The British Channel Islands Under German Occupation, 1940-1945
The British Channel Islands Under German Occupation, 1940-1945

Author: Paul Sanders

Publisher: Paul Sanders

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 0953885836

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The British Isles have only been successfully invaded and occupied once since 1066: the German occupation of the Channel Islands from 1940-1945. This book commemorates a defining period in the history of the islands and an important aspect of contemporary British history.

'Adolf Island'
'Adolf Island'

Author: Caroline Sturdy Colls

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2022-03-15

Total Pages: 399

ISBN-13: 1526149052

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‘Adolf Island’ offers new forensic, archaeological and spatial perspectives on the Nazi forced and slave labour programme that was initiated on the Channel Island of Alderney during its occupation in the Second World War. Drawing on extensive archival research and the results of the first in-field investigations of the ‘crime scenes’ since 1945, the book identifies and characterises the network of concentration and labour camps, fortifications, burial sites and other material traces connected to the occupation, providing new insights into the identities and experiences of the men and women who lived, worked and died within this landscape. Moving beyond previous studies focused on military aspects of occupation, the book argues that Alderney was intrinsically linked to wider systems of Nazi forced and slave labour.

The Island of Dread In the Channel
The Island of Dread In the Channel

Author: Brian Bonnard

Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited

Published: 2009-05-15

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1445631490

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Island of Dread in the Channel is an engaging account of one man's fight for survival on the island of Alderney during 1942.

The Channel Islands 1941–45
The Channel Islands 1941–45

Author: Charles Stephenson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2013-05-20

Total Pages: 66

ISBN-13: 1849080402

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Following the fall of France and the surrender of Paris on 14 June 1940, the British Government announced that the Channel Islands had no strategic importance and would not be defended. The Germans occupied the islands from the end of June onwards and remained in control until the end of the war. On 10 October 1941 Hitler announced his intention to 'convert them into an impregnable fortress', and the islands formed the most heavily fortified and defended section of the entire Atlantic Wall. This book describes the design, construction and manning of these defensive positions, as well as considering more widely the occupation of the Channel Islands by the Germans.

Atlantic Wall: Channel Islands
Atlantic Wall: Channel Islands

Author: George Forty

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2008-03-05

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1783379979

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While the Germans did not succeed in invading Britain during World War II, they occupied a number of islands in the English Channel. The English population continued to lead fairly normal lives, while the German occupiers built some of the most extensive fortifications of the Second World War. As the war progressed, British commandos made occasional attacks, resulting in harsher conditions on the islands. The German garrisons were totally isolated by the D-Day landings, but managed to hold on through the following winter to surrender in May 1945. The author, a renowned military historian, examines these questions with complete candor, in addition to his study of the famous fortifications. All of the wartime events and the islands and their fortifications as they are today are covered in the popular Battleground Europe style, with illustrations, maps and then-and-now photographs.

Channel Islands Invaded
Channel Islands Invaded

Author: Simon Hamon

Publisher: Frontline Books

Published: 2015-06-30

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1473851629

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In the summer of 1940 the British Isles stood isolated and alone facing the might of a seemingly unstoppable German war machine. Never before had the United Kingdom been in a state of such uncertainty and possible peril. Fortunately the full breadth of the English Channel held back Hitler's armies, and his ambition. Not so for the Channel Islands which stand just a few miles from the French coast. To abandon British territory to the enemy was unthinkable, yet the defence of the Channel Islands was impracticable, if not impossible. It was decided, therefore, to evacuate as many as wished to leave. This is the story of the muddled evacuation, of homes, animals and families left behind, of the German bombing of the islands, the fear of those left behind, and of those first days of German Occupation, told by the Islanders themselves through memoirs and letters, the local newspapers, and the politicians who decided the fate of tens of thousands of men women and children.

Builders of the Third Reich
Builders of the Third Reich

Author: Charles Dick

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-11-12

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1350182680

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This is the first comprehensive critical study of the Organisation Todt (OT), a key institution which oversaw the Third Reich's vast slave labour programme together with the SS, Wehrmacht and industry. The book breaks new ground by revealing the full extent of the organisation's brutal and murderous operations across occupied Europe and in the Reich. For the first time, Charles Dick provides a strong voice for camp survivors overseen by the OT, drawing on an extensive collection of personal accounts and analysing the violence they endured. Builders of the Third Reich shows Hitler used the OT, which had a labour force of around 1.5 million people in 1944, as an instrument of subjugation and occupation to project German imperial power. Drawing on a broad range of primary sources, it demonstrates how the organisation participated in the plunder of Europe's raw materials and manpower, greatly boosting the German war economy. The book reveals how OT staff shot, beat or worked tens of thousands of prisoners to death, both within the SS-run concentration camp system and outside it, with analysis of OT operations showing that where it had sole, or very high levels of control over camps, prisoner death rates were extremely high. Examining how engineers and builders, individuals who fitted the category of 'ordinary men' as precisely as any other group so far examined by historians, perpetrated war crimes, this volume reflects on how few OT personnel were interrogated or came to trial and how the organisation passed largely under the radar of post-war prosecutors, researchers and the general public.