The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Though Britain declared war against Germany on September 3, 1939, the Channel Islands remained largely unaffected, since the Bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey were self-governing British Crown dependencies. Under this political structure, their citizens were not conscripted to participate in the war effort, though some volunteered to join. As the war on the continent escalated and more Western countries were conquered, it became evident that Hitler’s army would soon overtake France and move against Britain. On June 15, 1940, the British government concluded that the Channel Islands were of no strategic importance. Despite Winston Churchill’s reluctance, Guernsey and Jersey were abandoned to the advancing German army.

Evacuation efforts were undertaken by the lieutenant governors of each island to extract British soldiers in mid-June, thereby completely demilitarizing the area and leaving the islands as so-called “open towns” for the German army. Civilian evacuation proved more difficult. Guernsey managed to evacuate roughly 80% of school-aged children, but as Guernsey was more remote than other islands and boats were scarce, they implemented a prioritized evacuation strategy. In the end, only 5,000 children and 12,000 adults out of a total population of 42,000 were evacuated. The German army, meanwhile, was not aware of the islands’ demilitarization and had prepared Operation Grünpfeil (or Green Arrow), which would have seen two battalions invade the islands had a reconnaissance pilot not reported their complete lack of defense. On June 30, 1940, the senior German officer, Major Albrecht Lanz, met with the Guernsey bailiff and declared the island under German occupation.

As part of the occupation, German authorities installed a new civil affairs command structure through which to dictate the islands’ administration. Civil courts would remain, but they would be administered by German authorities and adopt German law. Antisemitic laws were immediately enacted, and the islands’ lieutenant governors were eventually stripped of their political functions and capacities. Scrip (occupation money) was issued to monitor the islands’ economy along with the distribution of Occupation Reichsmarks. Gatherings were monitored, but some forms of entertainment were allowed to continue, such as cinema and theater. During the occupation, island leaders would often encourage collaboration to minimize loss of life, even going so far as to tell Churchill to leave the islands in peace in 1940 instead of using abortive raids against the German army. This decision would be seen as an act of treason by many and taint the islands’ reputations for decades.

There were, however, resistance movements within the islands, the most prominent led by a teenage activist, Norman Le Brocq, a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Norman sought to unify communists and non-communists alike in Jersey and gathered an estimated 0.6% to 3% of people to his cause. There was no armed resistance in the islands; rather, the rebels used more passive forms of resistance such as acts of sabotage and sheltering or aiding escaped workers from Organisation Todt, an engineering company that constructed the fortifications, roads, and other facilities on the islands using forced labor. An estimated 16,000 enslaved workers were moved to the Channel Islands to build the fortifications of the Atlantic Wall and bunkers. These workers were shipped in from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and the Soviet Republics, particularly Ukraine.

As the war progressed, living conditions declined considerably. Though civilians were initially spared much of the hardship experienced on the continent, their complete isolation from the rest of the world soon meant basic necessities grew scarce. By 1944 and 1945, starvation had gripped the islands. The German Foreign Ministry offered to release all civilians except men of military age in August 1944, but Churchill was reported to have ordered to let them starve and rot at their leisure—though it remains unclear if he was referring to the Germans or the island civilians. In either case, both islanders and Germans suffered until Red Cross parcels arrived on the SS Vega on May 9, 1945. The date is considered the Channel Islands’ Liberation Day and is still celebrated as a national holiday.