down, everything was just right with them, but they were crying with us, they were actually so overcome.
(bright music)
- [Alexander] Bob Le Sueur recalls one particular day shortly after the liberation on Jersey.
(bright music)
- Two Spitfires came over the fort, zoom, with a lot of noise. And I glanced up and, "Oh, the markings. "They're ours, it's all right." There was still that first reaction. And they went over the bay, and they came back, zoom, and I burst into tears. And I was 24. Big boys don't cry. And it wasn't just tears, I was sobbing.
(sobs)
Like this, and I drew myself together, within a minute probably, terribly ashamed, and then I could see a man, who was perhaps in his 40s, standing nearby, and he was doing the same. I didn't understand at that time that this was therapeutic, that I was releasing.
- [Alexander] The Channel Islands have lived through five years of German occupation, the only part of the British Empire ever subjected to Hitler's rule.
- It is certainly true that the British did not understand the nature of the experience that the Channel Islanders had gone through. They didn't understand what had gone on, because they didn't understand what it was like to be in the same room with a savage dog. It didn't occur to these people, it seems to me, that it is far better to try and pacify the savage dog than to have the savage dog bite your bum.
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- [Alexander] The need to come to terms with the enemy is over. Almost 25,000 German soldiers lay down their arms. How do they look back on their years on the islands?
(Fritz speaking in foreign language)
- [Translator] In part, it was a time when you lived as if on holiday. On the other hand, there were the months of hunger, which were just terrible. But all in all, for a German soldier to have been stationed on an island that didn't come under attack, where there was no combat, I still consider it a blessing from God.
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- [Alexander] The former occupants, now POWs, are shipped to England, and again, destiny smiles on them. Post war captivity is a comparatively mild affair, after some time, there are even permits allowing a day outside the camps.
(Werner speaking in foreign language)
- [Translator] I think it was in 1946 that the German prisoners could be invited by English families for a day.
- [Alexander] Werner Rang is granted a special perk. A high born English Lady invites two German POWs into her house for Christmas.
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- And they were the lucky ones to be selected, so off they went. And then she took them under her wing. She used to have them there some afternoons and make sure they had a nice tea and gave them five schillings each. They used to do jobs in the garden or punish the cow, or something, for her.
- [Alexander] Their hostess, Lady Vera, even takes care of her prodigies when it comes to matters of the heart.
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- [Translator] I told her about Phyllis. She asked, "Would you like to have her come over "for a holiday? "That would be nice, wouldn't it?" And since I wasn't allowed any phone calls, she said, "Leave that to me, I'll invite her."
- And then the next thing was I had a letter from her inviting me to come over for a holiday, and so, I went. I had a three weeks holiday during the end of October November, and so, I went there and that was where the acquaintance was renewed. And we had a lovely time.
- [Alexander] In 1948, thousands of German POWs are released, and shipped back home. Werner is still in Britain. Six months after their reunion, and 160 letters later, he and Phyllis meet again.
- And then he said that he wasn't going home because his home was in the eastern zone, and would I marry him, you see, and I said yes, but I said, "Hadn't you better go home first?" because he was an only child. It was awful for his parents, but he said nothing would induce him to go into the Russian zone.
- [Alexander] There's only one solution. An express wedding.
- We were married on the 13th of May on a Thursday and he would have been deported on the next morning at nine o'clock. That was how short that was.
- [Alexander] For almost 70 years now, the erstwhile member of the occupying forces lives on the island of Sark, side by side with his wife.
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John Nettles, too, spent many years on these islands. To him, they're unique history as Hitler's England still holds particular significance.
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- The people who had been through the occupation, I think, they, too, were changed, because one thing, I think, that conflict does, war does, it forces people to face up to what they really are, and Bob Le Sueur is most wise on this and he will tell you, as I will tell you, too, that those people who are good tend to become better, and those people who are bad, tend to become worse. You find out who you are, and the islanders certainly found out who they were.
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(birds squawking)