This Is Jersey

For nearly five years, Jersey was under German rule and, along with the rest of the Channel Islands, it was the only part of Great Britain to be occupied during World War II.

Nobody expected Hitler to invade the Channel Islands and Jersey was still being advertised as the perfect holiday destination just a week before the Occupation started on July 1st 1940, eight months after Britain declared war on Germany. The British Government had left the Islands unprotected a fact that was not made known to the German forces and so, not surprisingly, they bombed Jersey before invading.

Initially the Islands were used as a place for rest and relaxation for the troops but the occupiers soon set about Germanising the Islands - the language of the road signs was changed, cars had to drive on the right and schoolchildren were forced to learn German - which incensed the local population.

Evidence of the occupation is scattered around the Island, because invading the Channel Islands was not only a propaganda coup for Hitler, it also persuaded him to build a near impregnable fortress.

The Channel Islands was one of the most heavily defended parts of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall and he personally ordered the islands to be turned into fortresses. He thought that the Allies might direct an attack in this direction in retaliation for the German move on the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.

But he appeared to be obsessed with the Channel Islands and gave them priority when allocating arms and men. For example, at one stage the Channel Islands had 11 heavy batteries with 38 guns, which was more than the 37 guns allocated for the whole of the 600 miles between Dieppe and St Nazaire.

Most of the gun emplacements still exist and it proved to be so difficult to get rid of the many concrete bunkers after the war, that they are still dotted around the coast. The Germans even used some of the fortifications built by Islanders to defend Jersey against Napoleon’s forces. Apparently these didn’t need much work to make them fit for modern warfare. The Germans also made their own additions to even older fortifications, including Mont Orgueil and Elizabeth Castle.

An estimated 6,000 slave workers had to be imported into Jersey to help build the many structures. They worked (and many died) in atrocious conditions to build everything from anti-tank walls (still visible at St Ouen and St Aubin) to a huge underground hospital (open to the public). A total of 484,000 cubic metres of concrete was used throughout the islands.

In such small Islands with no military capabilities of their own, it was impossible to organise a resistance movement, but the majority of Islanders fought back in their own way by refusing to co-operate with the regime.

The German authorities would not tolerate even small acts of defiance and anyone caught listening to radio broadcasts from London or painting V for victory symbols over German signs would be sent to prison. Greater offences, such as sending carrier pigeons with messages to England or even showing kindness to the slave labourers working in the Islands, were punishable by death.

The Allied invasion of Normandy did not end the war for the Channel Islanders and with their supply route from France cut off, siege mentality became entrenched in the Occupying forces. The new Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Islands in February 1945, Admiral Friedrich Huffmeier, was a fanatical Nazi. “We shall never surrender,” he told Jersey’s Bailiff Alexander Coutanche. “In the end you and I will be eating grass.”

Eventually on May 9th 1945 a British relief force arrived to be greeted by ecstatic Islanders.

Several museums tell the story of the German Occupation, and there are many Islanders who still remember those dark days. The Liberation is re-enacted every year in Liberation Square and memorials have been erected around the Island along with a website dedicated to the memory of those who suffered.