Hitler’s British Isles

There is one major exception to the story of the British ‘never-surrender’ spirit in World War II: the sacrifice of the Channel Islands in 1940. Churchill was persuaded by his War Cabinet that Britain’s troop numbers left the nation with a choice between conceding its dependencies to Germany or losing the English coast.

Put like that, there was no choice. The islands were hastily demilitarised and children evacuated, while 25,000 others chose to be refugees in England. Those who remained became participants in a disturbing experiment.

For the Germans, the islands were a test case for a ‘model occupation’: peaceful rule here would be a compelling propaganda win. Meanwhile, as Duncan Barrett writes, the reactions of the residents to their subjugation give an insight into how the rest of Britain might have dealt with an invasion.

Those reactions range from shameful to heroic. Some betrayed their neighbours over minor infractions, others died to save people who were all but strangers. And there was the holocaust of Jewish Channel Islanders.

Barrett recreates the texture of occupied life: a life of privation and ingenuity, as residents found ways to eke out their small supplies; of brave defiance, but also complicity – there was no way to survive without that. Those conflicts make the occupation a difficult story to tell, but Barrett has vividly summoned a troubling episode of our neighbour’s national past.